Wednesday November 13, 2002
8:30 PM
LONDON (AP) - Eddie Worth, a news photographer who covered the
battles for western Europe after D-Day and went on to cover the war
trials of Nazi leaders, has died at the age of 93.
Worth, who worked for The
Associated Press for most of his career, was a legend in the news industry
because of his remarkable dedication, energy and knack for getting to the most
difficult assignments.
``He was one of the great
photographers. A legend,'' said Horst
Faas, AP's senior photo editor based in London.
Relatives said Worth died
Sunday. The cause
of death was not announced.
Worth worked for AP as a
dispatch rider in 1934,
also working as a free-lance photographer. His first big success as a photographer
came when he hired a plane to obtain pictures of a mine
disaster in northern
England.
As an AP photographer, Worth
covered the events leading up to World War II and got to know some of the top
Nazi leaders, including Foreign
Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
One of his most famous images
is of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral looming through the smoke and fire after
a German bombing raid on June 7, 1941.
Worth was a combat photographer
during the war, landing
with Canadian troops in Normandy
during the D-Day invasion.
He accompanied Allied troops for the rest of the war, covering the battles for
France and northern Germany.
The Nazi
mayor of Hamburg surrendered to Worth,
mistaking him for a British officer, at the end of the war, colleagues said.
In another celebrated incident,
Worth was covering the surrender of German forces to Field
Marshal Bernard Montgomery in May 1945 when he noticed the date on the surrender
document was wrong. He pointed out the mistake to the
British commander.
Worth was sent to cover
the trial of Nazi leaders in Nuremberg
after the war. Editors told him he was going for a week, but he ended up staying
for a year.
After the war, Worth continued
to cover trouble spots, including the unrest in Cyprus
in the 1950s.
``He couldn't walk, he'd
run everywhere. He was in perpetual motion,'' recalled Gerry Warhurst, a retired
AP photo editor who worked with Worth.
A funeral service was planned
for Monday.
| 
