Lee Miller - War Correspondent Part I
The focus of this forum has been, and it remains, the examination of the narrative which has been constructed to support the legend of Lee Miller since the appearance of Lives in 1985. To date, various highlights of the Lee Miller narrative have been examined and challenged but, a narrative is more than merely the words of a script. It is also important to examine the purpose for which a storyline is presented and the effect that it is meant to achieve. If there is any doubt about the intended purpose and effect of the “talking points” challenged by this forum, one can simply examine the countless books, articles, Lee Miller exhibitions, academic papers, art critic reviews and so forth to ascertain how it appears that every author over the last 35 years or so has stepped into false footprints. These footprints include the Nast/Lepape/supermodel story, Lee as an entrepreneur and founder of the Lee Miller Studio Inc., Picasso’s femme soldat or the femme fatale that caused Nimet’s suicide, and indeed, any other challenge previously raised in this forum.
The Guardian article, “Picasso nearly fell over backwards when he saw her – Lee Miller’s son on their intense relationship” (September 5, 2022) was randomly chosen to initiate discussion but it was selected, not because it was unique in any manner, but rather, because it was so classically illustrative of a writer trudging behind the “footprints” set forth by Lives in 1985.
The most perfect example of the marriage of narrative to purpose and effect remains the story of Condé Nast saving Lee from death or injury, and becoming so beguiled by her French cut clothes and “babbling” in French that he immediately presented her to Georges Lepape for a Vogue cover illustration. This story is illustrative because it is important as a springboard to the presentation of the Lee Miller narrative en totem, but without any evidentiary support whatsoever. There are plenty of reasons to doubt the story’s veracity as discussed in Chapters IV and VII (“Kotex the Career Killer?” and the “New York Cover Girl”). However, Nast/Lepape pales in comparison to the characterization of Lee as a daring, groundbreaking front line war correspondent in WWII.
A point to note here is that if stories are not true, why are they presented?
The obvious answer is to create a narrative more attractive than the facts. The Nast/Lepape/supermodel storyline for example, catapults Lee from being simply another attractive young woman who appeared in Vogue several times in 1928 into a world of Hollywood fantasy or fairy tale. The gild is applied to the lily to forge a bridge between narrative and marketing and the outcome is staggering. The Nast/Lepape/supermodel narrative is featured prominently in virtually everything concerning the life and art of Lee Miller. A very recent Christy’s marketing effort to auction a 1937 Picasso portrait of Lee Miller initiates its sales pitch with the Nast/Lepape story as discussed in footnote 2 of Chapter XIV, “An Invitation to Farleys House & Gallery”. Christy’s recognizes, as does everyone in the art marketplace, that there is a direct nexus between narrative and market value. Incredibly, even Picasso is marketed through the Lee Miller narrative.
But….then events turn to the WWII era and there is a dramatic change in the narrative because suddenly there is a new narrator and it is Lee Miller herself. The difference that appears in the narration during WWII is significant because it is generally reliable for several reasons: 1.) historical fact regarding WWII are too well documented to allow excessive manipulation 2.) Lee, herself tells her own narrative through her photography and through her articles for British Vogue; and 3.) most importantly, Lee was honest with her readers (although not always with her lovers) and her words are fundamentally trustworthy aside from garden variety journalistic exaggeration or innocent error.
For purposes of analysis of the 1985 narrative constructed in Lives, it is also important to note that Lee’s veracity is demonstrable by what Lee never claimed. With regard to every factual challenge to Lives presented in this forum, there is not one instance where the “fact” challenged is sourced from or backed up by Lee (e.g. Nast/Lepape). Conversely, when “alarm bells” ring for points that Lee makes, research inevitably leads to the conclusion that the alarm is wrong and that Lee is correct or has made an innocent error.
Gut instinct is an invaluable research tool, but it is not infallible. During the course of research, two visual examples of false alarms came up relatively early. In the first, Lee wrote the following in her October 1944 article, “France Free Again: St.Malo” concerning the siege and surrender of Saint-Malo by Colonel Andreas von Aulock, the German Commander:
“It was Colonel von Aulock. He wore a flapping camouflage coat, a battered peaked hat. I took a picture and stepped out in front. Seeing the camera he held a grey-gloved hand up in front of his face. He was pale, monocled. An iron cross and ribbon at his neck. He kept on walking, and obviously, recognized that I was a woman. He said ‘something Frau’ in a loud voice and flushed little red spots in each cheek like rouge. I kept scrambling on in front, turning around to take another shot of him, stumbling, running. He wasted as much energy as I did, and ruined his dignified departure in hiding his face.” [Emphasis added] (1).
