1941

Articles from 1941

Integrating the Home Front (Collier’s Magazine 1941)

Although the Roosevelt administration believed that integrating the armed forces was far too risky a proposition during wartime, it did take one important step to insure that fair hiring practices were followed by all businesses that held defense contracts with the Federal government; during the summer of 1941, while American industry was still fulfilling its roll as the arsenal of democracy, a Federal law was passed that criminalized racist hiring practices. The attached editorial from Collier’s Magazine applauded the President for doing the right thing.


Read an anti-Gandhi article from 1921…

Integrating the Home Front (Collier’s Magazine 1941) Read More »

American Apologist For The Purges (The American Magazine, 1941)

FDR’s second ambassador to Moscow, Joseph E. Davies (1876 – 1958), wrote this stunning article in which he makes clear that he was all in favor of Stalin’s purges and believed that the trials indicated the amazing far-sightedness of Stalin and his close associates. He believed every one of the trumped-up charges and swallowed them hook, line and sinker. He concluded the article by advising other liberty loving nations to follow Stalin’s example.

American Apologist For The Purges (The American Magazine, 1941) Read More »

A Child of the Bund… (Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Similar to the one other piece of W.W. II historic fiction posted on this site, this short story is remarkably brief and to the point. Published weeks before America committed itself to the war, this little ditty was penned by Pat Frank (born Harry Hart Frank: 1908 – 1964) who wished to convey the inherit dangers of allowing the Nazi-sympathizing German American Bund to operate unchecked in the land of the free and home of the brave.

A tight little story succinctly told: print it out and read it.


The other short story is called Nesei Homecoming.


Click here to read about the origins of Fascist thought…

A Child of the Bund… (Collier’s Magazine, 1941) Read More »

Capturing The Largest Nazi Spy Ring (Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Following swiftly on the smashing of a spy ring in this country, a Federal grand jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., last week leveled a unique indictment at the government of Nazi Germany: it baldly accused the Third Reich of conducting, in ten countries stretching from Peru to China, a worldwide espionage plot directed against the United States.


J. Edgar Hoover tells how this ring was broken up in this 1951 article…

Capturing The Largest Nazi Spy Ring (Newsweek Magazine, 1941) Read More »

Stuck in Nassau (Click Magazine, 1941)

This Click Magazine article concerns the diplomatic posting to Nassau, Bahamas that was the lot of the Duke of Windsor shortly after the outbreak of World War Two. The Duke and Duchess had gleefully met Adolf Hitler some two years earlier and, following that error, were overheard on a few occasions making defeatist statements concerning the British war effort. Wishing to keep him in a spot where he could do no damage yet still be monitored, the British Foreign Office granted him the title of Royal Governor and posted him to Nassau.
Illustrated by four seldom-seen color photographs that, no doubt, the two were simply delighted to pose for, the interview makes clear just how bored the Windsors were on that hot, sticky island paradise, where they remained until 1945.

Stuck in Nassau (Click Magazine, 1941) Read More »

The Birth of American Parachute Infantry (The American Magazine, 1941)

Here is an account of the earliest days of the paratrooper branch of the U.S. Army. It is told by a man who claims the unique distinction of being the first volunteer to be recruited into the organization, Captain William T. Ryder (1913 – 1992). At this point in history the word paratrooper was not is use – the author uses the term jump-fighter, instead.

The Birth of American Parachute Infantry (The American Magazine, 1941) Read More »

‘Religion In The Ranks” (Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

During the course of the Second World War, over 12,000 Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, and Jewish rabbis left the safety of home to join the Chaplain Corps – yet this short article explains that in August of 1941 there were only 994 Protestants, 318 Catholics and 18 Rabbis enrolled in the Chaplaincy. Five months later, with the Pearl Harbor attack, these numbers would begin their climb. The article was written to mark the introduction of the prefabricated chapels that the military would be adding to each of the camps that would soon be dotting the American landscape.

‘Religion In The Ranks” (Newsweek Magazine, 1941) Read More »