Remembering Audacious Women on D-Day
As we celebrate the eightieth anniversary of D-Day, let’s also remember some heroic women.
During World War II, nearly 350,000 American women served in uniform for the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Airforce.
In October 1942, American women, as members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (“WASPS”), began ferrying aircraft from factories to various US airfields. Women ultimately ferried over 50 percent of the combat aircraft within the US. They flew the B-29 Superfortress, one of which was used to drop the atom bombs on Japan, as well as P-51 Mustang fighters. In October 1944, when it appeared that the Allies would be successful, the army notified the 1,074 women who were graduates of the WASP training program that their group had been disbanded because they were no longer needed. Thirty-eight women had been killed in service. However, they were considered civilians, so they were never entitled to the pay and benefits that the men received. In 1977, the WAPS finally received veteran status, and in 2010, they received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor given by US Congress. https://apnews.com/article/world-war-ii-international-news-france-europe-bd08bfc199e34d7bb1cfb6addb0cd16d
Within two or three days of D-Day, American nurses had also made it to shore to care for the wounded. Nurse Leila Morrison served in an evacuation hospital after 160,000 men landed on the Normandy beaches. She was 22 at the time, having just finished nursing school. She says the experience has “stayed with her over the years,” commenting that “she would do it again.” https://apnews.com/article/world-war-ii-international-news-france-europe-bd08bfc199e34d7bb1cfb6addb0cd16d.
In 1944, women were ineligible for combat duty, however, Martha Gellhorn, a war correspondent, managed to join the troops on the beaches on D-Day. Martha’s mother was a suffragist, taking Martha to rallies as early as the age of 8. Martha briefly attended Bryn Mawr College, but left in 1927 to become a journalist and writer. In the 1930s, she joined with Dorothea Lange to photograph the Great Depression. Documenting the hardships of families prepared her for the “tough topics” she would face as a foreign correspondent. In 1936, she met Ernest Hemingway on a family vacation. She then received a request from Collier’s to cover the Spanish Civil War, and soon joined Hemingway overseas. She covered bombings, soldiers in hospitals, and life in the frontline trenches. When Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and Finland, she covered the “brutal oppression of the Gestapo in Prague” and documented what she saw in her book, A Stricken Field, published in 1968. In December 1940, she married Hemingway (she was his third wife) and soon took Hemingway along, on their honeymoon, to China to report on Japanese transgressions. Returning to Cuba, Hemingway preferred to stay there during the early years of World War II, and wanted Martha to remain there with him. However, in 1943, Martha traveled to Italy to cover stories of orphans and the French Army resistance against the Germans. In 1944, Hemingway, knowing that Martha wanted to cover the Allied war effort in Europe, convinced Collier’s to give press credentials to him rather than Martha, and traveled to England. Martha, understandably “furious,” took a vessel that she later said was loaded with explosives to cross the Atlantic. In England, Martha soon focused on local war stories. At the time, she was one of only 100 female war correspondents. On June 6, 1944, she traveled to the British coastline, found a hospital ship, lied to the British military police, telling them that she was covering the stories of nurses on board, stowed away in a bathroom to cross the English Channel, then gained access to a water ambulance as it headed for Omaha Beach. She was the only woman who helped medics get wounded men on board the ambulance. She later interviewed soldiers on the hospital ship. Meanwhile, Hemingway obeyed the restriction that the press not cross the Channel, and glimpsed D-Day from afar. Unfortunately, after D-Day, Martha was arrested by the British military police and whatever credentials she had were taken away. She did reobtain her press credentials, and covered the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of Dachau. She was described as having “incredible strength and perseverance. Through her writing, she was able to show how war’s devastation impacts all parts of life.” Later she covered the Arab-Israeli War, the Vietnam War, and the Invasion of Panama. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/martha-gellhorn-eyewitness-war. https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/hemingway/martha-gellhorn. https://www.jfklibrary.org/hemingway/martha-gellhorn-hemingway.
During World War II, more than 640,000 women served in Great Britain’s armed forces. Marie Scott, who only had formal education through age 13, had become a switchboard operator, and wanted something more than scurrying around in the land army. In February 1944, as D-Day was being planned, Britain found Marie’s training to be invaluable. She became a Wren (“Women’s Royal Naval Service” known as “Wren”), and was posted to the communications “nerve centre” in Portsmouth, England. Ongoing communications had become essential, and Marie served in a crucial role as a switchboard operator to ensure Allied success. She was on duty for 48 hours, then slept in a bunk on premises for 24 hours, until her next shift began. When she had a break, she came above ground and enjoyed the country house and gardens near Fareham. In recounting her effort on D-Day, Marie said “we knew something was happening, something major, but I can’t remember if we were ever given any details.” As she worked away, she came to learn that she was “sending messages directly through to the commanders on the French beaches.” At times, she heard “loud, sustained gunfire. I could hear it very clearly, and I was terrified. …. [T]his was war, and men were dying.” Once the Allied forces moved beyond the beaches into France, she and others became more optimistic. She was 17. Reflecting upon her service, she states “I was a minute part of that momentous day, which still gives me immense pride.” https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/stories/part-of-that-momentous-day-working-on-d-day (In article, her name is Marie Garcia); https://apnews.com/article/dday-80th-anniversary-women-radio-operator-scott-a75be56fdd7a17b0ec85f1bfe1a67bf1 (2024 article states her name is Marie Scott.)
Let’s us toast these trailblazers!