♪♪ Narrator: D-Day.

The invasion of Europe.

For every reporter and photographer, it's the story of the year.

Mackrell: The war had been going on for so long, and this felt like the moment where finally they were gonna push back against the Germans and finally Hitler was gonna be on the run.

Narrator: But press access to the D-Day fleet is heavily restricted.

Especially to women.

One journalist stuck in London is American Martha Gellhorn.

She is determined not to miss out on the scoop of the year.

She manages to get on a train down to one of the southern ports.

In the confusion, she is able to persuade one of the military police guarding the port that she's been allowed to write a story about some of the American nurses who are just about to cross the Channel on one of the hospital ships, so she walks up the gang plank, no one questions her, and she's on board.

Narrator: Martha finds a lavatory, locks the door, and waits.

After a couple of heart-stopping hours, she hears the anchor weigh, the ship's engine starts and she's off, she's crossing the Channel.

There's no one can stop her now.

Narrator: Martha Gellhorn was just one of the many women who fought prejudice and hostility to be alongside men on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific... to get their boots on the ground.

This is their story.

The enlistment officer initially says that she should be a nurse and she says, "No, I'm going to be a sniper and I'm going to fight the Nazis."

[ Gunshot ] Before battle, she would take the time to powder her nose, to put on lipstick, and she would make her men under her command wait for her to do this before battle.

Mackrell: Lee has put her boots on Hitler's bathmat.

They're still covered with the mud of Dachau.

She's saying, to this monster, "You've created these nightmares, and yet I've trampled all over you."

♪♪ ♪♪ Narrator: The Second World War was unlike any previous conflict.

It was total war.

Miller: Total war is essentially war that involves everybody, and the fighting front, Where in previous wars, world War I, it would've been a far off place, but in the Second World War, the fighting front is brought home.

So everywhere you go, every moment of every day, you are essentially on the front line.

Narrator: Women across the globe wanted to play a full part and fight with the men.

But often prejudice and social convention stopped them.

One Allied nation was an inspiration.

Stalin's Soviet Union was a brutal dictatorship, but equality of the sexes remained inscribed in the constitution.

Ghodsee: By the 1930s, despite some of the reversals of the earlier, more liberal policies, it was a fundamental tenant of the Soviet Union that men and women were equal and they should be treated equally, even with regard to military service.

Narrator: That ideal would prove crucial when world war came to the Eastern Front.

♪♪ June 1941.

Nazi Germany launches a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union, known as Operation Barbarossa, an all-out attack along Russia's 1,800-mile European border.

♪♪ Operation Barbarossa is one of the hugest military operations that's ever been mounted.

It completely surprises the world because until that point, Hitler and Stalin were technically allies.

Narrator: By August, Germany and their Romanian allies had penetrated deep into the Soviet Republic of Ukraine, and surrounded the strategically important city of Odessa.

But the defenders had an ace up their sleeve... 25-year-old sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko.

♪♪ ♪♪ From a young age, Ukrainian-born Lyudmila was fascinated by guns.

Ghodsee: She heard a boy boasting about his shooting ability.

She thought she could do better than this boy.

So she goes to the shooting range for the first time and really discovers that she has a remarkable aptitude for sharp shooting.

Narrator: Lyudmila won multiple competitions and trained as a sniper.

When war broke out, she saw her chance to defend the motherland.

But at first she wasn't taken seriously.

Ghodsee: They wanted her to be a nurse.

They said that women were probably better in these more support medical positions, but in fact Lyudmila has her training certificate and her medals from her marksmanship competitions, and she dumps them out, apparently, on the table and says, "No, I'm going to be a sniper and I'm going to fight the Nazis."

Narrator: Lyudmila was immediately recruited.

She would become one of 2,000 female snipers who served the Red Army in World War II.

But at this early stage of the war, the Soviets were ill-equipped for these female fighters.

She's only sent out to the front with literally one hand grenade in order to fight because the Soviets have massive equipment shortages.

There aren't enough guns to go around.

And so there's a priority to give the guns to the male soldiers But eventually one of her comrades dies and she inherits a rifle and is very quickly on the front lines opening up her tally.

Narrator: On the 8th of August 1941, using her dead comrade's rifle, Lyudmila made her first two kills.

MacLeod: This is exactly the type of rifle that Lyudmila would've been gifted, the Mosin-Nagant 1891/30.

