Pocock, Tom 1925-2007 (Thomas Allcot Guy Pocock)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born August 18, 1925, in London, England; died May 7, 2007. Journalist and author. Pocock was a former war correspondent who also wrote biographies and history books. He gained his war experience early in life when he joined the British Navy at the age of seventeen. He was assigned to torpedo boat duty in the English Channel, but illness forced him out of the military in 1944. Pocock was inspired to pursue journalism after acting as a guide to reporters covering the invasion of Normandy. The Leader hired him in 1945 to serve as a reporter, and it was a mistake on the part of the War Office that made him a war correspondent. Pocock was visiting Calais after its liberation and applied for a standard press pass, but the War Office accidentally issued him a war reporter pass. When he returned to his office with the pass, his editor decided to go with it and made Pocock the youngest war correspondent of his day. The journalist covered the last days of the war in Europe and managed to interview German soldiers who were still fighting. The Germans tried to trick him into driving down a mined road, but Pocock's driver cleverly saw the trap and saved the reporter. After the war, the Leader went out of business and Pocock joined the London Daily Mail as war correspondent and special writer. During the 1950s, he reported for several British papers, including the Times, Daily Express, and Elizabethan. From 1960 to 1982 he was on the Evening Standard's staff, first as a defense and war correspondent and later as travel editor. Over the years, he reported on conflicts in Cyprus, Algeria, Vietnam, Egypt, and other trouble spots in the world. As he settled down with his wife and daughters to a life of travel writing, he began to publish books, several of which were about his hero, Admiral Nelson. Among his titles are Nelson and His World (1968), Remember Nelson (1977), East and West of Suez: The Retreat from Empire (1986), Alan Moorehead (1990), Nelson's Women (1999), The Terror before Trafalgar (2002), and Stopping Napoleon (2004).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), May 9, 2007, p. 63.