Blazing a Trail from World War II to Vietnam!

Rinehart, Lorissa.  First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female 

        War Correspondent.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2023.  ISBN: 9781250276575

 

How many war correspondents can you name?  Okay, now for a even trickier question - How many female war correspondents can you name?  If you can name any, it might all be due to the path Georgette "Dickey" Meyer Chapelle created for all who came after her.  In First to the Front, Lorissa Rinehart seeks to tell the whole story of Dickey Chapelle.  

Georgette "Dickey" Meyer was born and raised in Wisconsin, In 1935 she flunked out of MIT, and ended up in Coral Gables (FL) as the city editor for the Miami Airshow at $15 a week.She wrangled her way into an assignment for the New York Times covering the Havana Air Show.  This led her to a job as assistant publicity chief for Howard Hughes's airline - TWA.  There she met Anthony "Tony" Chapelle who was teaching photography.  Dickey became a photojournalist after she married Tony.  After December 7, 1941, Dickey Chapelle got a job with Look to cover the 14th Infantry Regiment training in the jungles of Panama.  Then she got a break - she was accredited as a photographer in the Pacific Theater of Operations..  On board the USS Samaritan, she took photos of blood drive that the Red Cross used for a decade at blood drives.  She also captured the faces and stories of soldiers and Marines loaded on board the hospital ship.  She spent time on Iwo Jima and then Okinawa managing to endear herself to Marines while ticking off the higher brass who arrested her and revoked her credentials. Seventeen was the one magazine who would still employee her.  

After the war, Dickey and Tony traveled around Europe for the Quakers bringing in supplies and photographing conditions in Poland, Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, and  France.  After several trips through Europe, the duo made a sweep through Iraq, Iran and India for the US State Department's Point Four program documenting their work.  Dickey managed to get articles in National Geographic, World Magazine and Reader's Digest along with the documentaries for the State Department.  After finally divoracing Tony, Dickey returned to Europe to cover the Hungarian Revolution which lead to a stint in Hungarian prison.  Next, she traveled to Algeria to cover the Algerian Liberation Front's fight against French colonialism.  She covered Castro's fight with Batista in Cuba.  Then she went to cover the conflict in Laos.  She wrote a primer on guerrilla war for the Marines before covering the conflict in South Vietnam.  She spent time with the Sea Swallows, Marines in helicopters, and the Vietnamese Marines.  Then on November 2, 1965, while on patrol with U.S. Marines, a booby trap tripped by a Marine killed her.  She died doing what she enjoyed most - taking photos.

The bare details given above does not cover the depth of detail that Lorissa Rinehart provides in this well-written biography of Dickey Chappelle, who that deserves far greater recognition than she has received.  If you are interested in female journalists, especially photojournalists, First to the Front is a title to read!