{{Short description|Australian journalist, and poet}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}} {{Use Australian English|date=July 2018}} {{Infobox writer | name = Colin Wills | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Colin Frederick George Wills | birth_date = {{Birth date|1906|1|17}} | birth_place = Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | death_date = {{Death date and age|1965|||1906|1|17}} | death_place = Westminster, London, England | occupation = Journalist, Poet, Broadcaster, War Correspondent, Scriptwriter, Travel Writer | nationality = Australian | period = 1920s–1960s | genre = Poetry, Non-fiction, War reporting, Documentary script | subject = Travel, Africa, Australia, World War II | notable_works = | years_active = | module = }} '''Colin Frederick George Wills'''<ref name="austlit">[https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A23747''Colin Wills''], AustLit (2012), 4 July 2018.</ref> (17 January 1906 – 1965) was an Australian journalist, poet, broadcaster, war correspondent, scriptwriter and travel writer.
== Background == Born in Toowoomba, Queensland, Wills grew up on the North Shore of Sydney.<ref>Colin Wills (1953). ''Australian Passport''. London; Dennis Dobson.</ref> During the 1920s and 1930s he worked as a reporter for the ''Daily Guardian'', ''Smith's Weekly'' and the ''Daily Telegraph''.<ref name="austlit"/>
In 1933, he published a collection of poetry with illustrations by the cartoonist "WEP" (William Pidgeon): ''Rhymes of Sydney''.<ref>Colin Wills & WEP (1933). ''Rhymes of Sydney''. Sydney; Frank Johnson.</ref><ref name="austlit"/>
Wills left Australia in 1939,<ref name="austlit"/> to work as a journalist and broadcaster in Europe.
During World War II, Wills reported from front-line areas for outlets including the BBC, ''Chronicle'' and ''Mirror''. His assignments included the North African campaign and D-Day, which Wills covered from a landing craft,<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmQeIPhJvrQ Colin Wills, (1944). ''In An Infantry Landing Craft: 6 June 1944''] (sound recording), (4 July 2018).</ref> as it carried Canadian soldiers to Juno Beach, in Normandy. He visited Belsen concentration camp, in north-west Germany, soon after it was liberated by Allied forces.<ref name="austlit"/>
In mid-1945 Wills and Richard Crossman wrote the script of ''German Concentration Camps Factual Survey'', a feature-length documentary about the Nazi concentration camps. The ''de facto'' co-directors of the film were Alfred Hitchcock (who was credited as a "treatment advisor") and Sergei Nolbandov ("production supervisor"). Post-production was halted for political reasons after several months and the film was not completed and released until 2014.<ref name="Jeffries-Guardian">{{cite news|author=Stuart Jeffries|title=The Holocaust film that was too shocking to show [9 January]|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/09/holocaust-film-too-shocking-to-show-night-will-fall-alfred-hitchcock|accessdate=1 February 2015|work=The Guardian|year=2015}}</ref><ref name="IWM-about the film">{{cite web|author=Imperial War Museum|date=n.d.|title=About the film: German Concentration Camp Factual Survey|url=http://www.iwm.org.uk/research/german-concentration-camps-factual-survey/about-german-concentration-camps-factual-survey|accessdate=17 October 2016|archive-date=1 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301132203/http://www.iwm.org.uk/research/german-concentration-camps-factual-survey/about-german-concentration-camps-factual-survey|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Bradshaw">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/18/night-will-fall-review-holocaust-documentary-hitchcock-liberation-belsen-auschwitz|title=Night Will Fall review – unflinching footage reveals true hell of the Holocaust [18 September]|work=The Guardian|year=2014|author=Peter Bradshaw}}</ref>
Wills later authored three non-fiction books: ''White Traveller in Black Africa'' (1951), ''Who Killed Kenya?'' (1953) and ''Australian Passport'' (1953), all of which were published in London by Dennis Dobson Ltd. ''Australian Passport'' combined autobiography with social commentary regarding Australia.
He died at Westminster, London, in 1965.<ref>[https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVCK-9Q2P FamilySearch (2012), "Colin F G Wills", (1965). ''England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007''] (4 September 2014).</ref>
==Footnotes== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wills, Colin}} Category:1906 births Category:Australian travel writers Category:Australian expatriates in England Category:Australian reporters and correspondents Category:Journalists from Sydney Category:People from the North Shore (Sydney) Category:People from Toowoomba Category:20th-century Australian poets Category:Australian male poets Category:Australian war correspondents Category:1965 deaths