18 Facts About Mark Arnold-Forster

Mark Arnold-Forster, DSO, DSC was an English journalist and author.

Mark Arnold-Forster is best remembered for his book The World at War, which accompanied the 1973 television series of the same name.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Hahn was driven into exile, and Mark Arnold-Forster followed him to a new school, Gordonstoun in Scotland, where he stayed until he left school in 1937.

Mark Arnold-Forster won a place to study mechanical engineering at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but he never took this up.

Mark Arnold-Forster served throughout the Second World War, first as a merchant seaman and then in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve.

Mark Arnold-Forster served on a destroyer on the Murmansk convoy and then on motor torpedo boats in the English Channel.

Mark Arnold-Forster's tasks included engaging the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen in battle and torpedoing a tanker.

Mark Arnold-Forster limped home from a battle with a broken-down engine after being nearly rammed by a German destroyer.

Mark Arnold-Forster laid mines under fire off the French coast and worked for naval intelligence.

Mark Arnold-Forster was awarded the DSO and DSC, was three times mentioned in despatches, and was demobilized as a reserve Lieutenant in 1946.

In 1946, Mark Arnold-Forster joined the editorial staff of The Manchester Guardian.

Mark Arnold-Forster worked first in Manchester and then in Germany, where he wrote about the immediate post-war period and the Berlin blockade in 1948.

Mark Arnold-Forster then joined The Observer as a political correspondent, but in 1963 he had a falling out with The Observer over an issue related to an editorial change to one of his articles.

Mark Arnold-Forster resigned in disgust and returned to The Guardian as chief editorial writer.

Mark Arnold-Forster later moved to ITN, as deputy to editor Sir Geoffrey Cox, making the switch to television without any difficulty.

Mark Arnold-Forster continued to write regular leaders for The Guardian until his death in 1981.

Mark Arnold-Forster suffered from persistent ill health in his fifties, in particular a series of minor strokes.

Mark Arnold-Forster was cremated at West London crematorium on 5 January 1982.