Who was Clare Hollingworth? The journalist who got the biggest scoop of the 20th century

On August 28, 1939, Journalist Clare Hollingworth observed the “large numbers of troops, literally hundreds of tanks, armored cars and field guns” Germany had aligned along the Polish border. Three days later, Hitler invaded Poland and WWII began. Some have called it the greatest news scoop of the 20th Century. She died in 2017 at the age of 105. An excerpt from the article:

"In early 1939, peace activist Clare Hollingworth arrived on the Polish-German border to aid Jews and other refugees fleeing from the Sudetenland, newly annexed by Nazi Germany.

On a brief return to her native England, 27-year-old Hollingworth - who once professed to “enjoy being in a war” - was hired as a part-time correspondent in Katowice, Poland, for the London Daily Telegraph.

After three days on the job that August, the cub reporter landed one of the biggest journalistic scoops of the 20th century: Hitler was about to invade Poland, marking the outbreak of the second world war.

Hollingworth, who died January 10 at 105, had driven into Germany to get a better sense of the what was going on. Without saying why, she asked to borrow a diplomatic vehicle from her ex-lover, the British consul in Katowice, knowing the Union Jack - the British flag - on its hood would get her across the heavily guarded border.

On her return journey, she was passed by dozens of German military messengers on motorcycles.

“I was driving back along a valley and there was a Hessian screen up so you couldn’t look down into the valley,” she told the Telegraph more than 70 years later. “Suddenly, there was a great gust of wind which blew the sacking from its moorings, and I looked into the valley and saw scores, if not hundreds, of tanks.

“So when I got back I said, ‘Thank you for lending me your car.’ And he said, ‘Where did you go, old girl?’ So I said, ‘I went into Germany.’ He said, ‘Stop being funny.’ And I said, ‘What’s more, I got a very good story: The tanks are already lined up for invasion of Poland.’ He went upstairs and sent a top secret message to the Foreign Office.”

Hollingworth called the Telegraph correspondent in Warsaw, and he filed a front-page story published on August 29, 1939, under the headline “1,000 tanks massed on Polish border. Ten divisions reported ready for swift stroke.” Three days later, she awoke to the sounds of German planes and Panzer tanks invading Poland. After notifying her editors, she called the British Embassy in Warsaw and declared, 'It’s begun.'”