Ronald Victor Courtenay Bodley, MC (3 March 1892 – 26 May 1970) was a British Army officer, author and journalist.

He was considered among the most distinguished British writers on the Sahara, as well as one of the main western sources of information on the South Seas Mandate.

He rejoined the British Army at the outbreak of the Second World War and was sent to Paris to work for the Ministry of Information.

What he heard there reportedly made him feel that he and the millions of other soldiers had fought for nothing;[3] he wrote later that "selfish politicians [were] laying the groundwork for the Second World War – each country grabbing all it could for itself, creating national antagonisms, and reviving the intrigues of secret.

"[10] Disillusioned with the military, Bodley considered a career in politics[3] on the advice of the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George.

[3] Bodley met Lawrence one day outside the Paris Peace Conference and told him of his intent to move into politics.

After leaving the Sahara, Bodley spent three months in Java working on a tea plantation, before travelling to China and Japan.

[1] Bodley was one of several westerners to be granted access to the South Seas Mandate by Japan in the 1930s,[16] and he has been cited as one of the main sources of information on the area at the time.

[1] He wrote about his experiences and findings in his 1934 book The Drama in the Pacific, saying that "having visited practically every island … I am convinced that nothing has been done to convert any place into a naval base".

[17] In his 1998 book Nan'yo: the Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia, 1885–1945, Mark Peattie stated that while it is easy to accuse Bodley and the other writers of naivety, the militarisation of the area was complex and occurred in several stages.

Bodley was a passenger aboard the ship Shizuoka Maru when it was wrecked on a reef north of Yap in April 1933.

[18] Bodley was offered a job teaching English at Keio University, and did so for nine months; he wrote about the experience in his 1933 book A Japanese Omelette.

[7] In 1935 Bodley moved to the United States to work as a screenwriter,[7] leaving Japan aboard the Chichibu Maru.

[1] In October 1936 Bodley was hired by Charlie Chaplin[19] to adapt the D. L. Murray novel Regency into a feature film.

[1] When the Second World War commenced, Bodley immediately rejoined the King's Royal Rifle Corps and was given the rank of major.

[4] According to the back cover of his book The Soundless Sahara, after the fall of Paris he went to work behind the German lines until he came under suspicion of the Gestapo, then escaped across the Pyrenees on foot.

[29] Bodley later said that his talents as a writer lay in non-fiction, adding that of "the many novels (...) and several plays [he] had written, four were published and two produced, and all failed to arouse any interest.

John Cogley from The New York Times said Bodley had "written a clean, poetic and frankly admiring account" of Foucauld's life.

[5] He provided information for the book The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, by Phillip Knightley and Colin Simpson, which was published by Thomas Nelson in 1969.

Bodley's son, who became a lieutenant in the Royal Armoured Corps, was killed in action in Libya in 1942; Wind in the Sahara is dedicated to him.

[5] According to William Snell, there is very little information on his last years, but he believed that Bodley's marriage to Moseley ended in divorce no later than 1969.