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

The Second World War was the most sprawling conflict in modern history, fought on many geographical fronts and ignited by long-festering territorial, political and ideological issues. It contains a multitude of narratives, and, in presenting the war from the perspective of these six women correspondents, I have confined myself to a necessarily partial view of its events.

Each of the women in this book were journalists of courage and distinction, and they ranked high among the valiant group of female correspondents who fought hard, and sometimes painfully, to earn their place on the front line between 1939 and 1945. Their individual experiences of the war were inevitably constricted, however, both by time and circumstance. Aside from Martha Gellhorns tour to China in 1941, none of the six were able to report on the brutal fighting in Burma, Singapore and elsewhere in the Far East, nor did they see much of Russia. As journalists too, they were given only restricted access to the political and military issues at playHelen Kirkpatrick, the best informed, knew more than she could publish, but even she acknowledged there was much that she learned about in retrospect.

For more thorough accounts of the war there are, of course, many scholarly histories, to whose expertise and rigour Im hugely indebted. A selected number of these appear in the bibliography, along with very fine individual biographies of Martha Gellhorn, Lee Miller, Clare Hollingworth and Sigrid Schultz, without whose research and insight I could not have written this book.

Many people have been extraordinarily generous with their time and expertise, and, as always, praise must go to the archivists and librarians who helped in the accessing of material, especially those at Smith College and Gttingen University, the latter going beyond the call of duty in reviving some dinosaur microfilm technology. Huge thanks also to Harriet Crawley and Antony Penrose for sharing memories of their mothers, Virginia Cowles and Lee Miller; to Patrick Garrett for answering my questions about his great-aunt, Clare Hollingworth, and also to Westport historians John Suggs, Morley Boyd and Wendy Crowther for their fabulous detective work into the life of Sigrid Shultz.

My publishers and I would like to thank the following for their generous permission to quote from published and unpublished works: the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections, for extracts from Helen Kirkpatricks letters and personal papers; the Washington Press Club Foundation for extracts from the Helen Kirkpatrick Millbank interview with Anne Kasper; The State Historical Society of Wisconsin for extracts from Sigrid Schultzs papers; Hodder and Stoughton for extracts from Patrick Garretts Of Fortunes and War; Faber and Faber for extracts from Virginia Cowles Looking for Trouble; Grove Atlantic and Eland Publishing for extracts from Martha Gellhorns The Face of War; Alexander Matthews for permission to quote from Martha Gellhorn and Patrick Garrett for extracts from Clare Hollingworths Front Line. Full permissions acknowledgements can be found on p. 435.

Thanks and love to all my friends, who had to accommodate my obsession with war over the last three years, and in particular to Debra Craine for her generous and meticulous first reading of this book.

My agent Clare Alexander and my editors George Morley and Cara Reilly have been the best and wisest of champions, and the editorial team at Picador have been patient, kind and eagle eyedI bow down to Chloe May, Penelope Price, Rachel Wright and Marissa Constantinou whose fortitude has been all the more remarkable during this year of Covid.

To Simon, Fred and Oscar, all my love and gratitude as always.

INTRODUCTION

When Virginia Cowles flew into Berlin on 31 August 1939, she knew that this assignment could be one of the most hazardous of her career. Gleaming black enfilades of Nazi fighter planes were parked along the runways of Tempelhof Airport, the Berlin skyline was spiked with anti-aircraft guns and the city centre looked, to her, like an armed campits streets clogged with military trucks, its hotel lobbies jostling with Nazi storm troopers. Europe was now so close to war that every British journalist had been recalled home, and staff at the British embassy had been ordered to pack. Even the weather felt ominously on edge. A dry, dusty wind blew through the city, which, to Virginias ears, had the queer sound of a death rattle as it caught up bits of paper and rubbish and sent them scraping along the pavement.

Yet Virginia, an American correspondent for the Sunday Times,