It became the standard infantry rifle of the Soviet Army.

It was designed to be utilitarian.

So it's quite simple.

It's quite basic and rugged.

Narrator: Despite the rifle's simplicity, it was fitted with a sophisticated telescopic sight.

Easy-to-turn dials meant the target crosshairs could be adjusted to changing weather, even in the depths of a Russian winter.

The engineers knew that they need to make this easy to use, even if you are in winter clothing.

You don't need any secondary piece of equipment to be able to adjust the windage or elevation on the crosshairs of the sight.

Narrator: But using the dials out in the field could attract attention.

It took a true professional to operate the gun without making adjustments.

MacLeod: An experienced sniper, they can make a mental adjustment whether they have to shoot high to the left, to the right, just through the thousands of shots that they fired in those weather conditions.

Narrator: Get it wrong and a sniper might easily miss.

[ Gunshots ] But a sharpshooter like Lyudmila could fine-tune their shot in seconds with pinpoint accuracy.

♪♪ ♪♪ In late summer 1941, with the Germans and Romanians besieging Odessa, Lyudmila's mission was to get closer to the enemy than the regular army could.

Operating in pairs, snipers would comb no-man's land for targets, hiding themselves, sometimes for days, in the wasteland of bombed-out buildings.

The point of it is to sort of terrorise the enemy, to make them insecure, to make it difficult for them to relax, to sleep, to smoke, to do anything.

They are literally being hunted.

Narrator: As well as the physical demands, being a sniper took huge mental strength.

They can see the people that they're killing close-up through the sights of their guns.

So you have to be able to look at somebody in your sight, another human being, and pull the trigger and watch that person die.

[ Gunshot ] Narrator: In two months of fighting in Odessa, Lyudmila killed over 180 enemy soldiers.

But despite her skill, the Germans overran the city.

Her unit was withdrawn to another fierce battleground -- the Crimean city of Sevastopol.

Here, Lyudmila continued to shine.

This time, with new husband and fellow sniper Alexei Kitsenko, who she nicknamed "the Viking."

Woman: ♪ I built a castle and I put you on the throne ♪ ♪ I went to battle just to make you feel at home ♪ Ghodsee: And they spend a few months together sniping, hunting.

She's ridiculously happy during this period of time.

She says that never before had she felt real love, never had she been so happy in her life.

Narrator: But it wasn't to last.

On a spring morning in 1942, a shell exploded near the couple, mortally injuring Kitsenko.

Lyudmila was devastated and vowed to have her revenge.

Woman: ♪ I'mma keep on the attack now ♪ ♪ Better be watching your back now ♪ ♪ You were the first and the last now ♪ ♪ I won't be letting it go ♪ Narrator: Lyudmila was true to her word.

By June 1942, she had reached 309 kills, more than any other female sniper.

This was something that the Soviet propaganda machine was keen to exploit.

Lyudmila became the poster girl for the Red Army and was given the nickname "Lady Death."

Ghodsee: She becomes somewhat of a celebrity, so much so that the Germans become aware of her, and they alternately try to seduce her saying, "Lyudmila Pavlichenko, you know, come to our side and we'll give you lots of chocolate."

Or they threaten to cut her into 309 pieces.

And she's really actually thrilled that they know her count, which I think is really funny.

Narrator: Stalin had plans for his celebrity sniper.

He believed Lyudmila could help change the course of the war.

In the summer of 1942, he sent her on a propaganda tour of the United States to persuade President Roosevelt to open a second front in Europe.

The illusive sniper finally breaks cover.

Stalin gets increasingly agitated that America is seemingly not doing enough for the war effort.

So part of the reason behind Lyudmila's propaganda drive in the United States is Stalin's way of kind of saying, "Look, I've even got women like this fighting for me.

What are you guys doing?"

This was a great opportunity for positive propaganda to tell the American people why they were involved in this war and to really get the public behind the war effort.

Narrator: Lyudmila became the first Soviet woman ever to visit the White House.

As a mark of the sniper's status, her guide was the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

But reporters didn't know what to make of this female killer.

They found her to be a bit unusual, a bit odd.

She was this exotic Soviet creature that they couldn't quite figure out.

Narrator: Lyudmila was asked impertinent questions by the reporters.

