The Woman Who Broke the News of World War II

Clare Hollingworth scooped the world on the invasion of Poland

Clare Hollingworth circa 1940s (Source: Clare Hollingworth Collection)

Any woman wanting to be a war correspondent faced plenty of obstacles. These included a belief they couldn’t handle the stress of warfare and the concerns regarding whether special facilities were necessary. Even if a woman gained access to a war zone, she often was limited to covering the “woman’s angle” or stories about civilians behind the front lines. Yet a British woman scooped the world in reporting the outbreak of World War II.

Born in 1911, Clare Hollingworth lived on a farm near Leicester, England. Her parents insisted she attend Leicester Domestic Science College, which she said “caused me to hate having anything to do with housework.” So instead, she told her parents she’d like to be a journalist, which they considered a “frightfully low” occupation.

Hollingworth took an intensive course in internal relations in Geneva. By 1934, she was a regional organizing secretary for the League of Nations Union, a peace group established in Britain in 1918. She earned a scholarship to the School of Slavonic Studies at London University. In 1938, she went to Czechoslovakia to help refugees fleeing Austria following Nazi Germany’s annexation.