![]() He'd just landed in Pusan with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and the resilient, ever-resourceful Boss, wanted to shake his reliance on military authorities to get where he wanted to go. 'The CP Jeep'īut one of Boss's greatest coups is not recognized by any award or official record. Two years later, Boss won a second NNA, this time for what was then called "staff corresponding," (overseas reporting) with a series of stories from Moscow. He won the 1951 National Newspaper Award for feature writing with a story recounting the travails of a Canadian soldier from the time he was wounded to his repatriation to Canada. The intrepid Boss covered every major Canadian battle of the three-year war, acting not only as a frontline reporter but what yet another story about him described as a "unofficial entertainment officer, rumour-spiker, father confessor, shopping-service director and messing officer." He holds the Korean endurance record for war correspondents." "Some high-ranking officers hated him and, on occasion, tried to have him thrown out of Korea because he wrote certain unpalatable things about the army there. "He fought like a tiger to get his copy out, and to report things as he saw them," Berton wrote. But they couldn't forget a man with a red beard."īerton said some military public relations officers lived in terror of Boss. ![]() "My feeling was that brass hats might be interviewed by umpteen correspondents and never remember one of them. "As soon as the appointment was made official and I was free of army red tape, I grew a beard. "It was a terrific break for me," he recalled years later. How Purcell, a former war correspondent who was known to wield great influence in high places, managed to convince military authorities to let Boss go, remains a mystery. Boss was "drafted" out of the army by Canadian Press chief Gil Purcell to report as a civilian on the Allied advance through Italy and northwest Europe. He played piano and organ, arranged and composed music, and conducted symphony orchestras in Canada, Italy and the Netherlands.Īs a journalist, he worked for the Ottawa Citizen and the Times of London before serving a stint with the Canadian army in Italy as a public relations officer, often escorting journalists to the front.Īfter two years, Lt. Besides his native English, he spoke French, Italian, German, Dutch and Russian, along with a little Korean and Japanese. More than just a journalist, however, Boss was something of a Renaissance man, a member of the Canadian News Hall of Fame with degrees in arts and philosophy. The stories about him at Canadian Press are truly the stuff of legends, even 60 years after the fact." Multilingual, musical "Boss built his own legend in Korea, where he was seen as the senior Canadian correspondent during the entire conflict. "Bill Boss is the last of the generation of Canadian Press correspondents from the Second World War who did a remarkable job of reporting from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific," said Scott White, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Press in Toronto. He was among the elite of Second World War reporters, ranking alongside the likes of Ross Munro and Bill Stewart of the Canadian Press, Matthew Halton and Peter Stursberg of CBC, and Charles Lynch of Reuters. His career with the national news service was a relatively brief 14 years, but the legacy he left behind as one of the wire service's legendary war correspondents endured until he died. He wasn't only tough physically, he was tough in other ways. "I got to know him in Korea, and he was the toughest reporter I encountered there. "The Bill Boss byline has always been a trusted and familiar one to Canadian newspaper readers," noted author Berton, who died three years ago, wrote in the Toronto Star in 1958. He was 90.īorn May 3, 1917, in Kingston, Ont., Boss was the epitome of foreign correspondents, "a man with a mission," one of many articles about him said, who roved the world's hotspots in goatee, khakis, silk scarf and black beret. Gerard William Ramaut (Bill) Boss, known affectionately by his wire initials "bb" to generations of Canadian Press reporters and editors, died of pneumonia early Wednesday in an Ottawa hospital. Pierre Berton called him one of the toughest war correspondents he ever knew, a trusted and familiar newsman who "ate censors for breakfast."
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