Ghodsee: One of the women says, "But that uniform makes you look fat, or don't you care?"

And of course, Lyudmila is just absolutely outraged.

She's like, "This is the uniform of the Red Army.

It is like been sanctified by the blood of my comrades.

I don't have time to care about the cut of my uniform."

Narrator: At a rally in Chicago she told reporters, "I have killed 309 fascist invaders.

Don't you think that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?"

When she returned to the Soviet Union, Lyudmila did not go back to the front line.

Having been injured four times, she spent the rest of the war training the next generation of snipers.

And after the Allied victory in 1945, she lived a quiet life as an academic.

But Lyudmila had changed history.

Ghodsee: I think we should remember Lyudmila Pavlichenko because of her amazing kill count as a sniper, but also her tour of the United States with the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, I think actually ended up being quite a catalyst for women's rights in the United States.

Even though she may not have been specifically responsible for the opening of a second front, it certainly opened the West's mind and increased public opinion in favour of these activities, which I think in the end, helped defeat the Nazis.

Narrator: Although British women were not allowed to carry guns, when the Second Front was finally launched in June 1944, they too were at the heart of the action.

D-Day.

The long-awaited Second Front.

Operation Overlord is the Allied invasion of Northern Europe, and the reason why it's taking place is to rid the world of Nazism.

It's that simple.

If it fails, it means that Adolf Hitler will stay in power in all likelihood until the day he dies.

Narrator: Despite the success of the invasion, casualties mounted.

The best way to transport British and American troops was by revolutionary air ambulance, in aircraft like the Dakota.

They were crewed by nursing orderlies from the WAAF, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, like 27 year-old Corporal Lydia Alford.

♪♪ ♪♪ Lydia served with 233 Squadron at RAF Blakehill Farm.

Like the other WAAF nurses, she had undergone a specialist six-week training course.

Many had never flown before.

And because British women weren't allowed to take a combat role, none had served in a battle zone.

They're trained to fly an aircraft in dreadful conditions.

They're given dinghy training, which is the training if your aircraft ditches in the sea, that you get out and get your patients out and get them into a dinghy.

Among the skills that they had to learn was how to treat battle-zone injuries.

So this could include burns, fractures.

They had to learn how to administer treatment at altitude, the physiological effects of altitude on the patients.

Narrator: The first women to fly to Normandy were Lydia Alford and Leading Aircraft Women Myra Roberts and Edna Birkbeck.

They arrived a week after D-Day and immediately started collecting the most severely wounded men straight from makeshift field hospitals.

Their bravery soon captured the public's imagination.

They had a really great picture taken of them the first time that they landed.

And the press who'd gathered around them dubbed them the Flying Nightingales and the name stuck.

Narrator: Each Dakota could carry 24 casualties.

They were not designed for comfort.

Mayhew: These are not jets.

They do not have pressurisation.

They rattle constantly.

It's quite a small space.

You're constantly having to bend over to make sure that you don't bump your head.

On D-Day, their patients had complex trauma.

They had blast injury.

They had loss of blood, loss of soft tissue.

And these are injuries that require a great deal of technical nursing, hard enough to do in an ICU in a city, but really difficult to do on a plane where suddenly the skin feels very thin, where bullets can come through, where you seem like a big, lumbering target through the clouds.

You can't reach the British coastline too quickly.

Narrator: Once safely back in Britain, patients were transferred from the aircraft to hospitals across the country.

Unswerving bravery in the face of inherent danger was a key attribute of all the Nightingales.

They were trained professionals.

They put themselves in danger, they saved a lot of lives.

Nothing had ever been done on this scale.

Narrator: In total, over 100,000 troops were flown to safety after D-Day.

So from the moment that they set down on the beaches of Normandy until the end of the war, the Flying Nightingales are there really on the front line.

Narrator: The Flying Nightingales benefited from the combat experience of those who had gone before them.

Just four years earlier, nurses had played their part in an iconic rescue.

Dunkirk.

May 1940.

The British Expeditionary Force has retreated to the Channel, as the German Army closes in.

Walters: You've got casualties, you've got men bewildered, terrified.

This is the British army, and it -- and it's just been -- it's had its arse kicked.

Narrator: With the sea at their backs, 400,000 men had no way of escaping.

A rescue plan codenamed Operation Dynamo swung into action.

