Burning Desert: A Cameraman in the Gulf War

By Tom Radburn

A British news cameraman chronicles the Kuwait liberation, risking everything for unprecedented live coverage.

In this high octane and slightly sideways look at life on the coalface of Television News in the heady period of the late eighties / early nineties, one thing stands out, the competition had never been more fierce, and the wallets never fatter.

In the light of a new dawn in television, the satellite age, Britain's first ever twenty four hour TV News Channel punches its way from its shell and spreads its tender wings.This hugely expensive and risky venture, bankrolled by the mighty Murdoch empire, inevitably attracts its share of risk takers.

One in particular is a twenty nine year old former apprentice jump jockey, and soldier, who knows he is running out of options in his pursuit of the adrenaline filled life he craves. Self-taught in the skills of reportage filming, and with a seemingly unquenchable thirst for adventure, he secures himself a junior position in the fledgling Sky News ENG. ( Electronic News Gathering. ) camera department.

From day one Sky News declared itself to be 'in competition' with the extremely well funded and vastly experienced monoliths of British TV News, BBC and ITN. Almost exactly eighteen months after that day, Saddam Hussein Invaded Kuwait.

"We think it would be irresponsible of us to send you given your relative inexperience in news Tom", his boss's words drove him nearly to distraction.

" But I'm a trained soldier, does that count for nothing?" he pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears.

Then one freezing morning in February 1991, while working in central London, the bulky cellular telephone in his jacket pocket rang, "can you go tomorrow mate?, you might be there for a while."

Once in Saudi Arabia, further twists of fortune saw him teamed with the channel's most experienced correspondent, and immediately before 'zero hour'...the liberation, this unlikely pairing, along with the legendary newspaper correspondent, Robert Fisk, who was 'hitching a ride', set about the task of being the first journalists to get into Kuwait City since the occupation began. If that meant being ahead of the liberating forces then so be it.

In the days that followed, world exclusive after world exclusive would be theirs..."just keep going" was their mantra. It was called 'the world's first live TV war' and the stakes couldn't have been higher, the risks more ultimate, and the spoils?...well, merely bragging rights.

But the satisfaction that journalists feel upon finding and telling when you 'just keep going' is what makes the game 'addictive'...this is the story of the liberation of Kuwait, and the days that followed, as told by the first British News Cameraman to step beyond the veil.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1036187721
• ISBN13: 9781036187729
• Release Date: January 2027
• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military