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Douglas Hamilton

Doug took me to Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. It was quite a trip. He was bureau chief in Vienna at the time, in overall charge of the Balkans, I was news editor, Europe. The plan was to fly to Rome, drive across country to Ancona and get on a UN Hercules aid flight into Sarajevo. When all aid flights were grounded because of bad weather, or maybe shelling, don’t remember which, a rapid change of plan was required. Doug, with typical ingenuity, persuaded a French tv journalist who was also trying to get to Sarajevo, to share (and pay for) an executive jet to Split, across the Adriatic in Croatia. A local television cameraman then drove us at breakneck speed down the Dalmatian coast (hairpin bends on precipitous cliffs all the way) and into Bosnia, passing by Mostar, which if memory serves was still being fought over. Then, a switch of vehicle into a rickety old Range Rover driven by the late lamented Kurt Schork, bureau chief in besieged Sarajevo. The last lap involved a steep climb and then descent over an unmade mountain road. Kurt, in his usual deadpan way, said there were Bosnian Serb gunners hidden in the woods on each side. The car was loaded with jerry cans of emergency fuel. Conversation was limited, until we reached the Holiday Inn in downtown Sarajevo, where Reuters and most of the international press was located at the time.

For Doug, this was a fairly normal day at the office, something to be dismissed lightly over a whisky later in the day. For me, very much the armchair war reporter, it has remained a vivid memory. Not much fazed Douglas Hamilton. When things got tight, he’d just chew on his cigar and keep going. ■