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.

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.

This audio clips 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

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.