Lee Miller, Penning World War II

Elizabeth “Lee” Miller was born in 1907 and was an American photographer. Lee’s career started in New York as a successful fashion model. In the 1920s she moved to Paris, became established in the fashion industry, and was an acclaimed fine art photographer, but everything changed for Lee during World War II. Fashion had no place in a time of war. Lee became an acclaimed war corresponded for Vogue Magazine. She was on hand covering the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris, and the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dauchau. And one famous photograph of Lee herself shows her cavorting in Adolf Hitler’s bathtub!

Lee Miller was the inspiration for my character Lee O’Donnelly, my character in Arms of Deliverance.

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Here is how Lee is introduced in the novel:

The senator led Mary through the front doors of the lobby, then turned and paused. As if on cue, the door to the second limo opened, and a tall, attractive young women climbed out. Dressed as impeccably as the senator herself, she slid from the passenger’s seat, smoothing her sky blue suit with manicured fingers.

“Lee O’Donnelly. I should have known,” Mary whispered, hugging her notebook tighter to her chest.

“So you know her?” The senator straightened her collar. “Of course you do. I hear from her father she’s only been away from Vogue for a few months and has already made a splash in city reporting. I just love women with gumption.”

Lee approached, offering a bright smile to the doorman, who opened the glass door wide for her entrance. Her heels clicked on the polished lobby floor and gold bracelets jingled on her wrist. Lee smiled at the senator, but the look faded when she noticed Mary. One lone eyebrow jutted up as if to say What are you doing here?

Like with my fictional character Lee, war changed the real Lee Miller. She saw things she couldn’t imagine and her writing and photographs gave the outside world an inside view of what truly had been happening in Europe–death, destruction, pain. Sadly, what Lee experienced during the war caused post-traumatic stress and she started drinking. Her photographs live on long after her, allowing all of us to feel a connection to the war.

Here’s a photograph that Lee Miller took:

Click here to see more of Lee’s photos from the war in Europe!

Researching Lee Miller was fascinating. I learned that World War II was the first time they had female war corespondents.

Read the rest of this blog over on Writes of Passage!

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