Journalists who covered the Normandy landings faced machismo and “forgetfulness”

The reporters who covered the Landing of Normandy 80 years ago, journalists Experienced and exceptional photographers, they had to circumvent the prohibitions imposed on women by the Allies. But their firsts did not bring them the same success as their male counterparts.

On the morning of June 6, 1944, Martha Gellhorn learned, like other journalists working in London, that the operation had been launched “Overlord”: In a few hours, the ships of the Allied forces would dock in Normandy, on the west coast of France.

Gellhorn rushes to the coast, despite the little hope she had of boarding: SHAEF, the Allied military headquarters, strictly prohibited female journalists from approaching the front.

The American journalist “evaded military controls by posing as a Red Cross nurse,” says Caroline Moorehead, his biographer. When the exit siren sounded, she locked herself… in the bathroom.

“She had to be clever, but she did it: it seems that Martha was the only female journalist (who) was able to land on the beaches of Normandy,” adds Moorehead, author of “Martha Gellhorn: a life.”

The reporter paid her “fearlessness”since the SHAEF detained her upon her return to London and prohibited her from returning to Normandy.

Another journalist was also “punished for her audacity”: On June 6, 1944, American Lee Carson convinced a fighter pilot to take her over the beaches of Normandy and obtained an exceptional aerial view of the landing, says Nancy Caldwell Sorel, author of “The Women Who Wrote War.”

As soon as she landed, SHAEF summoned her to a disciplinary council. Lee Carson fled.

“Of course I knew” which was prohibited, says the International News Agency (INS) journalist, quoted by Sorel. “But my job was to cover the information.”

Lee Miller, renowned photographer for the British edition of Vogue, was in Saint-Malo, a city on the French Atlantic coast, then in German hands, when it was about to fall in August 1944.

His photos of the devastated city went around the world, but, “as punishment”the army put her under house arrest, her son, Antony Penrose, tells AFO. “It was scandalous and stupid, she was just doing her job.”Explain. “A man in his position would have been congratulated”says.

military machismo

“At that time, the army had a visceral fear of a female journalist dying on the front, believing that this meant that the men failed to protect her.”says Denis Ruellan, journalism historian.

The reporters had to “disobeying, often fighting against the moral order embodied by generals, commanders: always men.”

Sexism is one of their main obstacles, remember. “The army claimed that soldiers would feel +disturbed+ by the presence of female reporters, which was tantamount to sexualizing them.”

On its website, the American Air Museum describes Lee Carson as “the prettiest” of the journalists, who “used” his charm to obtain favors. Another obstacle was that their male colleagues did not hesitate to put obstacles in their way, like Ernest Hemingway.

The writer and journalist, married to Martha Gellhorn, obtained an accreditation just before the Landings from Collier’s, the magazine for which his wife worked, Moorehead recalls. However, Hemingway only saw the fighting of the Normandy Landings from afar, unlike Gellhorn.

Hate and oblivion

Despite the difficulties, the journalists obtained exclusive information, infuriating their colleagues. “I hated her”“she obtained scoops that men could not achieve,” the rivals of Iris Carpenter, correspondent for several British media and present in Normandy since June 10, 1944, reported in The Boston Globe in 1945.

However, “the names of these great journalists fell into oblivion,” laments Ruellan.

When World War II ended, “the male journalists returned triumphant, with careers on the rise”while “women were often reassigned to secondary tasks”, he indicates. Others returned “traumatized by what they saw”. “They left journalism to leave the war”says.