Lee’s focus on herself and putting herself in the middle of the scene creates an “it’s all about Lee” storyline reminiscent of Lives. However, research yields film of the event showing the surrender of Colonel von Aulock depicted exactly as Lee writes. The U.S. Army Signal Corps cameraman seems to catch for today’s viewer the exact scene that Lee eye-witnessed as she stood on the Citadel slope on August 17, 1944.
The next example is also an “its all about Lee” situation, but this time it is from David E. Scherman’s forward for the book Lee Miller’s War: Beyond D-Day:
“There fraternizing happily with the Red Army, was Lee, who as usual, had arrived hours before” [Emphasis added] (2).
Scherman echoes a comment by Lee about Lee’s meeting the Russians at the Elbe River at Torgau where she wrote about her fraternization with the Russians:
“It is impossible to explain that my entire ideological exchange with the Russians suffered a language impediment due to new methods of drinking Vodka, the danger of firing pistols in the air…” (3).
Again, there is film of the event evidencing Lee’s attachment to the Russians (Lee can be seen about a minute or so into the film).
Aside from Blood of the Poet, Man Ray’s home films and a Vogue WWII promo, there is little, if any, film showing Lee. The film of Lee with the Russians is interesting because on the one hand it shows the physical degradation of Lee from the beauty that she was in her early Paris years, but it is also one of the seemingly happiest appearances recorded of Lee.
Once innocent error is removed from the mix, a fact checker would have a difficult time finding a material misrepresentation by Lee in her published writings. Surely there are touches of war propaganda and excessive drama, but nothing outside the cultural style and journalistic jargon of the war era. Reliability is the fundamental difference in the narration advanced by Lee, about Lee, during the war years. Her biographers, including Antony Penrose and Carolyn Burke, simply but wisely, paraphrase or quote Lee’s articles almost exclusively when discussing Lee’s time at war.
Unfortunately, despite Lee’s reliability as the primary source, the narrative that has developed about “Lee Miller-War Correspondent” has organically grown into a grossly distorted story of Lee as a groundbreaking front line woman correspondent. It is a flaw fatal to perspective.
A perfect example of truth being compromised by innocent error (and perhaps journalistic puffing) is found in Lee’s coverage of Saint-Malo. Lee recorded what she heard and saw at Saint-Malo and her account is accurate when compared to historical accounts of the who, what and where events. However, her conclusions are unintentionally misleading on several important points and have come to allow her chroniclers to cast her Saint-Malo experience in a false light.
The first thing to note is that there is a significant difference between the battle for the towns of the Saint-Malo peninsula and the walled city of Saint-Malo and a promontory of land in the Rance estuary which housed the fortified casemate bunker known as the Citadel (Fort d’Aleth). Lee makes an important distinction when she characterizes her coverage to be limited to a siege and not a battle.
The Battle of Saint-Malo lasted from August 3, 1944 to August 17, 1944 on the French mainland and then until August 22, 1944 when the garrison of the island of Cézembre surrendered. During the battle, the 83rd Division advanced with 20,000 men supported by 2,500 men of the French Resistance. The German commander, Colonel von Aulock commanded approximately 12,000 troops. By the time Lee arrived on August 13, von Aulock had less than 600 men left under his immediate command and they were hunkering 60 feet beneath the Citadel. Only 85-150 German soldiers remained in Saint-Malo and they manned the Château Anne de Bretagne guarding the main entrance to the walled city. Lee’s coverage was, as she wrote, to primarily watch Allied artillery, aircraft and ships bomb relentlessly von Aulock’s position. Her original assignment was to cover the U.S. Army Office of Civil Affairs operations as they restored order to Saint-Malo and in her article that is what she did, although it was in the Saint-Malo suburbs of Paramé and Saint-Servan. In Saint-Servan and Paramé, Lee freely travelled from point to point, often escorted by Major Speedie who also acted as a chaperone. When Major Speedie wouldn’t allow Lee into Saint-Malo until the day after its occupation, she obeyed without question. Likewise, when he wouldn’t let her pass the danger line markers, Lee followed the rules.
