A lan Dower was one of a handful of Australian reporters sent by his paper to cover the Korean War.
A former commando who served in Timor, Dower was a tough, no-nonsense operator who made a point of going out with troops on dangerous frontline missions.
Filing for Melbourne s mass circulation newspaper the Herald, Dower carried considerable clout back in Australia   power he used in the best traditions of Australian journalism to command access and break stories.
Dower was driving into Seoul with reporter Rene Cutforth and cameraman Cyril Page when they passed a group of Korean women and children being led under guard by South Korean soldiers.
When the group stopped to ask what was happening, a South Korean officer told them they were suspected communists and were to be shot.
According to accounts, Dower flew into a rage and followed the group to a local prison.
Like many reporters at the time, Dower was armed and he bashed the butt of his carbine on the doors of the prison warning the guard to open up or he would shoot.
Historian Phillip Knightley in his brilliant book on war correspondents The First Casualty  describes how Dower and his fellow reporters pushed their way inside to find the Korean women   some with babies   being lined up in front of a freshly dug ditch and facing machineguns to be shot.
 Hell, this is a bloody fine set up to lose good Australian lives over. I m going to do something about this,  he said.
Dower found the prison governor and pointed his weapon, warning that if the women were killed, he would shoot him between the eyes.
The women were spared and Dower warned if he found out there were any more executions, he would hunt down and kill those South Koreans responsible. He then sought out United Nations officials and thundered that if he found evidence of any more executions he would file a story that would  rock the world .
The reporter claimed that from that point on, the death marches came to an end   or at the very least were scaled back.
Had a serving soldier performed such an action he or she would likely have been recommended for a major award and immortalised in military history.
But Dower   who would later go on to become the Herald s chief crime correspondent   was a reporter. 
There would be no public recognition for his efforts, only the respect of his peers. 
Australia is built on its stories of wartime heroism, bravery and tragedy but for the most part the people who brought those stories to the public have gone unheralded.
But Canberra s Australian War Memorial has now moved to commemorate the efforts of reporters and correspondents with the creation of a war correspondents  memorial.
The monument, placed in a quiet corner of the War Memorial s sculpture garden, was officially opened this week by Malcolm Turnbull.
The Prime Minister, a former journalist, used the event to hammer the importance the media played in supporting democracy and holding truth to power. Sitting in the front rows listening to the Prime Minister s words about the need for a free press were some of Australia s most senior military officers. 
It was an irony not lost on reporters sitting in the back rows, who could tell firsthand how senior members of the military had tried to stymie free reporting and limit access to Australian troops in the field.
The Afghan campaign was characterised by carefully managed  embeds  of Australian reporters by professional Defence Department media handlers.
But the current mission to Iraq is near invisible to the Australian press.
Though Australia is the second-biggest contributor of forces to the anti-Islamic State mission behind the US, the Australian media have so far been refused all access to personnel involved in the campaign.
Much of the secrecy is down to protecting the sensitivities of Arab countries reluctant to admit their role in fighting a Sunni insurgency.
But there can be no doubt Australian commanders would be nervous about letting in outside observers to make an independent assessment of the complicated and bloody battle against IS.
The Defence Department, in a grudging tip of a hat to transparency, is likely to let a small  pool crew  of reporters into Iraq in coming weeks   though only for a precious few handful of hours on the ground. Journalist Chris Masters, who managed something of a minor miracle in winning access to Australian special forces on missions in Afghanistan, laments the culture in quarters of the military that so resents the media.
 It s a mixed story, I have good relations with the ADF (but) it always seems to take a lot of work,  he says.
 Basically at its heart there are so many people in the ADF that think fighting wars is hard enough. 
 They tend to think any interaction with the press is bad news. 
Masters says the lack of access has meant Australians now know very little about the often incredible deeds of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
About 30 Australian correspondents have been killed covering foreign conflicts.
The last was cameraman Paul Moran who died in a car bomb explosion in 2003 while working for the ABC in Iraq. 
Many more reporters have come home from conflicts only to be left to their own devices to deal with mental agonies.
Among those at the dedication of the new memorial was Shirley Shackleton, wife of Channel 7 journalist Greg Shackleton who was murdered by Indonesian troops at Balibo in East Timor in 1975 with his colleagues Tony Stewart, Brian Peters, Gary Cunningham, and Malcolm Rennie.
 Without reporters we get official lies,  she says.