Kate Webb

Kate Webb (24 March 1943 – 13 May 2007) was a New Zealand-born Australian war correspondent for UPI and Agence France-Presse. She earned a reputation for dogged and fearless reporting throughout the Vietnam War, and at one point she was held prisoner for weeks by North Vietnamese troops. After the war, she continued to report from global hotspots including Iraq during the Gulf War.

Biography Born Catherine Merrial Webb in Christchurch, New Zealand, Webb moved to Canberra, Australia, with her family while she was still a child. Her father, Leicester Chisholm Webb, was professor of political science at the Australian National University, and her mother, Caroline Webb, was active in women's organisations.

On 30 March 1958, at the age of 15, Catherine Webb was charged with the murder of Victoria Fenner, the adopted daughter of Frank Fenner, in Canberra. She supplied a rifle and bullets to Fenner and was present when Fenner shot herself in what was intended as a suicide pact. After a Children's Court hearing the charge was dropped.

Her parents were killed in a car accident in Tasmania when she was 18.

Webb graduated from the University of Melbourne, then left to work for the Sydney Daily Mirror. In 1967 the newspaper sent her to Indonesia to cover the fall of President Sukarno and the resulting crisis. During her time in Saigon, Webb began investigating South Vietnamese officials involvement in the black market. She began receiving assignments from UPI and as a non-U.S. passport holder and French speaker was assigned to report on Jacqueline Kennedy's visit to Cambodia in November 1967. Her reporting of the Embassy attack led to her being employed full-time by UPI, initially as a gofer for Dan Southerland.

When asked about her experience as one of few female journalists in Vietnam, Webb stated "If you don't demand special privileges and don't ask where you plug in your hair dryer, you have no problems." On 1 May Webb and the others were released by the PAVN near where they had been captured, after having endured forced marches, interrogations, and malaria. Webb was commemorated on an Australian postage stamp in 2017.

She is survived by a brother, Jeremy Webb, and a sister, Rachel Miller.