The Only Woman on the Beaches of Normandy by Kayleigh Hunter

Martha had written various stories about the lives and tribulations of the American people. Then in 1937 she wrote a piece on the Spanish Civil War and that was the moment she realized that writing about war and the true impact it has on civilians and soldiers alike was her calling. From then on out she became a renowned war correspondent. Seeing the devastation and destruction that war brought, Martha had a burning desire to share the truth of the matter to American readers, and the Normandy landings were no different. When the news came that the Allies were going to storm the beaches of Normandy, Martha did not waste any time securing a press pass from Collier Magazine, a company she had been working with since 1937. They agreed and she was one step closer to going to Normandy. She reached out to fellow writer and friend Roald Dahl, who helped her secure a sponsorship to have her plane ticket paid for by the Royal Air Force, so long as she agreed to write about them positively in her next piece. Having all the necessary documents ready, Martha was all set to head to Normandy. That is until her husband got in the way. Martha had married novelist Ernist Hemingway four years earlier in 1940, but by the time of the Normandy Landings the relationship had started to sour, and either out of jealousy, anger or spite, he went straight to Collier Magazine and demanded he be given Martha’s press spot. As he was a famous novelist, the company figured they couldn’t miss the opportunity to publish a piece by him, so they agreed and gave him Martha’s plane ticket and press pass. Furious with Hemingway, Martha was even more determined than ever to get to Normandy. Dressed as a navy nurse, Martha stowed away in the bathroom of a hospital ship heading to Europe. As the ship drew closer to the beaches of Normandy, Martha was overwhelmed by the size of the invasion, and the devastation surrounding them. On the 7th June, when night fell, Martha made her way onto the shores, which she describes in her book The Face of War ‘we waded ashore in water to our waists, having agreed that we would assemble the wounded from this area on board a beached LST and wait until the tide allowed the water ambulance to come back and call for us’. Still without her press pass, Martha used her nurse’s outfit to her advantage and started helping to carry wounded soldiers off the beach and back to the safety of the ships with the aid of stretcher bearers. As she helped the soldiers, she made mental notes about her surroundings and the events taking place, so she could write about them later. She noted every little detail, from the stones under her feet, to the chatter that some of the soldiers had with her, mostly asking where in the states she was from. She noted how each soldier carried on board the hospital ship conducted themselves. Some were relieved that they no longer had to fight, some were focusing on other comrades on board forgetting about their own pain, some cracking jokes, and some were lost in their own thoughts, but all so grateful to be away from the horrors on the beaches. The two days whilst she was at Normandy on the hospital ship, she provided coffee, sandwiches and cigarettes to wounded soldiers, and let the ones who wanted to talk, share their stories. She also notes in her book The Face of War, that the hospital ship took on board soldiers from both sides, with Germans and Austrian solders ultimately becoming prisoners of war. After the ship returned to England, Martha continued to report on the war happening in Europe. She was one of the only writers, let alone female writer, to witness the liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp on the 29th April 1945, and when she finally returned to the USA with a plane full of rescued American prisoners of war, her view of the world had changed forever.