Hundreds of vessels from destroyers to pleasure craft, sailed to Dunkirk where the men were under almost constant attack.

Farncombe: When the dive bombers came down, the queue just spread out between the beach, the shops and the water's edge, so you're a smaller target.

And when the bombing had gone, the bodies were floating in the water.

The Germans were damn good soldiers, no doubt about it, and that was quite a war machine.

It was man against boys really.

Narrator: The iconic images from Dunkirk are stranded soldiers and the men who rescued them.

But nurses were also at the heart of the Dunkirk story, saving hundreds of lives.

None of the so-called little ships could accommodate the most severe casualties.

Stretcher cases need care.

They need what we call today CASEVAC, casualty evacuation.

You can't plonk them on a ship and then pick them up at the other end.

They need care throughout.

Somebody with an experienced professional eye needs to be keeping it on them throughout every moment of the casualty evacuation.

Narrator: The nurses tasked with carrying out this complex and dangerous mission had experience from the First World War.

During that four-year conflict, the 10,000 nurses from the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Service served in every campaign.

In September 1939 they once again answered the call.

Mayhew: These are people for whom the memory of war that's freshest in their mind is the First World War.

So they know what's needed.

They know it's gonna be demanding, it's gonna be long and dangerous, and they're prepared to do it.

Narrator: In order to get their patients off the Dunkirk beaches, the nurses needed specialist vessels.

A small fleet, including passenger ferries, were modified for the mission.

Mayhew: They're given long rows of metal cots to receive non-walking wounded, and there will be 30,000 non-walking wounded who will be got off the beaches, got onto the ships and got home.

And meeting that challenge is perhaps the most significant thing of all about Operation Dynamo.

♪♪ Narrator: Over 12,000 Queen Alexandra Nurses served in the war on all the fighting fronts.

Their jobs were gruelling and dangerous.

Especially at Dunkirk.

On May the 31st, the hospital ship The Isle of Guernsey waited outside Dunkirk harbour for a nerve-wracking four hours before loading 600 men on board.

Mayhew: The sea was boiling with explosions going off.

There were men crying and screaming.

They had to blank a lot of that out.

And they had to blank out their own fear.

But it was extraordinarily dangerous.

You could hear bombs landing from aircraft close by.

Narrator: One nurse wrote in her journal... Mayhew: They choose to put themselves in peril.

I think we can't underestimate the contribution that they were prepared to make for no glory and very little recognition, astonishing contribution nonetheless.

Narrator: Over 30,000 severely injured men were brought to safety from Dunkirk.

The legacy of the women who took to ships and planes to save the lives of patients on World War II battlefields lives on in 21st-century conflicts.

This idea that you are delivering care on an aircraft is something that's fundamental to casualty evacuation today.

In Afghanistan, we saw the lives of hundreds of servicemen saved in the back of helicopters.

And the legacy is every serviceman or woman's life who's been saved in the 21st century based on the same principle.

Narrator: In the Pacific, a group of women took up the role of wartime nurses but also fighters, becoming part of one of the most effective guerrilla campaigns of the Second World War.

♪♪ The day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, they struck a second key American base, the Philippines, 5,000 miles away.

It was a vital part of the Japanese plan to conquer the whole of Southeast Asia.

Japan saw what was happening in Europe.

They saw the rise of fascism in countries like Germany and Italy.

They wanted to be a part of that, the idea being that if Germany and Italy would succeed in winning the war in Europe, Japan would be the face of this new world order in Asia.

Narrator: Within just a few months, the Japanese had complete control of the Philippines.

Their soldiers subjected the poor rural population to forced labour, torture and starvation.

For anyone found resisting, the punishment was death.

They wanted to make it clear to the locals that they were in control, they were to be feared, and that if they smelt any idea of resistance to the Japanese occupation that these people would be punished severely.

Help the war effort for the Japanese or else.

Narrator: With the American military and the Filipino government having fled abroad, the only resistance was from guerrilla groups, formed by local people in remote jungle areas.

One of the most famous was the communist-inspired Huk.

The rebel group carried out many successful raids and ambushes against the Japanese.

But they just didn't have the numbers to sustain a long campaign.

Betteridge-Dyson: This was a guerrilla movement, a resistance movement.

And they wanted all the manpower or women power that they could get to fight against the Japanese.

And it was clear that some of these women had great leadership skills.

Why not use this?

