Women War Correspondents

From the Telegraph:

The early women war correspondents changed forever how conflict was reported. Here we tell their stories of courage and cunning.

'Blondes,' the American war reporter Martha Gellhorn was once advised by her father, 'only work under compulsion.'

It was early in the 20th century and a time when women were to be seen and not heard. Certainly not in print or on radio, and decisively not on a battlefield. But George Gellhorn's restive, enquiring daughter spent the bulk of that century following its wars, talking her way on to the fronts around the world.

She was not alone. During the Second World War more and more women reporters negotiated their way off the society desks and into the newsrooms, challenging head on the prevailing belief that women should neither witness battle, nor report it.

These women filed stories brewed in equal parts from exigency and personal vision, and in so doing changed how war was reported .

I stumbled on many of these female pioneers in war reporting while I was researching my novel, The Postmistress (Viking), and their grace and grit inspired my heroine, who is broadcasting from London on the Blitz.