18 November 1937, the last day of the Chinese army's stand in Shanghai. John Gittings, however, on his website www.johngittings.com, quotes Five Months of War (Shanghai: North-China Daily News & Herald, 1938), p. 133 as putting Stephens' death on 11 November. Gittings' quotation goes on to describe Stephens as having been shot while watching the fighting from a water tower, when a Japanese machine gunner unexpectedly raised his aim. The Japanese apologized, explaining that they had been shooting at snipers on nearby roof-tops. His chauffeur, Bernhard Arp Sindberg, was with him at the time of his death at the water tower. Bernhard would later save over 6,000 Chinese during the Nanking Massacre. A friend of Stephens', O'Dowd Gallagher from the Daily Mail, wrote the story of Stephens' death and sent it to the Daily Express. (On the other hand, the biographer of Edgar Snow says that O.D. Gallagher was himself working for the Daily Express and sent the story of Stephen's death to the Daily Telegraph.) Reporting Style John Simpson, who researched Stephens for his book Unreliable Sources: How the Twentieth Century was Reported, calls Stephens a 'fearless correspondent', who 'stood out for his objective reporting'. He says his journalism was 'arresting, colourful', he 'was a genuine hero of 20th-century reporting', and that he 'refused to do his reporting from the safety of his office. He always preferred to go and see what was happening for himself. It earned him Beaverbrook's highest praise, and a much-increased salary; and in the end it cost him his life.' He 'believed that it was his duty' to report on the plight of the Jews living under Nazi rule. References 1903 births 1937 deaths Alumni of the University of Cambridge British male journalists People educated at Gresham's School Daily Express people The Daily Telegraph people 20th-century English businesspeople