1941

Articles from 1941

The Earliest Days of Training (Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Up by bugle at 5:45 in subfreezing temperature. Breakfast – boiled oatmeal, French toast and syrup, toast, jam, coffee. At 7:30 began ‘psychological test’ for mental alertness (typical question: An orange is a broom, bat, flower, or fruit?). Received complete uniforms. Try-on period after lunch resulted in many misfits, much swapping and revival of old crack about there being only two sizes in the Army – too big and too small…

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America Prepares… (Pathfinder Magazine, 1941)

By late November, 1941, only children and the clinically optimistic were of the mind that America would be able to keep out of a war – as you’ll be able to assume when you read the attached article that appeared on the newsstands just ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It extolls the industrial prowess of the United States as the country prepared for war:


• William S. Knudson (1879 – 1948), Director of the OPM, declared U.S. arms output will soon ‘assure Hitler’s defeat’. Proof of this claim was seen in the celebration in New Haven, Connecticut, of one company’s production of it’s 10,000th machine-gun within a year of the time the contract was signed to build a plant.


• The launching of the 35,000-ton battleship INDIANA at Newport News, Virginia, the third battleship to come off the ways this year, indicated the increased tempo of defense production, which Admiral Land, of the Maritime Commission, said neared ‘superhuman’.

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WHAT IF – Hitler Had Been Killed? (Click Magazine, 1941)

It must have been a slow news week when the CLICK MAGAZINE crew approached three of the busiest editors in the the U.S. and Britain asking them how they would break the news if Hitler were to be killed tomorrow?

Every editor we queried agreed that when it happens, the death of Adolf Hitler will sell more papers than any other news event of the Twentieth century…All agreed that Hitler’s death would not end the war; two out of three guessed he would die violently.

The leftest publisher Ralph Ingersoll knew right away that Hitler would die by his own hand.


The article is illustrated with facsimile printings of the headlines and how each paper believed the dictator would die – it was an academic exercise, but a fun read, nonetheless.

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Cecil B. DeMille Tries his Hand at Radio (Pic Magazine, 1941)

At the age of 63, after 44 years in show business, and ten years as director of the Lux Radio Theaterstyle=border:none, Cecil B. De Mille is still producing. He can’t stop and he probably never will. He is first, last and all the time a showman. The show business is in his blood, and whether he is on a set or taking his leisure at home, his heart and mind are in the theater. He loves to have people around him so that he can play a part, for consciously or unconsciously, he is always acting… C.B.’s father was an actor and playwright, and later a partner of David Belasco. His mother was an actress, and later a very successful play agent.

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Cecil B. DeMille Tries his Hand at Radio (Pic Magazine, 1941)

At the age of 63, after 44 years in show business, and ten years as director of the Lux Radio Theaterstyle=border:none, Cecil B. De Mille is still producing. He can’t stop and he probably never will. He is first, last and all the time a showman. The show business is in his blood, and whether he is on a set or taking his leisure at home, his heart and mind are in the theater. He loves to have people around him so that he can play a part, for consciously or unconsciously, he is always acting… C.B.’s father was an actor and playwright, and later a partner of David Belasco. His mother was an actress, and later a very successful play agent.

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The Show-Biz Blood of Cecil B. DeMille (Pic Magazine, 1941)

At the age of 63, after 44 years in show business, Cecil B. De Mille is still producing. He can’t stop and he probably never will. He is first, last and all the time a showman. The show business is in his blood, and whether he is on a set or taking his leisure at home, his heart and mind are in the theater. He loves to have people around him so that he can play a part, for consciously or unconsciously, he is always acting… C.B.’s father was an actor and playwright, and later a partner of David Belasco. His mother was an actress, and later a very successful play agent.


The article goes into more depth outlining De Mille various triumphs in silent film and his work on The Squaw Manstyle=border:none.

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