Virginia Irwin (1908–1980) seemed to have an innate gift for writing. Born in Quincy, Illinois, she grew up excelling in academics. In the eighth grade, she won the state spelling contest, and she graduated in 1924 from Quincy Senior High School as the class valedictorian. Her grades were so impressive she was offered scholarships to three colleges. She accepted the scholarship from Lindenwood College, located in St. Charles, Missouri. After a year at Lindenwood, however, she returned home and attended Gem City Business School.
Food, Then War
Soon, Irwin began writing articles for St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s magazine Everyday. When a staff member vacationed one summer, Irwin replaced the writer. Her topic, which she knew next to nothing about, was food. Nonetheless, her writing was so good that she was given the editorship of the magazine’s Food Page. By 1934, she was placed on staff with the magazine.She began to garner a sizable readership, and, therefore, her writing topics expanded. Her focus was typically on female readers, covering topics like childcare, relationships, and etiquette. She covered the arts, including performances at the outdoor Muny Opera. Her gift for conversation allowed her to expand her writing repertoire, as she interviewed famous visitors to St. Louis, and people outside of St. Louis, like Hollywood, Washington, Chicago, and New York City. Additionally, she covered national political conventions in 1936 and in 1940.
Her most challenging assignments came after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and America’s entrance into World War II.
Going Overseas
Her true journalistic wish, however, was to become a war correspondent, and she requested the opportunity in 1943. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which was considered “a closed shop to the newspaper woman,” declined her request. She then requested an extended leave of absence. Since she wasn’t able to go overseas for the newspaper, she went as a member of the American Red Cross. With her leave of absence request granted, she joined the Red Cross and was sent to England. Although she was technically “on leave” from the paper, her employer encouraged her to continue writing and send stories that readers might find interesting.
After only two months of working with the Red Cross encampment, she was sent to London as part of the organization’s public relations arm. Her fun personality and her experience conducting one-on-one interviews paid off when she met American soldiers. She began interviewing them and writing down their war experiences, but also included what they missed most about home. She had these conversations even when not conducting interviews. She would organize a game with soldiers called “Get on the Needle,” when they would express their homesickness. The soldiers soon began calling her “Mom.”
Becoming a War Correspondent
By 1944, the newspaper reconsidered Irwin for the position of war correspondent. Since she was already in England and was a proven journalist, it only made sense to give her one of the newspaper’s two accreditations provided by the War Department.Shortly before the largest amphibious invasion in history on June 6, 1944, Irwin became an official war correspondent. Armed with a portable typewriter, a thirst for adventure, and a no-fear attitude, she was assigned to the Women’s Army Corps. The assignment constrained her to venture no further to the frontlines than the nurses could go. Of course, this hardly stopped her.
Entering Berlin
The war in Europe was rapidly coming to a close as the Allies closed in on Berlin. An agreement between the Americans and Russians allowed the latter to enter the city first. Irwin, however, wanted to witness the invasion personally and achieve a grand scoop.
On April 27, 1945, she and fellow war correspondent, Andrew Tully, of the Boston Traveler, hopped a jeep with Sgt. Johnny Wilson of the 26th Infantry to venture into Berlin for “the strangest journey [she had] ever undertaken.” Much like the venture near Paris, this one was conducted without permission.
Irwin, Tully, and Wilson drove through the city swarming with Russians and Germans. The three struggled to figure out where to go since all the German signs had been replaced with Russian Cyillic script.
Irwin witnessed the brutality of the battle, the panic-stricken Germans, and the “happy” Russians storming through Berlin with “indescribable wild joy.” She qualified that joy as being “their true revenge for Leningrad and Stalingrad, for Sevastopol and Moscow.
“The whole day was like being transported to another and strange world. I felt as though I had been caught in a giant whirlpool of destruction. There was such an air of unreality about the whole of the battle for Berlin that I thought at times I had lost my reason and was only imagining these strange and unearthly sights.”
Backdated and Printed
She was finally brought back to the American side, but was quickly reprimanded by the press censors. They withheld her dispatches over the course of the following week. Additionally, she and Tully were removed as war correspondents, returned to England, and sent back home to America. Before they arrived in England on May 24, the world had already celebrated Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) on May 8.On that day, the Post-Dispatch printed Irwin’s story on its front page with the headline “Post-Dispatch Reporter Gets Into Berlin” and a photo of Irwin in the toppled German capital. Although it was printed on May 8, the article’s dateline read “BERLIN, Germany, April 27.”
The stories of her experience as one of the two first war correspondents in Berlin spread throughout the country, even being picked up by the Associated Press. The publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Joseph Pulitzer II, was so thrilled with her work that he paid her a bonus of an entire year’s salary.
