Willie Phua Tin Tua (20 February 1928 – 17 December 2024) was a Chinese-born Singaporean photojournalist who was known for his news and feature work covering poignant moments in Asian history over more than three decades. He was the subject of an Australian book published in 2010 called Capturing Asia, by former foreign correspondent Bob Wurth. During his years working on risky assignments, Phua captured many images of wars and uprisings, economic 'miracles' and social upheavals, and the rise and fall of dictators.

Phua's camerawork was seen in Australia through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but his most important assignments were also shown around the world, sometimes on the BBC. He was one of the few television cameramen to capture the "Tank Man" briefly holding back Chinese tanks near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.

In 1933, Phua came from Hainan Island to Singapore with his mother, Phua Tan Tee, to join his father Phua Gee Wah, at the age of five to find a better life in the British colony. Hainan at that time was wracked by insurgency and the island was swept by damaging typhoons.

Phua had clear recollections as a youth of the Japanese invasion of Singapore and the subsequent occupation of the island in 1942. On the morning of 8 December 1941, a bomb whistled down and crashed into a well near the servants' quarters in the League of Nations compound off River Valley Road where Phua lived. Japan's war had come to Singapore. To the dismay of his mother, Phua, aged 12, ran into the compound and picked up a piece of still-warm metal, a fragment from one of the first Japanese bombs to fall on Singapore: "I was a little bit frightened but also excited. This was something exciting for a boy of my age. It was the first bombing attack on Singapore. We didn’t know the Japanese were coming here until these bombs fell."

Phua still remembered during the invasion of Singapore, watching the retreat of the British and Australians through the streets and a young, bewildered Allied soldier sitting in the gutter, weeping. During the invasion, Phua's neighbourhood was shelled by Japanese artillery. He survived by crouching in a stinking storm drain on Killinery Road with his mother. One shell landed nearby killing a neighbour.

During the Japanese occupation, the youth traded in cigarettes and was chased by Japanese soldiers when plying his trade: "I passed a Japanese soldier with his rifle over his shoulder. In the usual way, I asked if he had any tobacco. He looked at me and suddenly lifted his hand and took a big swing at my face. I ducked to avoid it. As I was turning around to run I saw him take the rifle from his shoulder. I ran for my life. I was terrified." Young Phua escaped and changed his trading habits. His mother made curry puffs and Phua sold them to Australian prisoners-of-war being marched through the streets.

Phua's mother obtained work as a cook in the kitchen of Japanese brothels in Cairnhill Road and the young Phua became her messenger. He recalled the sadness of some of the so-called "comfort women", the Koreans forced into prostitution by the Japanese: "I did errands for the girls and would also buy things for the Japanese soldiers. The girls always seemed to want food. When the women had a Japanese client, especially if they had found a captain or a higher rank, they would say ‘I’m hungry’ and ask the soldiers to buy noodles for them."

After the war, Phua became a salesman at Singapore's Amateur Photo Shop, before becoming a freelance cameraman in the early 1960s with Singapore's RTV and BCINA (British Commonwealth International News Agency) which later became Visnews (now Reuters Television) and Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).