The Correspondents: Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of World War II

In this rich and evocative history, journalist Mackrell (The Unfinished Palazzo) profiles six women who reported on World War II: Sigrid Schultz, Virginia Cowles, Martha Gellhorn, Helen Kirkpatrick, Lee Miller, and Clare Hollingworth (all white, all American, save for one Briton). Often denied official accreditation and hampered by sexist assumptions about their abilities to handle the rigors of the frontline, these women journalists were present at every stage of the war on the fronts in the Balkans, Greece, North Africa, and Italy. They firmly established their reputations wherever they reported. Hollingworth wrote perhaps the first report of the outbreak of the war, having learned that German forces were about to invade Poland. Schultz witnessed the Nazi rise to power from Berlin and in the process became the first woman bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune. Gellhorn braved bombings, shelling, and rifle fire to report from the front lines of the Spanish Republicans, while Cowles managed to sneak into Nationalist Spain to get stories that many reporters considered impossible to get. Kirkpatrick was the first woman to report from an Allied war zone, and Miller covered the liberation and horror of concentration camps soon after the first troops arrived. Based on diaries, journals, and private papers, this title complements works such as The Women with Silver Wings, by Katherine Sharp Landdeck.