Our good friend, sound recordist Mark Williams, recently informed me of the passing of his uncle – Derek Williams - who although relatively unkwown in New Zealand, was a formidable presence in the foreign correspondent world, based in Asia for most of his career.
Derek initially trained as a sound technician with the NZBC, before moving in 1971 to the CBS News bureau in Hong Kong, where he was based until 1989 when he moved to Bangkok.
Filming in Beirut, 1982. (Photo by Tom Hartwell)
He was almost immediately dropped into filming the refugee exodus from Bangladesh to India. He went on to cover student riots in Tokyo, the last years of the Vietnam War in the 1970s, the Thammasat University student massacre in Bangkok in October 1976, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Beirut and the Iran-Iraq war in the early 1980s, ‘People Power’ in the Philippines in 1986, China’s Tiananman Square massacre in 1989, and Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
“I’m deeply saddened to hear of Derek Williams’s passing,” Dan Rather, the CBS News anchor for 24 years, posted. “He was one of the bravest and a great CBS News cameraman. The images he captured beautifully told the story of a dangerous world — from the Middle East to South Asia and beyond. He was also a great man.”
CBS News Cameraman Marc Laban said: “Derek covered some of the defining events of the late 20th century, and did so with a courage and quiet decency that set him apart. The world of broadcast journalism has lost a legend.”
Williams and his wife Hà moved from Thailand to the United States in 2017 to be closer to her family, their son and a grandson. His health declined with the onset of Parkinson’s, and in 2025 he relocated back to New Zealand, his home country, and passed away on July 22nd, 2026.
Condolences to the family, and to Mark Williams who said:
“My uncle was a great and very humble man who I have admired my whole life and spent a lot of time with in Thailand over the years. A good fella who carried a heavy camera on his shoulder for many years.”
Many thanks to the Foreign Correspondent Club of Thailand for excerpts and quotes from their obituary.
Donny Duncan NZCS