Lee observed and reported on von Aulock’s evacuation of the last French citizens in Saint-Malo, U.S. troops preparing to rush into Saint-Malo, (where they met no resistance- the remaining Germans surrendered and the stragglers were rounded up), Civil Affairs officers interrogating possible collaborators, firemen at work and soldiers and civilians treated at the battle aid station. Lee also photographed the relentless bombing of the Citadel and the distant island of Cézembre, as well as an attempt and failure of a platoon assault on the Citadel outside the walls of Saint-Malo.
This was combat in the sense of bombing, but Lee was never close to military engagement in Saint-Malo since there was none after her arrival. The war at that point was fundamentally one sided with the U.S. and U.K. forces having reduced Saint-Malo to rubble before Lee arrived. The Germans fired artillery from Cézembre but, as Lee noted, this was generally at U.S. artillery positions outside of Saint-Malo’s walled city.
Lee speaks of climbing through shell holes, Saint-Malo burning, human and animal remains, destroyed buildings and she describes all the sounds, smells, sights and the destruction of war but the reality is that what she observed was the result of prior Allied, not German, military action on the walled city and the Citadel. The Germans did not bomb the city before Lee arrived for the simple reason that their troops were an occupation force and the city still held civilians that refused to leave.
Lee does refer to overhead shells and nearby shelling, but the shelling she refers to was undoubtedly aimed at U.S. troops attacking Dinard on the other side of the Rance River. U.S. commanders had decided to take Dinard to block an escape route for von Aulock and it resulted in a fierce battle that lasted until the 15th of August. The “88’s” referred to in Lee’s article were from German anti aircraft guns used to support the defense of Dinard. Although Lee also refers to shelling in her vicinity, it seems highly unlikely that von Aulock would have allowed munitions to be wasted or allowed on blind bombing of 1.) an area already taken and of no strategic value (his only reason for hanging on at that time was the fruitless hope that the 5th Panzer Division would escape doom in the battle of the Falaise Pocket) and 2.) it was an area where he had just released French civilians for their safety and where there were an unknown number of German prisoners. By Lee’s arrival, over 10,000-12,000 Germans had already surrendered.
It is improbable that Lee was ever in significant danger, but it is not at all unusual for a journalist to add some personal drama to the situation. This may also apply to her claim about picking up a corpse’s severed hand, slipping and falling on blood covered rocks or her claim that she saw a U.S. officer “waving his hand to death” as he was shot motioning to his troops forward like a calvary officer in a Hollywood western. The After Action Report does not reflect shelling in Saint-Servan or Saint-Malo as Lee describes.
In any event, whether real or dramatic license, the fundamental historic accuracy of Lee’s who, what and where reporting is not in doubt and it is an excellent eye witness account. However, although what Lee reported from her own observations is accurate, it does not reflect the real story of the siege of Saint-Malo.
By the time Lee arrived at Saint-Malo on August 13, 1944, combat had been over since August 9, 1944 (quite a few days before she left England). Aside from some door to door mop up operations, the After Action Report of the 83rd Division (dated September 1, 1944) indicates that Saint-Servan, Paramé and Saint-Malo itself were considered to be in U.S. control. Although Lee could not have known it, the After Action Report recorded how feeble the German resources were to defend Saint-Malo:
“The quality of troops varied greatly. The poor troops included the 602 Ost Bn (Russian), which deserted en masse at the first opportunity, and the two Security Bns, the 1220th “M” Bn (“M” means “Magen”, in English “stomach”) composed of men with serious stomach ailments, and the 1222 “O” Bn (“O” means Ohren”, in English “ears”) containing soldiers in the various stages of deafness. In addition, there was a great number of reserve, replacement and “Marsche” units with little training and combat experience except for their cadres. The 83d also encountered many Marines, who often proved to be older men unfit for combat duty.”
In addition, there were the remnants of scattered German troops who had fought, fled and were on the run from the U.S. troops during the fierce hedgerow battles of Normandy.
The thrust of Lee’s coverage of Saint-Malo is essentially anger and disgust at the German annihilation of the beautiful Breton city for which she had fond regard. As incredible as it may seem, it is apparent that Lee did not realize or want to articulate that the wasteland she wrote about was the result of the Allied action, not German bombing. By August 9, 1944 the Allies had completely flattened Saint-Malo which during the course of that time and up to Lee’s August 13, 1944 arrival, held only the 85-150 Germans in Saint Malo and less than 600 men holed up beneath the Citadel. For the entirety of the Allied bombardment, Saint-Malo was surrounded by 20,000 troops, 10 artillery battalions firing from miles away, U.S. Army bombers and P-38’s (Night Stalkers) and U.S. and U.K. naval forces pummeling Saint-Malo and the Citadel. Absent an accidental hit on the Spire of the Cathedral and the destruction of the port area for strategic purposes, German damage to Saint-Malo was de minimis. Von Aulock was tried for war crimes at Nuremburg but acquitted when it was determined by the international court that the conflagration in Saint Malo was initiated by the US bombing and could not be controlled because the water to Saint Malo was shut off by US troops.
