So, that was kind of a big deal, and for a little while, her report about Germany building up troops at the border was the biggest story in the world. But that was soon to be overshadowed by the logical next move, which came three days later: Germany invading Poland outright. Hollingworth was staying in a flat right at the border at the time, so she was the first reporter to hear the planes coming over. Her first call was to the British Embassy in Warsaw, who refused to believe her since they thought Britain was currently smoothing things over between the two countries. To convince them, she held her phone out the window, so the sound of the tanks could travel along the phone lines.
That sort of scene is cheesy and unbelievable enough in a movie when, say, it's a talent scout trying to convince the music label about the amazing new band they've discovered by making them listen to them live -- but a war reporter using it to argue about tanks is another level. Hollingworth next called her paper, who called Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to let them know they were being invaded. The press officer didn't believe it, but the British embassy had also been passing Hollingworth's news along, so, during the call itself, an air raid siren sounded.
Between then and when she died at 105, Hollingworth had plenty of other adventures. When she was in Romania, and all reports were subject to the censors' scrutiny, she'd frequently get one story officially approved by the government and send a completely different one to her paper. The authorities came to arrest her for this, and she held them off by ... taking off all her clothes. "You can't possibly arrest me, I'm naked," she said, and this bought her enough time for a friend to come and get her to the embassy.