Eric Lloyd Williams

Who was Eric Lloyd Williams?

Eric Lloyd Williams was a South African-born journalist and war correspondent who covered World War II for the South African Press Association and Reuters.

Lloyd Williams reported on the North African campaign of the British Eighth Army, which included troops from India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, among others. He covered El Alamein, the pivotal battle in 1942 that turned the tide in favour of the Allies in North Africa.

In 1943, Lloyd Williams entered the Libyan capital, Tripoli, a key Axis base, on 23 January, the day the Eighth Army captured it from the Germans. In May 1943, he entered Tunis six hours after it fell to the Allies, with the surrender of all German and Italian forces in North Africa. Four months later he was with the Eighth Army when it invaded the toe of Italy from Sicily.

He earned the nickname Benghazi while reporting from North Africa. The Libyan port of Benghazi, a vital supply town, changed hands several times during the course of the fighting in 1941-42.

In 1944 the Argus newspaper in Cape Town called Lloyd Williams "the outstanding South African war correspondent of this war".

In his obituary in 1988, the Herald newspaper in Port Elizabeth described him as "South Africa's most distinguished war correspondent of the Second World War".