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Martha Ellis Gellhorn (born 1908) was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist who is considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century
Starting with the Spanish Civil War, Gellhorn was the first woman war correspondent to be accredited and covered every major war through six decades in journalism. She's been described as the "greatest war correspondent who ever lived."
Married with Ernest Hemingway, when D-Day approached, their marriage was already dead. To get even with Gellhorn, Hemingway got himself accredited as the correspondent for Colliers, the magazine Gellhorn worked for, blocking any chance Gellhorn might have of getting to the front lines.
So on the night of June 6, 1944, before the ships departed for Normandy, Gellhorn made her way to the waterfront on the pretext of interviewing the nurses aboard a hospital ship. Once on board, she hid herself in the bathroom. Gellhorn knew that if she got caught, she would lose her accreditation and might even get deported back to America. Still, to witness the great invasion was worth the risk. Gellhorn remained in her hideout for several hours and only emerged when the ship was well on her way to France. Later that night, after the troops had landed and the massacre on the beach was finally over, Gellhorn sneaked ashore with a couple of doctors and medics as a stretcher bearer to collect the wounded. In the chaos of the war, nobody gave a damn that Gellhorn was a woman.
Martha Gellhorn became the only woman to land in Normandy the same day the troops did. Other women followed, but much later. The first batch of women—members of the US Women’s Army Corps—landed in Normandy thirty-eight days later.
[M. Gellhorn in 1944]
Soon after Gellhorn had filed her story to Collier’s, the military police arrested her. They took away her credentials and transported her to a nurse’s training camp outside London. Gellhorn escaped from the camp by convincing a British pilot to fly her to Italy.
After the war, Gellhorn divorced Hemingway and lived for a time in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She covered the Vietnam War and the Arab-Israel conflicts in the 1960s and 70s. She was still out at the front reporting the civil wars in Central America at the age of seventy, and incredibly, United States’ invasion of Panama in 1989 at the age of eighty-one. It was only when war came to Bosnia that she decided to quit, announcing that she was “too old” and not “nimble” enough for war anymore.
As Gellhorn entered the late eighties, her eyesight began to fail and she became almost completely blind. She was also suffering from ovarian cancer that had spread to her liver. She committed suicide in 1998, at the age of ninety, by swallowing a cyanide capsule.
[Pictured 1978]
Starting with the Spanish Civil War, Gellhorn was the first woman war correspondent to be accredited and covered every major war through six decades in journalism. She's been described as the "greatest war correspondent who ever lived."
Married with Ernest Hemingway, when D-Day approached, their marriage was already dead. To get even with Gellhorn, Hemingway got himself accredited as the correspondent for Colliers, the magazine Gellhorn worked for, blocking any chance Gellhorn might have of getting to the front lines.
So on the night of June 6, 1944, before the ships departed for Normandy, Gellhorn made her way to the waterfront on the pretext of interviewing the nurses aboard a hospital ship. Once on board, she hid herself in the bathroom. Gellhorn knew that if she got caught, she would lose her accreditation and might even get deported back to America. Still, to witness the great invasion was worth the risk. Gellhorn remained in her hideout for several hours and only emerged when the ship was well on her way to France. Later that night, after the troops had landed and the massacre on the beach was finally over, Gellhorn sneaked ashore with a couple of doctors and medics as a stretcher bearer to collect the wounded. In the chaos of the war, nobody gave a damn that Gellhorn was a woman.
Martha Gellhorn became the only woman to land in Normandy the same day the troops did. Other women followed, but much later. The first batch of women—members of the US Women’s Army Corps—landed in Normandy thirty-eight days later.
[M. Gellhorn in 1944]
Soon after Gellhorn had filed her story to Collier’s, the military police arrested her. They took away her credentials and transported her to a nurse’s training camp outside London. Gellhorn escaped from the camp by convincing a British pilot to fly her to Italy.
After the war, Gellhorn divorced Hemingway and lived for a time in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She covered the Vietnam War and the Arab-Israel conflicts in the 1960s and 70s. She was still out at the front reporting the civil wars in Central America at the age of seventy, and incredibly, United States’ invasion of Panama in 1989 at the age of eighty-one. It was only when war came to Bosnia that she decided to quit, announcing that she was “too old” and not “nimble” enough for war anymore.
As Gellhorn entered the late eighties, her eyesight began to fail and she became almost completely blind. She was also suffering from ovarian cancer that had spread to her liver. She committed suicide in 1998, at the age of ninety, by swallowing a cyanide capsule.
[Pictured 1978]
