I told the story of Lee Miller’s wartime reporting in a Radio 4 archive documentary called D Day Dames, and her life was celebrated in the current film Lee, starring Kate Winslet. My documentary was narrated by the BBC’s Lyse Doucet and featured the D Day experiences of about American women war correspondents who covered the D Day landings in Normandy June 1944 - Lee Miller was one, and her experience during the seige of St Malo is captured in the photographs of her below.

This audio clip and others on this post, are from an interview I recorded with her son, Anthony Penrose and a recording of her grand-daughter, Ammi, readings from Lee Miller’s report for Vogue of what happened in St Malo

Miller’s reporting in Normandy was marked by her experiences in St Malo - she arrived there in August 1944 and by coincidence this August I found myself in St Malo on August 14th, the same date that Miller was there. The town had assembled an exhibition of her photographic record of that time - St Malo under Siege - which included two of the images I had used to illustrate my documentary ten years earlier - photographs taken of her by a fellow photographer, Dave Scherman, of Miller and GI soldiers among the bombed out ruins of the town.

At the start of the war Lee Miller was in London, working for Vogue - in the documentary, Lyse recounts how she had been a model originally - her son Anthony Penrose explains how she recorded scenes in wartime London.

Lee Miller went on to cross Europe - one of her most famous images is of her posing in Hitler’s bath. War reporters like her battled against the odds to be war correspondents covering the story - they included Martha Gellhorn who smuggled herself onto a hospital ship without official approval - she had been married to Ernest Hemmingway and had been determined to get to France before him - which she did.

War reporters like her battled against the odds to be war correspondents covering the story - D Day Dames recounts their stories, including the account of how Martha Gellhorn smuggled herself onto a hospital ship without official approval. She had been married to Ernest Hemmingway and had been determined to get to France before him - which she did. They met again in Paris after that city was liberated.