In this rich and evocative history, journalist Mackrell (The Unfinished Palazzo) profiles six women who reported on World War II: Sigrid Schultz, Virginia Cowles, Martha Gellhorn, Helen Kirkpatrick, Lee Miller, and Clare Hollingworth (all white, all American, save for one Briton). Often denied official accreditation and hampered by sexist assumptions about their abilities to handle the rigors of the frontline, these women journalists were present at every stage of the war on the fronts in the Balkans, Greece, North Africa, and Italy. They firmly established their reputations wherever they reported. Hollingworth wrote perhaps the first report of the outbreak of the war, having learned that German forces were about to invade Poland. Schultz witnessed the Nazi rise to power from Berlin and in the process became the first woman bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune. Gellhorn braved bombings, shelling, and rifle fire to report from the front lines of the Spanish Republicans, while Cowles managed to sneak into Nationalist Spain to get stories that many reporters considered impossible to get. Kirkpatrick was the first woman to report from an Allied war zone, and Miller covered the liberation and horror of concentration camps soon after the first troops arrived. Based on diaries, journals, and private papers, this title complements works such as The Women with Silver Wings, by Katherine Sharp Landdeck. VERDICT A must-read for those interested in women's history and the Second World War.--Chad E. Statler, Westlake Porter P.L., Westlake, OH

Every bit as courageous and determined, fearless and clever, competitive and ruthless as their male counterparts, the female correspondents who covered WWII not only broke down barriers for their gender within the field of journalism, they also set the bar for professional women across all walks of life. Virginia Cowles, Martha Gellhorn, Clare Hollingworth, Helen Kirkpatrick, Lee Miller, and Sigrid Schultz were arguably the most noteworthy of their cohort, but they were by no means the only women who risked their lives and reputations to report on the complicated events that were surging around the globe during the turbulent and tragic war years. Author, critic and journalist Mackrell (The Unfinished Palazzo, 2017) adopts a you-are-there intimacy as she brings readers behind the front lines, from the emergence of distressing prewar omens in Berlin in 1936 to the horrific humanitarian crisis straining post-liberation Europe. In this dazzling, insightful, engrossing, and multifaceted group biography, Mackrell reveals the enormous physical, emotional, and professional obstacles each woman encountered and the astonishing ingenuity each employed to confront and overcome those challenges.

An account of six pioneering women who worked as war journalists in World War II. Mackrell's chosen six came from different backgrounds though they all ended up writing for British or American news outlets. Some, like Martha Gellhorn, who was married to Ernest Hemingway; or Lee Miller, a popular fashion photographer and Vogue cover model, were already public figures. The others--Virginia Cowles, Clare Hollingworth, Helen Kirkpatrick, and Sigrid Schultz--made their marks with their intrepid reporting. All had barriers to overcome, many the result of outright misogyny (they constantly battled "sexually predatory officers or over-entitled male journalists"), and none of them backed away from dangerous assignments. Mackrell gives enough background on each to show how they became journalists--for most of them, well before the war--and how their initial beats were traditionally "feminine" subjects--e.g., society columns, fashion, or the "woman's angle" on a topic of broader interest. Nonetheless, the persistence, determination, and daring led them to cover the Spanish Civil War (Gellhorn and Cowles), Berlin during Hitler's rise to power (Schultz), or the experiences of frontline troops in Europe or North Africa (Hollingsworth and Kirkpatrick). Schultz, writes the author, "could not yet take Hitler seriously as a politician: he seemed to her a crude 'fascist bugbear,' a 'demagogue drunk on his own word.' " This is incredibly rich material, and Mackrell makes the most of it, showing Gellhorn stowing away on a hospital ship to cover the D-Day landings or Miller taking a bath in Hitler's tub, an incident immortalized in a famous photograph. The author also describes the reporters' outraged responses to the concentration camps, which several of them saw shortly after the liberation. Mackrell concludes with a brief summary of the women's postwar careers, capping off an exhilarating read packed with emotion and genuine humanity. A vivid portrayal of six remarkable women who made history reporting on World War II. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

WWII was "the defining opportunity for female correspondents," according to this immersive and revealing group biography. Guardian journalist Mackrell (Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation) follows correspondents Sigrid Schultz, Helen Kirkpatrick, Martha Gellhorn, Virginia Cowles, Clare Hollingworth, and photographer Lee Miller from Berlin in the 1930s, where Chicago Tribune bureau chief Schultz cultivated Nazi leader Hermann Göring as a source, to the 1947 Paris Peace Conference, where Gellhorn and Kirkpatrick feared that the same mistakes that failed to resolve the tensions of WWI were being made. Sparkling quotations from the reportage are woven throughout (Gellhorn once wrote that British prime minister Neville Chamberlain had a "face like a nutcracker and a soul like a weasel"), and colorful biographical details shed light on the correspondents' defiance of conventions and "basic hunger for action." Miller was a Vogue model before she picked up the camera, Mackrell notes, while Gellhorn stowed away in the bathroom of a hospital ship to be the first woman reporter to cover the Normandy landings. Secondary characters including Ernest Hemingway, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Clare Boothe Luce make entertaining appearances, and Mackrell lucidly sketches military and political matters. The result is a rousing portrait of women who not only reported on history, but made it themselves. (Nov.)