Dickey Chapelle

• Name — Dickey Chapelle • Birth Name — Georgette Louise Meyer • Born — 14 March 1919 • Birthplace — Milwaukee, Wisconsin U.S. • Died — 4 November 1965 • Place of death — near Chu Lai, Quảng Ngãi province, South Vietnam • Burial Place — Forest Home Cemetery • Education — Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Occupation — Photojournalist • Years Active — 1941–1965

Chapelle was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and attended Shorewood High School. By the age of sixteen, she was attending aeronautical design classes at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She soon returned home, where she worked at a local airfield, hoping to learn to pilot airplanes instead of designing them. However, when her mother learned that she was also having an affair with one of the pilots, Chapelle was forced to live with her grandparents in Coral Gables, Florida. There, she wrote press releases for an air show, which led to an assignment in Havana, Cuba. A story on a Cuban air show disaster that Chapelle submitted to The New York Times got her noticed by an editor at Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA), which prompted her to move to New York City. Working at the TWA publicity bureau, she began to take weekly photography classes with Tony Chapelle, who became her husband in October 1940. She eventually quit her job at TWA to compile a portfolio, which she sold to Look magazine in 1941. In April 1941, she was hired by Lear Avia to handle press liaison work for the New York office, according to a press release from the company. Later, after fifteen years of marriage, she divorced Tony, and changed her first name to Dickey. She changed her name because she looked up to polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd. Richard's nickname was Dickey.

Despite limited photographic credentials Chapelle managed to become a war correspondent photojournalist during World War II for National Geographic, and with one of her first assignments, was posted with the Marines during the battle of Iwo Jima. She covered the battle of Okinawa as well. By the end of the war, she had written many war-related articles in addition to nine books, mostly about women in aviation. Known for being unafraid, she made her first parachute jump while in her 40s. After the war, she traveled extensively and worked in many active war zones. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Chapelle was captured and jailed for over seven weeks. She later learned to jump by parachute, and when in war zones preferred to travel directly with the troops. After being told, on jumping out of a helicopter, that there was no reason to close her eyes, she adopted the motto "Only you can frighten you". Chapelle won many awards for photojournalism, and earned the respect of both the military and journalistic community. Chapelle "was a tiny woman known for her refusal to kowtow to authority and her signature uniform: fatigues, an Australian bush hat, dramatic Harlequin glasses, and pearl earrings."

• Illustration — Chapelle's grave at Forest Home Cemetery Despite early support for Fidel Castro, Chapelle was an outspoken anti-Communist, and loudly expressed these views at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Her stories in the early 1960s extolled the American military advisors who were already fighting and dying in South Vietnam, and the Sea Swallows, the anticommunist militia led by Father Nguyễn Lạc Hoá. Chapelle was a member of the Citizens Committee for a Free Cuba, set up in 1963. Dickey never got any special treatment because of her sex. Chapelle was killed on November 4, 1965, while on patrol with a Marine platoon during Operation Black Ferret, a search and destroy operation 16 km south of Chu Lai, Quảng Ngãi province, South Vietnam. The lieutenant in front of her kicked a tripwire boobytrap, consisting of a mortar shell with a hand grenade attached to the top of it. Chapelle was hit in the neck by a piece of shrapnel metal which severed her carotid artery and she died soon afterwards. Her last moments were captured in a photograph by Henri Huet. Her body was repatriated with an honor guard consisting of six Marines, and she was given a full Marine burial at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. There is now a monument near the site of her death. The group of Marines dedicated the memorial marker. It says "She was one of us and we will miss her." She became the first female war correspondent to be killed in Vietnam, as well as the first American female reporter to be killed in action.

• "How Castro Won" (1962). In: Osanka, Franklin Mark, and Samuel P. Eluntington (1962). Modern Guerrilla Warfare: Fighting Communist Guerrilla Movements, 1941-1961. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. pp. 325–335.

Dickey Chapelle was recorded at birth as Georgette Louise Meyer. She also worked under the name Dickey Chapelle. The authorities additionally record the headings Georgette Meyer, Georgette Meyer Chapelle, Dickey Chapelle, Georgette Louise Meyer and Georgie Lou Meyer.