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Women correspondents accredited by the US Army: Mary Welsh, Dixie Tighe, Kathleen Harriman, Helen Kirkpatrick, Lee Miller, and Tania Long
Seventy years ago, a group of American women journalists made history when they covered the greatest story of their generation. They called them the D-Day Dames.
"It is necessary that I report on this war," writer Martha Gellhorn fumed in an angry letter to military authorities. "I do not feel there is any need to beg as a favour for the right to serve as the eyes for millions of people in America who are desperately in need of seeing, but cannot see for themselves."
She was writing from London in June 1944, where she and other women war correspondents gathered in anticipation of the Normandy landings on the French coast which marked the start of a major offensive against Germany.
Like any major news event today, there was an extraordinary buzz among journalists waiting in the city, hanging out in hotels such as the elegant Dorchester in the heart of London.
And a group of US women, gutsy and glamorous, was part of it - they were fighting their own battles on every front to overcome the ban on women going to the front lines in the Second World War.
"They were all watching each other and there was a huge sense of competitiveness," wrote Martha Gellhorn's biographer Caroline Moorehead. "Even Martha who was not very interested in scoops was affected by this huge sense of excitement."
For more & great pics:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27677889
