[7][9] Hollingworth became engaged to the son of a local family known to her own, but instead of marriage, went to work as secretary to the League of Nations Union (LNU) Worcestershire organiser.

Following the 1938 Munich Agreement, when the German speaking Sudetenland was incorporated into Germany, she went to Warsaw, working with Czech refugees.

She persuaded the British Consul-General in Katowice, John Anthony Thwaites, to lend her his chauffeured car for a fact-finding mission into Germany.

[12][13] While driving along the German–Polish border on 28 August, Hollingworth observed a massive build-up of German troops, tanks and armoured cars facing Poland, after the camouflage screens concealing them were disturbed by wind.

To convince doubtful Embassy officials, she held a telephone out of the window of her room to capture the sounds of German forces.

Wishing to remain at the front lines, however, she went on to cover General Dwight D. Eisenhower's forces in Algiers, writing for the Chicago Daily News.

[7] The BBC stated that, although she was not the earliest woman war correspondent, "her depth of technical, tactical and strategic insight set her apart.

[9][19] She later was said to have refused to shake the hand of the Irgun leader Menachem Begin, who many years later became the Prime Minister of Israel, because of his role in ordering the event.

[7] Early in 1963, still working for The Guardian, she was in Beirut and began to investigate Kim Philby, a correspondent for The Observer, discovering that he had departed for Odessa on a Soviet ship.

The Guardian's editor, Alastair Hetherington, fearing legal action, held up the story of Philby's defection for three months, before publishing her detailed account on 27 April 1963.

[7][8] She was one of the earliest commentators to predict that the war would end in stalemate and her reports were also distinguished by her attention to the opinions of Vietnamese civilians.

[25] In accordance with her wishes, her body was returned to England and buried in the churchyard of St Margaret of Antioch in Bygrave, Hertfordshire.

[26][15] In 1962, Hollingworth won Woman Journalist of the Year for her reporting of the civil war in Algeria (Hannen Swaffer Awards, UK).

[31] It is estimated she helped two- to three-thousand people escape from the Nazis' clutches, as the takeover frightened many to seek shelter.