http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25108104In July 1937 a Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany became the first female war photographer to die on assignment. At the age of 26, Gerda Taro was just starting to make a name for herself and had already helped launch the career of the young Robert Capa.
Gerda Taro spent the last day of her life in the trenches of Brunete, west of Madrid, holed up with Republican fighters.
It was a critical moment in the Spanish Civil War - Gen Franco's forces had just retaken the town, inflicting heavy losses on the Republicans' best troops, who were now under fire as they retreated.
As bombs fell and planes strafed the ground with machine-gun fire, Taro kept taking photographs.
She was due to return to France the next day and only left the trenches when she ran out of film, making her way to a nearby town.
"She was elated, saying 'I've got these fantastic photographs, I've got champagne, we're going to have a party,'" says Jane Rogoyska, author of a new book, Gerda Taro, Inventing Robert Capa.
She jumped onto the running boards of a car transporting wounded soldiers, but it collided with an out-of-control tank and she was crushed. She died in hospital from her injuries early the following morning.
Her photographs from that day, 25 July 1937, were never found.
She had spent the previous year making regular trips to Spain to document the fighting.
"Taro became very emotionally involved in the Spanish Civil War… she was so passionate about the suffering of the Spanish people," says Rogoyska.
Republican fighters had great respect for her. In her book, Rogoyska quotes the memoirs of Alexander Szurek, an adjutant to a Republican general: "We all loved Gerda very much… Gerda was petite with the charm and beauty of a child. This little girl was brave and the Division admired her for that," he wrote.
On some previous trips, Taro had been accompanied by her partner, photographer Robert Capa, but on this occasion she travelled without him and fell in with Canadian photographer Ted Allan.
/Marcus