At the end of the day, Lee’s engaging eye witness account is, to borrow from Sally Fields’ character in the 1981 movie Absence of Malice, “accurate, but not true”.
A notion that persists, and that Lee may have believed, is that she was the only correspondent in the vicinity of Saint-Malo. Lee was mistaken. The photographer, Robert Capa was covering the battle for Life magazine, John G. Morris also of Life magazine was there, as was Bill Davidson and Lawrence Riordan of Stars and Stripes. Even David E. Scherman covered the shelling of Saint-Malo from U.S. Navy artillery battalions supporting the 83rd outside the city. He took numerous photographs in the same vein as Lee when he was in Saint-Malo with other Life photographers.
Lee noted on the day of the surrender that, “Reporters had gathered like vultures for the kill” (4). These “vultures” may have included Helen Kirkpatrick, Charles Collingwood, William “Bill” Walton and others who were less than an hour up the road at the famous monastery of Mont St. Michel. The London Daily Express journalist Montague Lacey filed his report the very day of the surrender. Lee’s was published two months later in British Vogue’s October issue.
Lee and the 83rd were aware that von Aulock was ordered to fight to the last man and that he refused to surrender earning him the nickname of the “Mad Colonel”. Her information and reporting is accurate from where she was and what she knew on August 17, 1944. However, those that follow her repeat the story ignoring the fact that Hitler ordered the withdrawal of the 5th Panzer Division from the Falaise Pocket on August 16, 1944. Von Aulock’s hope for salvation was removed, but more importantly, on that same day, Hitler awarded von Aulock Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross Medal for holding out (not, continuing to hold out) the day before he surrendered. Hitler essentially authorized von Aulock’s surrender. Likewise, the day after von Aulock’s surrender, his entire command was awarded the Wehermachtberict Medal in further recognition that the German high command was satisfied with von Aulock completing the mission of delaying for weeks the advancement of the 83rd and the effective destruction of the Saint-Malo quay to be utilized as a Allied port (5). The army press and Lee more or less sneered at von Aulock as failing to back up his tough words when in reality he capitulated only after being authorized by Hitler and honored for completing his mission. Artillery fire at 1,500 yards into the Citadel portals, napalm, constant land, air and sea bombing, low morale, destroyed armaments and the like were reasons enough for surrender but von Aulock did not do so until after he received the greenlight from Hitler. Lee, and her contemporaries got it understandably wrong, but again, we still see the footprint followed in commentary about Lee’s Saint-Malo coverage even with the benefit of historical fact.
In addition, there is also an interesting story described by Lee in Lee Miller’s War: Beyond D-Day, about the following event:
“By now I was out of film so I got permission to go into the photo shop at the end of the street and collect what I could use. There was no Rolleiflex stock, but plenty of Leica film – German produce – and all sorts of accessories. Down below there was, quite untouched, a complete developing and printing establishment with films of German soldiers in brave poses in front of their guns – still in the drying rack. There were three or four enlargers and automatic glazers. The chemicals were in the tanks, scummy and opaque. Like everywhere else there was no current or running water, but it looked like an answer to a prayer. Captain MacFarlane, who knew my family back home, a sergeant who had been a professional photographer before the Army, and I, set up shop to develop the films the boys had taken all the way through the Normandy campaign. I had learned photography in France, so the words and formulae were not mysterious to me, nor the weights and measures. We sloshed around in the front room which had been bombed open to the light and worked with a GI torch in the back room. There were stocks of printing paper, but printing would have been impossible without a lot of finagling (6).
There is substantial evidence to support the belief that the “sergeant” Lee “set up shop” with was Tony Vaccaro who later became celebrated for his post-war photography of the people of his day such as John F. Kennedy, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe and artists familiar to Lee and also photographed by her, such as Picasso, Dali and Ernst. In 1994 France awarded him the Légion d'honneur award for his war photography.
