Martha Gellhorn: World

           War II War Correspondent

Martha Gellhorn was born in 1908 in St. Louis, Missouri; named for her maternal grandmother, Martha Ellis, an early suffragist and liberal activist during the 1880s, Martha was well on her way to leading a life of change and illumination through writing.  Young Martha joined her mother, Edna Gellhorn and her mother’s friend, Eleanor Roosevelt in the struggle for female suffrage and women’s rights; vibrant women that sought to positively affect the world around them surrounded Martha from a very early age.1 

Martha Gellhorn attended the prestigious Bryn Mawr College, after graduating, began her career in journalism at The Republic.  Gellhorn’s journalism career really took flight when she landed a position as a correspondent for Collier’s Weekly.  Her first assignment was the Spanish Civil War; during this trip she began honing the skills that would make her a leader in her field.  Early in her career, Gellhorn was known for her ability to unearth the lesser-known stories. 2  She strove to tell the sorrows and the triumphs of the ordinary civilian, living in the midst of a battle-field that was not their doing, and the average soldier, not those of generals and the rich.  She was the champion of the peon and the helpless. 

Gellhorn demonstrated extreme dedication to her profession during the invasion at Normandy.  While her husband Ernest Hemingway was restricted to the bridge of a landing craft, a stealthy Martha snuck her way onto a hospital ship on July 7, 1944.  She crept ashore with the others to gather the wounded that scattered the beach.  During the Battle of the Bulge, a fearless Gellhorn would join a British night fighter in search of a dogfight with the Germans.3  She continued to demonstrate a rash bravery in pursuit of the story throughout her career.  During World War II, she continued to demonstrate her unique skill for digging up the intriguing and enlightening stories of those that could not speak for themselves.  While in London, she interviewed three Poles that had escaped Nazi atrocities; these accounts were some of the first to illuminate the scope and harshness of the Nazi takeover.  Gellhorn’s trademark was her continual visits to military hospitals.  As she had done during the Spanish Civil War, she looked past the horrors of the wounded and instead told their stories.4  By the end of the war, she had reported from virtually every theater, gathering the stories of individuals along the way.5

After World War II and her divorce from the hard-drinking Hemingway, Gellhorn decided to free-lance and end her long relationship as a correspondent for Collier’s Weekly.  She would continue to be a respected reporter for decades to come.  Gellhorn reported from Saigon in 1966 for the British paper, The Guardian.  In her seventies she headed to Central America, reporting on conflicts in Nicaragua and El Salvador and at the age of 81 she reported on the U.S. invasion of Panama.6  A collection of her relentless correspondence of conflicts around the world was compiled in her 1959 book, The Face of War.7 

Gellhorn’s work sheds light on the struggles of those who are rarely asked to reflect or comment on their lives.  Her work gave a voice to those who did not have the means or opportunity to speak for themselves.  Through her efforts she offered a more complete picture of the ugliness of World War II.

1 Carl Rollyson, Beautiful Exile: The Life of Martha Gellhorn, London: Aurum Press, 2001, pp. 4-5.

2 Martha Gellhorn, 1908-1998, accessed Nov. 24, 2005, updated Dec. 3, 1998, available from <http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall98/Bleichwehl/war.htm>; Internet.

3 Martha Gellhorn.

4 Rollyson, pp.146-147.

5 "Reporting American at War," The Reporters, PBS/ WETA 2003, accessed Nov. 14 2005, available from <http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/gellhorn/>; Internet.

6 Martha Gellhorn.

7 "Roporting America at War."