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Thanks to his great familiarity with the local situation and an excellent network, Bosshard was always able to secure advantages for himself, which he harnessed to quickly and efficiently achieve his objective. In 1937, Archibald Steele wrote of his Swiss colleague: “Anyone who finds themselves in the far east with a camera and notebook is familiar with the problems that chroniclers face. Despite censorship, bureaucratic obstacles and stubborn officials, Bosshard, the photojournalist who works for Ullstein, succeeds in practising his trade without falling out with the Japanese, Manchurian or Chinese officials. These days, you need to be a diplomat to be successful with a camera as a correspondent and artist… All the bigwigs in Asia know Bosshard; diplomats, statesmen and the military, because he loves taking their portraits in their private surroundings.” And in his book Death at My Heels (1942), David Walker, correspondent with the British newspaper the Daily Mirror , reminisces thus: “You couldn’t have wished for a better travel companion than Walter Bosshard. A Swiss of the best and most tenacious sort, who had led camel trains through Tibet and China and God knows where else. He could conjure things up out of thin air – hot chocolate, which he seemingly carried with him in his sleeves, or biscuits, as if he’d just plucked them from the next tree. He had just one fault: If we reached that point where mules were afraid to continue forwards, he would spring further on like a mountain goat and climb even the steepest slope. It was bloody hard work.”
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