This is why even though this went against some of the traditional gender roles certainly of the time and in the Philippines, they had skills to be used and so they were welcomed into these combat roles.

Narrator: Over 1,000 women joined the Huk.

They were their secret weapon.

It became apparent very early on that women were crucial in terms of sustaining the guerrilla movement The guerrillas is like fish is to water.

The guerrillas will not survive without the women who would support them.

Narrator: The Huk recruited women to act as nurses, educators and propagandists.

And many were couriers, ferrying supplies and information between the villages and secret guerrilla camps.

The Japanese thought that they were just innocent and naive.

But in fact, the women were there gathering information and intelligence about the Japanese movements.

Narrator: By 1942, women of the Huk were being trained not just as couriers and nurses but as fighters.

Traditional gender roles were overturned.

Rising through the ranks, some women even led their own squadrons of men into battle.

Lanzona: They were very dedicated.

There are even some women who abandoned their families just so they could join as soldiers.

Narrator: One of the most feared Huk fighters was 23-year-old Kumander Liwayway.

♪♪ ♪♪ A former beauty queen, Liwayway joined the Huk when her father was murdered by the Japanese.

She quickly proved to be a fearless leader.

She had so much anger in herself against how the Japanese treated her father that she was able to channel that into becoming an effective military commander.

Narrator: It was at a battle near to the city of San Fernando that Liwayway first proved her valour.

The Huk were lying in wait for the Japanese, but when they came, there were many more troops than expected.

The other military leaders basically said that they should retreat.

But Liwayway said, “No, we're not going to retreat.

We're going to attack the Japanese."

Narrator Against all odds, Liwayway's squadron won the battle.

She went on to lead her men successfully in many more encounters.

But like other female commanders, Liwayway often had to deal with sexism from her male troops.

Her response: total discipline.

All sexual relationships were banned and anyone in violation was thrown out.

She said... Liwayway made it clear that her squadron had to fight on her terms.

It was said that before battle, she would do her hair in the most fashionable updos of the time.

She would take the time to powder her nose, to put on lipstick.

And she would make her men under her command wait for her before battle.

Lanzona: It wasn't because of vanity, but it was because she wants to show that she has this capability of being brave and being fearless but still feminine and that you can be both.

In a way, she was also saying, "I have the right to be myself."

Narrator: The Philippine newspapers were scornful about these female fighters, giving them the double-edged nickname "Amazons."

Betteridge-Dyson: The word Amazons, whilst glorifying and putting them on a pedestal as these strong warrior women, also had an element of fear and an element of almost, "This isn't quite right, this is unnatural for women to be doing this."

Going around doing men's jobs was perceived as a threat and fighting was probably the most unfeminine thing you could think to do.

Narrator: Female guerrillas fought this prejudice and some became leading politicians.

Celia Pomeroy was the first woman to be elected to the Central Committee of the Filipino Communist Party.

She gave her female comrades a voice and united the Huk with other guerrilla groups, a vital step towards defeating the Japanese.

After over three years of occupation, the guerrillas' hard work began to pay off.

The Japanese were in a precarious position because they had been trying to battle this insurgency.

Their resources were low, their morale was getting a little bit knocked by this stage.

Narrator: On the 2nd of September 1945, after many months of fighting, the Philippines was finally liberated by the Americans thanks in no small part to the relentless guerrilla campaign.

Betteridge-Dyson: They worked tirelessly, particularly the women who were fighting not only the Japanese but against these gendered ideas of what they should and shouldn't be doing.

The impact that they had on the successful liberation of the island really can't be underestimated.

Narrator: Kumander Liwayway became known as the Philippine Joan of Arc.

She fought her whole life for better rights and recognition for the Huk.

Vina Lanzona interviewed her in the 1990s.

Lanzona: She was this very maternal, grandmotherly woman who was very open and generous, but still very much committed to helping the movement.

She was always so animated when she talked about her adventures and her experiences.

There's nothing that she regretted.

She was a remarkable figure.

Narrator: 7,000 miles away, some Western women, unable to fight on the frontline, decided to bring the brutal reality of the war to millions.

They faced not only the hostility of the establishment but also the dangers of the battlefield.

[ Film reel clacking, gunfire ] ♪♪ The Second World War was the first mass-media conflict.

Newsreels, radio, newspapers and magazines were all hungry for information from the front.

