Smash hit

Nicholas Rankin, the British author and former journalist for the BBC, who has written a biography of Steer called Telegram from Guernica, will be at the ceremony along with Steer’s son, George Barton Steer.

Mr Rankin told The Times: “Steer told the world the Germans were secretly bombing Spain which caused outrage around the world. It was a great story, like the Iran-Contra scandal.

“Picasso read his report, was outraged and started on Guernica on May 1, 1937. His black and white painting was not a photograph but almost like that. It was his response to this news story.”

He added: “Steer did a fantastic job. His was not the first report but it was the one which caused the most impact. It is a real pleasure to be able to honour him.”

Alberto Gadeka, of the Commission for the Investigation of Guernica, which has campaigned for a street to be named after Steer, said: “He reported the truth of what happened here to the world.

“His extensive report brought it home to people. He deserves to be honoured after so long.”

Steer went on to write a book about his experience in the Basque town, called The Guernica Tree, named after the former meeting place of the region’s parliament.

Born in 1909 in South Africa, Steer was the son of a newspaper manager, who studied at Oxford.

He reported on the Ethiopian war with Italy for The Times and came to know Emperor Haile Selassie.

Steer was then sent to Spain to cover the civil war between the Republican forces and General Francisco Franco’s Nationalists.

He also covered the Winter War in Finland, before joining up when the Second World War started.

He served in Ethiopia in a propaganda unit and then was transferred to India where he fought the Japanese.

Steer was killed in a car crash in 1944.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president