Derek Williams, a longtime CBS news cameraman, is remembered as “the partner you’d want in any war zone.”

Longtime CBS News cameraman Derek Williams, who spent four decades covering some of Asia’s most important events, from the Vietnam War to the Tiananmen Square massacre, has died. He was 79 years old.

Williams died Wednesday, according to his family. He was living with Parkinson’s disease and was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Susan Zirinsky, former president of CBS News and president of See It Now Studios, recalled that William was “everything – a partner you would want on any battlefield.” He described him as “brilliant,” “a great photographer,” and said he “saw things coming before they came.”

“Most of all Derek was a great person – our team had the privilege of being in his world email today – each email was like a visual that he might have shot when writing a story,” Zirinsky said. “My last email from him was July 2. It’s hard to imagine a world without Derek’s humor and vision and personality in it. I miss the emails.”

“Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Derek Williams,” CBS News veteran Dan Rather wrote on social media. “He was one of CBS News’ bravest and best photographers. The pictures he captured tell the story of a dangerous world – from the Middle East to South Asia and beyond. And he was a remarkable man.”

Williams began his career with a three-month trial for CBS in Hong Kong.

“I remember that night I went back to the hotel and I couldn’t sleep, I felt sick, and I felt, right? Is this how I want to spend the rest of my life, almost a vulture?” Williams told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2017.

“I was making noise with a very professional German cameraman, who just said, ‘Hey, you’re going to get used to it. You know, you’re going to get rhino skin in this job,'” Williams said in 2017.

Williams went on to be a photographer working in Asia for 40 years, also covering the first Iraq War and the massacres in Beirut.

Allen Pizzey, former foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, recalled Beirut in 1982, saying “Chaos the order of the day.”

“A newbie at CBS, who knew nothing about TV, was cast by Derek Williams. With patience and his ever-present sense of humor, Derek taught me how to do the air, and more importantly, stay safe while doing it,” said Pizzey, who spent 36 years at CBS News. “We worked together – although rarely enough – for the next few decades, in the same garden areas. If it was ever fun, I don’t remember this occasion.”

Pizzey said Williams was “as good a man, mentor and friend as he was a photographer. That’s another way of saying good.”

In June 1989, Williams and CBS News reporter Richard Roth were arrested by Chinese authorities during the Tiananmen Square massacre. They would eventually be released, relatively unscathed.

As the fall of Saigon was imminent, Williams told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he married his Vietnamese girlfriend after intelligence had warned him that the city would soon fall. He said he used poker winnings to bribe the registry office to open on Sunday for the wedding, then convinced New Zealand Embassy staff – who were trying to get out – to give his new wife a passport the next day.

Williams had been living in California with his wife since traveling to Asia, but as his health deteriorated, he returned to New Zealand to be closer to family.

Keith Kay, a former cameraman and producer in Vietnam, said Williams was “a pleasure and a privilege to work or play with.”

“I feel lucky to have him in my life,” said Kay.