Vaccaro took 8,000 photographs of his experiences with the 83rd Division that he kept from the public for fifty years until the 1990’s. Vaccaro was a Private First Class, not a Sergeant, but he was a squad leader and point man and Lee may have misremembered his rank. In the preface to Lee Miller’s War: Beyond D-Day, David E. Scherman wrote that he was present with Lee in the camera shop, but he does not identify the soldiers as a Captain and Sergeant, but rather two “grubby G.I.’s”. It is also doubtful that the photographic film Lee was talking about was by “the boys” but rather Vaccaro himself, who as a soldier photographer, recorded the events with a prohibited camera as the 83rd marched from Normandy to Germany. He is the only known amateur photographer for the 83rd outside the Army Signal Corps.
Compare Lee’s description with an interview that Vaccaro gave to Kenneth Turan of the L.A. Times published on October 20, 2016 for a review of a film based on Vaccaro entitled Under Fire: The Untold Story of Pfc. Tony Vaccaro:
“Young and naive enough to believe he could find a functioning camera shop on the European front to develop his negatives, Vaccaro was fortunate in discovering a shop that had been badly shelled. Picking through the ruins, he found the chemicals he needed and developed the film himself in four Army helmets, hanging the negatives on nearby trees” (7).
Once Vaccaro discovered that he would not be able to purchase what he needed from French photography shops, his standard practice was to search bombed out shops as he possibly did with Lee at one point.
There is actually a photo taken in Saint-Malo by Vaccaro that seems to have Lee Miller as the subject. The person is centered in the photograph and looking directly at Vaccaro while 50 or more people are grouped around chatting and looking in different directions. The person is apparently eating something and wearing a bag that could have housed a Rolleiflex camera. Once the photograph is focused and enlarged it appears clear that it is a woman in uniform and that the woman could be Lee.
Both Lee and Vaccaro took many photographs of Saint-Malo and, in particular, the bombing of the Citadel. Although comparisons have been made, no personal connection has been made between them or Lee’s description of meeting the sergeant-photographer. Vaccaro’s path crossed many times with Lee as the 83rd made its way across Europe. Vaccaro and Lee were both at Rennes, Saint-Malo, Orleans, and Luxembourg. Ironically, Vaccaro came from the same New York town as David E. Scherman, New Rochelle, and after the war Vaccaro went to work as a photographer for Life magazine. Although he and Scherman must have known each other, it is unknown whether their experiences at Saint-Malo or knowledge of Lee was shared.
Vaccaro’s story and photographs documenting the advance of the 83rd are fascinating. An infantry G.I. greeting a young girl during a town’s liberation or the despair of a German soldier returning to the bombed out site in place of his home and family are examples of Vaccaro’s work. Many are horrific. Unlike Lee and other “professional” photographers that covered the war, Vaccaro made it to Germany fighting and photographing battle after battle with the 83rd. On one occasion, he was surprised by a German soldier and killed him in face-to-face combat.
Although from the point of view of accurate perspective, it is unfair to compare the war photography of a combat soldier with a Vogue fashion and lifestyle photographer on assignment in Paris but it is difficult to avoid contemplating Lee’s residing in the comfortable Hotel Scribe while Vaccaro struggled and risked his life to earn his photographic record from Normandy to Berlin. Lee's articles are invaluable for students of Lee because she is so reliable when writing about where she was, what she was doing, and what she observed. As a historical source she may exaggerate or simply get it wrong at times but those that follow Lee are mostly interested in her and not history except to the extent it concerns Lee's story.
Footnotes:
1. Miller, Lee (October 15,1944) “France Free Again: St. Malo” Vogue (U.K.) (page 136)
2. Penrose, Antony & Scherman, David E. (2005) Lee Miller's War: Beyond D-Day Thames & Hudson (pages 11-12)
3. Penrose, Antony & Scherman, David E. (2005) Lee Miller's War: Beyond D-Day Thames & Hudson (page 155)
4. Miller, Lee (October 15, 1944) “France Free Again: St. Malo” Vogue (U.K.) (page 143)
5. https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/1498/Aulock-von-Andreas-Maria-Karl.htm
6. Penrose, Antony & Scherman, David E. (2005) Lee Miller's War: Beyond D -Day Thames & Hudson (page 112)
7. Turan, Kenneth October 20, 2016 “Review: ‘Underfire: The Untold Story of Pfc. Tony Vaccaro’ reveals the intimate relationship between a war photographer and war itself " Los Angeles Times