Stalinist purges and smuggled his reports out of the country. World War II Miller reported widely on many of the key early events leading up to World War II. He attended the Munich Conference, and interviewed Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain and Mussolini. He traveled to Czechoslovakia immediately afterward, and reported from the scheduled advance of German troops into the Sudetenland. He remained in the country for the next six months, and again reported from the front lines on March 12, 1939, when German troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. As tensions rose between Germany and France, Miller returned to Paris. During the Phoney War, Miller rushed to the Low Countries and filed numerous reports. Miller immediately went to Finland after the Soviet Union invaded on November 30, 1939. He spent Christmas Eve in four inches of newly-fallen snow with Finnish soldiers on the front lines of the "Winter War." Death in the tunnel Miller died on the evening of May 7, 1940, in London, while traveling on the London Underground. There were no eyewitnesses to his death. However, British investigators later concluded that the train had come to a stop in the tunnel rather than at a platform. Miller, they said, stepped out of the train and fell on the tracks. He hit his head against the tunnel wall and died. While the press proclaimed his death "mysterious" and friends said the experienced traveler would never have made such an error, the case was closed and his death ruled accidental. Webb Miller was survived by his wife, Marie, and a son, Kenneth. He was buried in Dewey Cemetery in Dowagiac. Cultural influences In 1943, the U.S. government announced that Liberty ships would begin to be named after distinguished journalists who had died in action. The first Liberty ship to be named for a war correspondent was the SS Webb Miller. The ship carried American soldiers onto the beaches at Normandy. Scholars now consider Miller's account of Bluebeard's death a classic of spot journalism. The report is often required reading for aspiring journalists. Webb Miller was also the inspiration for the character of Vince Walker in the movie Gandhi, portrayed by Martin Sheen. Cigarette case When he met Mohandas Gandhi in 1930, Miller was carrying a cigarette case. Gandhi agreed to inscribe his name on the case on the condition that it never be used again to carry cigarettes. Miller agreed.