Richard Collier

Richard Collier (1924–1996) was an English journalist, military historian and novelist.

Life Born in Croydon, Collier joined the RAF in 1942 and was War Associate Editor of Lord Mountbatten's magazine Phoenix: An Allied Magazine for All Allied Forces in South East Asia. After the war, he joined the Daily Mail as a feature writer.

For his 1971 biography of Mussolini, Collier employed three administrative assistants to coordinate the work of 30 research assistants and eight translators. The book's New York Times reviewer found the book uncritical but easy to read and entertaining.

Collier's 1974 The Plague of the Spanish Lady was the first book-length treatment of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–19. For the book Collier advertised around the world, asking for memories and eye-witness accounts. The correspondence which he collected is now held by the Imperial War Museum.

Works

Novels Beautiful Friend, 1947

Non-fiction Ten Thousand Eyes: The Amazing Story of the Spy Network That Cracked Hitler's Atlantic Wall Before D-Day, 1958 The City that Would Not Die: The Bombing of London, May 10–11, 1941, 1959 A House Called Memory, 1960 The Sands of Dunkirk, 1961 The Great Indian Mutiny: A Dramatic Account of the Sepoy Rebellion, 1963 The General Next to God: The story of William Booth and the Salvation Army, 1965 Eagle Day: The Battle of Britain, August 6-September 15, 1940, 1966 The River that God Forgot: The Story of the Amazon Rubber Boom, 1968 Duce!: The Rise and Fall of Benito Mussolini, 1971 The Plague of the Spanish Lady: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919, 1974 The War in the Desert, 1977 Bridge Across the Sky: The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, 1948-1949, 1978 1940, The Avalanche, 1979 The Road to Pearl Harbor--1941, 1981 The Freedom Road, 1944-1945, 1983 The Rainbow People: A Gaudy World of the Very Rich and Those Who Served Them, 1984 Make-believe: The Magic of International Theatre, 1986 Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain Remembered, 1989 The Few: Summer 1940, The Battle of Britain, 1989 The Warcos: The War Correspondents of World War Two, 1989 D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Normandy Landings, 1992 The Past is a Foreign Country: Scenes from a Life, 1996