Martha Gellhorn

Martha Gellhorn: The Remarkable Pioneering War Correspondent

Martha Gellhorn was the only female reporter on D-Day, the military battle that was the turning point of World War II. Women were not allowed to cover the war but Gellhorn was determined to find a way to be on the frontlines of the action. Passing herself off as a nurse, she stowed away on a hospital ship and as the vessel crossed the English Channel, she locked herself in a bathroom. Two days after the invasion, a small team from the ship, with Gellhorn as a stretcher bearer, made it onto Omaha Beach to retrieve the wounded. Her dispatches from D-Day, which ran in Collier’s, were vivid snapshots of the wounded and of the heroism and tireless efforts of the medics and doctors.

Over her six decade career as a war correspondent, Gellhorn believed in telling the stories of ordinary people, "the sufferers of history." She was on the ground for at least twelve major conflicts, including Vietnam, the Six Day War in the Middle East, and Nicaragua. By one count she had reported from more than 50 countries. The final war she covered, at age 81, was the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. She was “retired” when war broke out in Bosnia in 1992. “Too old,” she conceded. “You have to be nimble to cover war.”