Female War Correspondents 'Race For Paris' To Cover World War II

This is KPBS midday edition, I am Maureen Cavanaugh. Is than 70 years since the end of World War II. The surviving veterans are passing down their memories and histories of what happened during the war, the way most of us will ever know what it was like it's from pictures. Photographs and newsreels taken by journalists, these were correspondence of document at the battles, the victims and the victories not only for the people back home, but for posterity. Among the hundreds of men who reported on the war, there were a few women and it's their story that is told in a new novel called the race prepares. Joining the Meg Waite Clayton, author, "The Race to Paris" -- joining me,. You list the women journalists would not be kept away from the war even though the military often tried to keep them away. What was about their stories that treat you? That's a good question. I will tell you the story started with the photojournalist Martha Despina Margaret were quite. Something I rated her P that was about motherhood to get the idea for the story. I don't want to say too much more than that because it may give away some of the narrative drive of the story. It got me thinking about the women who cover war and how that impacts their life and their desire to have the kind of life we all have. That's where it all started. Apparently the women were correspondence were constantly being told no. Yes that's true.[ Laughter ] There told no by their editors, the military, sometimes their families. What were some of the things they were not allowed to do officially? It may be easier to list of the things they were allowed to do. When they first started allowing women correspondence to be accredited to the war at all, what they were allowed to cover it was the women's angle. They usually meant they could go to London but not further. Was very hard to get to the Normandy invasion. There are some extraordinary women correspondence who was chosen as the one correspondent from all the press to represent all the papers and magazines I'm planning information, the press coverage of the invasion, that was standing shows that highly regarded among her peers, she is not allowed to cover Normandy because she was a woman. Their email correspondence you talk about how they are accredited for service with the US military. Yet, the people correspondence don't necessarily always have the same privileges. The privileges are very different. Every correspondent in the world was assigned to the unit -- military unit of some sort. The men were assigned to the first Army. They were housed in press caps weather received twice daily briefings. The women by contrast were generally assigned to small units like a field hospital or the Red Cross don't girls. They were not provided jeeps, facilities, the men for example were allowed to cover the war, they bring up their story and handed over to the sensors, it would be censored there. They could work on making it makes sense and that it would be wired off. The women their work with my pouch to London where it was censored. Overslept did make sense -- what was left did not make sense. I am speaking with Meg Waite Clayton, author, "The Race to Paris". Tell us about your main characters. Linda Harper is an ambitious photojournalist. She comes to Normandy the way you would think a female journalist might come to drone -- to remedy. She is intent of being where the action is a break all the rules in order to make her career. At the other end of the spectrum is Jane Tyler. She is a national gal the wrong side of the tracks. She gets to war but backing into a. She's a secretary at the Nashville Banner win the war takes out, the mill correspondence start to go to war to cover the war fight in the war. They need reporters so she first steps up to be a reporter because they asked her to. Then when the newspaper owner's wife once a lady correspondent, she is the one who sent. There also engaging male characters in the book. Letters of British military photographer. He knows live before the war begins. Is been very close with her husband. Lenape bump into each other in Normandy, takes them under his wing. He has a Jeep, they had no transportation and they need a Jeep. The story is called a race for Paris. Tells about the determination to cover the liberation of Paris from [ NULL ] occupation. Was an actual race for Paris among war correspondence? There wasn't. I first learned about the term and Andy Rooney's memoir. He wrote for the Stars & Stripes during the war. He talks about this very spirited competition among the journalists to be the first into Paris. It was all in good fun. They all wanted to do it, but also it was a very dangerous because she would go in with the troops and much as we think of the liberation of Paris as the goal walking down the shop sees a suspect does the day after liberation. The day of liberation of Paris, their tanks in the streets writing tree to tree. It was a real dangerous thing to want to be the first to report from Paris. Remind us why the liberation of Paris was so significant. What did it say about the war and how the war was going? I start the book with the epigraph written I went at the correspondence. It captures the spirit. She says I would give anything to be part of the invasion and see Paris right at the beginning and watch the peace. The liberation of Paris wasn't the end of the war. It was another almost a year before Germany was taken and relentless retaken. Somehow, I think everyone had it in their minds that if the allies could win back Paris they would win the war. It was a real psychological turning point for the war. And speaking with Meg Waite Clayton, author, "The Race to Paris". The level of detail in the book is remarkable. You describe how the cameras worked, how journalists slept under their beds during Sean. House see rats tasted. Can you tell us how you did your research. This is always been fascinating for me for a long long time. The way the research for novel is different than you learn history in school. You learn history by where people were when and where the battles were. When you're looking at presenting a story of journalists on the ground in France, you're looking at what exactly was the press cap they stayed in? It turns out there are very nice shut those. You look at what the food taste like. The way you do that is a lot of different ways. I went to Paris several times. Date for a month each time. A lot of the research, my aunt was there with her across site talked to that person told me a lot of little details. She gave me the details of how they went over. A lot of it is what I thought was completely fascinating for me, reading the letters of the journalists who were there. You get so much detail, it's a lost art, during the war they all wrote letters home and you learned all those little details about the specifics that make it seem real. There is a scene early on were as nurses talk to a badly injured soldier trying desperately to keep him alive. The story about nurses and their part in the war, we often don't hear much about either. Is that why you want to include that? The reason I started the book for the women journalists at the field hospital was because that was where female journalists started. That's where they were stationed and they had to break the rules, go AWOL in order to cover the war. I wanted to show them breaking the rules and going off. Also in doing that scene, I did a lot of research on what it was like for the nurses and what a huge contribution they made to the war. That was really inspiring. I wanted to show that particular scene, there's a scene in the autobiography where she's covering an operating room in Normandy in the early days. It inspired that scene. What kind of debt do think the women journalists of today have to the women who did the things like your characters do in the book? The period right before the liberation of Paris was a huge turning point for women and less. One of the things that happened, women were prohibited from covering the fighting. What they did was broke the rules and went on to cover the fighting, covering all the details of the same way the men dead. They produced some of the most extraordinary journalism of the war. One took a shot that turned out to be a shot of the first use of napalm during the war. All sorts of things they did. What happened after that was the military recognized they were making a huge contribution to the war. After the liberation of Paris, they started accrediting women to the front. That is the beginning of legitimate war correspondence being able to cover the war instead of being prohibited. What part of the race for Paris was the most fun for you to write? I would say for me, writing the scene of the liberation of Paris. Writing that particular scene was incredibly joyful because even though the people who went in were fired upon, the Parisians came out in droves to greet the troops and threw flowers and kissed and hugged. It was just this incredibly joyful moment. That just bubbled over into the writing of its. It was very terrific. If it were 70 years ago, would you have wanted to join your characters in the race for Paris? It's interesting what happens during war. When it things I really liked about exploring these women issue take them like one who stowed away on hospital to cover the Normandy invasion. She was arrested and had to hop the fence in the place where she was confined and hitched a ride to Italy and covered the rest of the war without her credential. She seems larger-than-life. If you peek behind the curtain, you find she is -- as a girl she would hide in the courtroom in dance class rather than be passed over by the voice. When you find that out, you think yes, she is somebody who is not that different from me and maybe in the circumstances that she was put in in the war, I may have done that to. Author Meg Waite Clayton, author, "The Race to Paris" will be at Warwick's tonight at 730. Thank you for having me.