But the military tightly controlled what was reported.

Under the greatest restrictions were female journalists.

♪♪ There was the general notion still that, as the weaker sex, the blood and noise and danger of battle were just too much for them.

Part of it was a fear that, amongst maybe a division of battle-hardened soldiers who hadn't seen their wives and girlfriends for months, even years, parachute a lone female journalist in the middle of them and there's gonna be a riot.

But the real concern was "What do we do about toilet facilities?"

Narrator: What the British called the "convenience question" and the Americans "the latrine business" was the excuse given to female journalists to keep them from the front line.

The idea that any woman who was courageous enough to want to report on the war in the first place could not just simply duck behind a tree was just beyond their imagination.

Narrator: If a female reporter wanted to see action, it would have to be by breaking the rules.

This is the story of three of the bravest.

On the evening of June the 6th 1944, D-Day, journalist Martha Gellhorn was hiding in a lavatory on a hospital ship bound for the Normandy beaches.

She was determined to report on the invasion.

♪♪ ♪♪ D-Day is, of course, the story for every war correspondent, every photographer, because of course it's the long-awaited Second Front that's gonna change not only the course of the war but actually world history.

There is no bigger story.

Narrator: As a respected war correspondent, Martha Gellhorn was furious she couldn't be one of the 500 journalists, all male, covering D-Day.

So on the evening of June the 6th, she had headed for a Channel port and stowed away on the hospital ship.

The fact that her husband, the author Ernest Hemingway, was already in a landing craft reporting on the invasion did not improve her mood.

God, she was angry.

She was furious with Ernest for getting to the story before, she was furious with the military for discounting her and the other women.

And that's all she was thinking.

She could be so focused.

Narrator: On the morning of June the 7th, Martha's ship anchored off the American invasion beach Omaha.

Walters: Omaha, of course, had been the toughest by far of all the invasion beaches.

You'd had thousands of men, thousands being cut down by German machine guns, mortar fire, you name it.

And when she arrives, there are still warships firing inland, trying to take out German positions.

Well, she notices all these bodies floating in the water around her that she says looked like swollen, grey sacks.

Now, those, of course, were the bodies of soldiers who drowned under the weight of their packs.

Narrator: The hospital ship sprang into action.

Its boats were launched to bring in the casualties.

Martha wanted to help.

She volunteers, partly out of altruism, but partly because that gets her on the beach as one of the first and few reporters to make dry land.

When she emerges on the landing craft from the hospital ship, she steps out into water that's full of blood, full of dead soldiers.

♪♪ It's a very puzzling, almost surrealist environment.

She goes out with the medics.

She goes and starts immediately talking to the wounded.

Narrator: The men Martha spoke to were in great pain.

She wrote... ♪♪ ♪♪ She's in the middle of this battle in a completely visceral way.

She writes this wonderful sentence -- “It feels as if invasion has become our whole being, our whole condition."

As if there's never been anything but invasion.

It's just such an overwhelming and terrifying and complete experience.

Narrator: When Martha returned to England, she discovered that her husband, Ernest, never left the landing craft.

Meanwhile, the authorities were furious that she had.

Martha was driven to a fenced-off training camp and told she might be allowed on a day trip to Normandy once the invasion beaches were secure.

She's having none of it.

She wants to see proper action.

And so she walks around the perimeter fence, finds a hole, rolls under it, gets back to London, and then hitches a ride in a plane that's heading out to Italy, and from that point on, she covers the rest of the war in Italy, France, and Germany.

But she's doing it completely freelance, entirely through her own wits.

Narrator: Martha was not the only fearless reporter prepared to break the rules.

In January 1942, six newly accredited American journalists were photographed in London wearing uniforms fresh from Savile Row.

Holding her camera is Lee Miller, a former model for Vogue and Vanity Fair turned successful fashion photographer.

♪♪ ♪♪ Mackrell: She was a very fine photographer.

But she was always dissatisfied with herself.

She was always quite restless.

And it was only when she came to London in 1939 and began taking photographs of the London Blitz that she realised that war, oddly, was the subject that she'd always burned for, that she'd had all these big ideas for her photography, but nothing had ever been great enough, or serious enough, or profound enough.

Narrator: As women, the six were allowed only to cover stories away from the front line.

So, by the summer of 1944, Lee had yet to see action.

