S. J. de Lotbinière set up the BBC’s War Reporting Unit.
The BBC had told the War Office that the invasion of Europe would need a team of war correspondents who by their number could cover the frontline activity as well as Headquarters briefings. Newspapers were restricted by the tradition of ‘one newspaper, one correspondent’ in any theatre of war, and we were challenged to prove our case for a large team by taking part in a big Second Front exercise which took place in the Home Counties during March 1943 with the Code name Spartan. The BBC was to be allowed a team of correspondents on each side, complete with recording cars. Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, Michael Reynolds, Stewart Macpherson and Robert Barr were in those teams and so was Richard Dimbleby, with all his Middle Eastern experience behind him.
The troops were playing at war and the correspondents were playing at war reporting. Yet Dimbleby threw himself into his task and did anything that was asked of him. He would type away at his reports, putting them through censorship and making his recordings in the field just as though it was the real thing. Never for one moment did he make any of us feel that he had been doing this sort of thing for months and in the face of a real enemy. Nor did he ever grow impatient with the inexperience of colleagues, some of whom hardly knew how to put on a correspondent’s uniform. Instead he added greatly to the success of the occasion by his good temper and wise advice.
As soon as Spartan was over the Secretary of State for War, the Commander-in-chief Home Forces, the Adjutant-General and others assembled in the Director-General’s office at Broadcasting House to listen to a selection of the reports from the two ‘fronts’. The verdict was immediate and unanimous – the BBC could in future have its team of reporters and, moreover, the reporters were offered special training attachments with Army units preparing for the Second Front.
I am certain that Richard contributed enormously to the success of our Spartan coverage and in consequence to the world-wide reputation which the BBC war reporters were to earn for themselves in the next two years.