Iris
Carpenter was
born in England. She became a journalist
and worked as a film critic for the Daily
Express. During the Second World War
she joined the Daily Herald and wrote
about the Blitz in London.
When she was refused permission to cover the war in Europe, she moved
to the United States and became a war correspondent
with the Boston Globe.
Carpenter
accredited to the First Army and arrived in France
four days after the D-Day landings. Soon
afterwards she got into trouble with the authorities after visiting
the Cherbourg beachhead without a proper military escort. As a result
Carpenter and other women reporters were placed under the command
of the Public Relations Division and were told they could not visit
the front-line.
This directive
was later changed and along with Ann
Stringer
she was allowed to travel with the 1st Army and reported the war in
France, Holland,
Belgium and Germany.
This included being at Torgau when the Red Army
and the US
Army joined
up for the first time. She was also with the troops when they liberated
Buchenwald and Dachau.
After the
war she married Russell F. Akers. Her book,
No Woman's World, was published
in 1946.
(1)
Iris Carpenter, Boston Globe (8th March, 1945)
Once in every journalist's life there is a story that is such a thrill
and privilege to tell that anything and everything the getting costs
is more than worthwhile. Such a story is today's.
Though it meant getting
up at 4 a.m. to jeep through driving rain and spewing mud for 13 hours,
getting pinned down under .88 fire, having the wind screen of my jeep
splintered by shellfire, getting sniped at, and finally, having crossed
the Rhine I am unable to tell you anything but the barest bones of
narrative until the security blackout is lifted somewhat. I can only
promise that when detail is possible, it will be one of the greatest
stories of all time, not just of this war.
It began yesterday when,
driving through toward the Rhine River south of Cologne, we reached
the banks to find the situation was not as we had expected to find
it.
Resistance was not the
type we expected-it was such, in fact, that the troops called upon
their commanding officer for a discussion. He heard what they had
to tell him. He put his field telephone back in its leather case with
a terse: "I'll be right down, boys."
The conference - in the
street of as picturesque a Rhine village as ever decorated a wine
label - lasted a matter of minutes. Then the first Allied soldiers
to set foot on the far banks of the blue river, which is anything
but blue in March, whatever it may be at other times of the year,
were on their way to take the first German village on the eastern
shore.
(2)
Iris Carpenter, No Woman's World (1946)
He was lying on his face
in a gateway with his legs tucked into his muddy combat boots that
had scuffed the sand a bit before they stayed still. A coat over the
top of him had sagged into the contourless, sun-dried mush. Hopping
around him was a large, tame, white rabbit that had somehow escaped
from the general holocaust. Browsing beside them was a donkey. Had
it been his own home, the futility of it might have seemed less pitiably
futile. But the few yards of gateway
this man had fought and died so untidily meant nothing to him. And
for those few yards that could never benefit or matter much to his
own country, or to those dear to him and to whom he was dear, he had
to die.
(3)
Iris Carpenter, No Woman's
World (1946)
Time was taken out to bury the men, but carcasses of cattle were everywhere.
I don't know why the sight of a flock of sheep bowled stiffly on their
sides, or a cow with the soft, flabby folds of her neck stretched
taut to the sky, or a horse with his four legs jutting from a bloated
belly, should seem more sadly to highlight the horridness of war than
anything it
does to men. I know only that it did. Maybe it's because animals are
so unresponsible for it all.
(4)
Jack Hazard, Boston Globe (20th March, 1945)
She has made several scoops
of real news that men missed, because of her daring, enthusiasm, originality
and scorn of personal comfort.
(5)
Carlyle Holt, Boston Globe (19th April, 1945)
For months she was one
of a small group of women correspondents who fought for their right
to use the press camps on the same basis as the male correspondents
and she finally shared in the victory for feminine rights. Since that
victory she has stayed regularly with 1st Army.
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