Then in August she was offered the chance to write a photo essay about refugees in the liberated French city of Saint-Malo.

When she gets there, she realises that actually Saint-Malo hasn't been liberated from the Germans.

There's still a whole division of them encamped in the city citadel, still bombarding the city.

And as she says, gleefully to herself, "I found myself in the middle of my own private war."

There was no other correspondent, male or female, for miles around.

and although she knows she's not meant to be there, she thinks, "Well, it's their mistake."

Narrator: As they were with Martha Gellhorn, the authorities were furious with Lee for reporting from the front line.

She was put under house arrest for two weeks and had her accreditation also temporarily taken away from her.

Narrator: But Lee was now, in her words, "addicted to gunpowder."

As the Allied troops advanced through occupied Europe, Lee was with them.

Soon, the full extent of Nazi atrocities was revealed as concentration camps and death camps were liberated.

Word has got out among the army, among the Press Corps, among everyone that this horror is unfolding as each camp is discovered.

And she's determined to become a witness to that as early as she can.

Narrator: Lee Miller was not alone.

The female press corps was joined by a young reporter from the New York Herald Tribune, 24-year-old Marguerite "Maggie" Higgins.

♪♪ ♪♪ In late April 1945, Maggie received word that American troops were approaching the infamous Dachau concentration camp near Munich.

Dachau had been one of the first ever concentration camps built by the Nazis, and you had around - what?

-- 200,000 people incarcerated there and of whom 20,000 were killed.

Narrator: When Maggie arrived on April the 29th, the SS guards were surrendering to U.S. forces.

Most of the inmates were still enclosed by an electric fence.

Of course, they were so delirious with joy and excitement and wonder that finally they were to be liberated that horrifically, tragically some of them came rushing forward and electrocuted themself on the fence.

So Maggie's first act was to try and prevent more deaths, and she spoke English, French, and German.

So she got a loudspeaker and shouted to them all to keep back, and then with another soldier, I think, went round, desperately searching for where the power could be switched off.

She was amongst the first to liberate Dachau, but she did actually save lives.

Narrator: For her actions, Maggie was awarded an army campaign medal for outstanding service.

Lee Miller was also at Dachau.

She arrived with fellow photographer Dave Scherman just hours after the camp was liberated.

Outside was a railway siding, full of boxcars.

When Allied units approached the camp in April '45, you've got thousands of prisoners being force-marched by the Nazis south or actually taken away in freight trains.

Now, anybody who couldn't do that, anybody who was too exhausted, was simply shot.

It was a measure of the anger Lee felt, the determination to absolutely tell the world what evil had taken place in these camps that drove her to do what almost no other photographer could have done, which was actually get inside one of those boxcars, you know, amidst the stink and the flies, and the heat and the horror, and actually photograph close up those corpses.

Narrator: Lee cabled her editor in London... That evening, Lee and Dave Scherman travelled to Munich.

The U.S. Army offered them a billet in a building in the centre of the city.

It was Hitler's Munich home.

She wrote how extraordinary it was to just go into this apartment where, you know, so much of the hideousness of the last five years had been planned and orchestrated.

Narrator: Lee and Dave Scherman took the opportunity to carefully stage a defiant scene.

They propped a photograph of Hitler on the side of the bath just behind Lee, who looks marvellous.

She's got this filthy face and she's looking shell-shocked but kind of triumphant as well.

The really powerful element of that image is the fact that Lee has put her boots on Hitler's bathmat right in front of the bath.

And of course, they're still covered with the mud of Dachau.

She's saying to this monster, "You've created these nightmares, and yet I've trampled all over you."

Narrator: A few hours later, Lee heard the news that Hitler had killed himself.

The war in Europe was effectively over.

♪♪ Throughout the conflict, women proved themselves to be effective frontline warriors.

They had marched and fought on every front, despite the opposition they often faced.

They're laughed at and they're dismissed, and they are underestimated at every possible opportunity.

They are not taken seriously, but they go on to prove just what they can do.

Narrator: Women in World War II were the difference between victory and defeat.

Miller: Women are not a footnote in history.

They are history.

Woman: ♪ I am woman and I am strong ♪ ♪ And of this Earth I belong where I am ♪ ♪♪ ♪ I am woman and I am strong ♪ ♪ And I whisper the echoes of my mother's song ♪