Charles Wheeler

Charles Wheeler was born on March 26, 1923 in Bremen, Germany as Selwyn Charles Cornelius Wheeler.

He joined the British Royal Marines in 1942. He was part of a team which collected technical intelligence in preparation for D-Day. The team was led by Ian Fleming. As a member of 30 Assault Unit, he participated in the Normandy Landings.

After WWII, he joined the BBC, where he started out in the Latin American office. His fluency in German led to his assignment to Berlin in 1950.

He was given a painting as a wedding present in 1952. In June 2006 he discovered that it had been looted during World War II from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. He returned it via the Commission for Looted Art in Europe. The painting had been missing from the gallery since 1944.

In October 1956, he crossed the border from Austria to Hungary to cover the Hungarian Uprising against the Soviet regime. He had a portable camera with which he captured interviews with Hungarian citizens who thought they had finally overthrown the Soviets. Hours after he returned to London, Soviet tanks and planes crushed the revolt.

He was named the BBC's Southeast Asia correspondent in 1958. He covered the flight of the Dalai Lama after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959.

In the 1960s, he was assigned to the US, where he covered race riots and the assassination of Martin Luther King, as well as the growing opposition to the Vietnam War. He also covered the Watergate scandal.

He was created a Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) in the 2001 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to broadcasting and journalism overseas.

He was a writer and actor, known for Timeshift (2002), D-Day: Turning the Tide (1994) and Panorama (1953). He was married to Dip Singh and Catherine Freeman.

He was created a Knight Bachelor (as Charles Cornelius Wheeler, C.M.G.) for services to Broadcasting and to Journalism. in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours List.