1944

Articles from 1944

The First Two Weeks of the Battle of the Bulge (United States News, 1944)

The American magazines that appeared on newsstands during late November and early December of 1944 are often found to have articles anticipating life in the post-war world or tips on how to welcome your returning husband home from the battle fronts. This line of thinking was put on hold in late December when the Germans launched their brutal counter offensive through the Ardennes Forrest in what has been nicknamed the Battle of the Bulge.

Warnings From A Soviet Defector (Reader’s Digest, 1944)

A fascinating article written by a man who just seven years earlier had been a senior officer in Stalin’s army. In order to escape the dictator’s purges, General Alexander Barmine (1899 – 1987) defected to the West in 1937 and made his way to the U.S. where he began writing numerous articles about the NKVD operations in North America. This article concerns the Soviet infiltration of labor unions, the Democratic Party and the U.S. Government.

Port of Embarcation (Yank Magazine, 1944)

This one page article from YANK MAGAZINE by Irwin Swerdlow will give you a sense of the Herculean task that was involved in the transporting of so many men and supplies across the English Channel to breach Rommel’s Atlantic Wall:

The biggest job of coordination that the world has ever known was under way. Thousands of things had to happen at a certain time, things which, if they did not happen, would delay the entire movement.


Click here to read about unloading supplies on Iwo Jima.

‘Doughboy’s General” (Reader’s Digest, 1944)

This column summarizes General Bradley’s early life and career with a good deal of space devoted to his leadership during the North African Campaign:

Chosen over dozens his senior in service, he was sent to North Africa in February 1943 as deputy to General Patton. In May he succeeded Patton. On several critical occasions his tactical skill and remarkable sense of timing surprised the Germans and soundly defeated them. One of his favorite maxims: ‘Hit the enemy twice: first to find out what he’s got; then, to take it away from him.’

Restless Nazis in Canada (Newsweek Magazine, 1942)

Here is an article about all the goings-on at the POW camp in Bowmanville on Lake Ontario, Canada. It concerns the German inclination to escape and the methods employed by the Canadians to keep them in place.

The Canadians on D-Day (Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

In the first 48 hours the Canadians had captured a dozen towns, taken more than 600 prisoners, stopped a small enemy tank force outside Caen and then joined the British in repeated attacks on Caen.

Inhumanity (Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

Here is a short column that recalls the bestial treatment that was meted out to the American and Filipino prisoners of war by their Japanese masters.

For example, in August of last year, some 300 Japs attacked an unarmed litter train on the Munda Trail. They hacked twenty of the wounded to death…

Personal Efforts On The Home Front (Assorted Magazines)

Here is a smattering of paragraphs that appeared seven months into the war that give a glimpse into how various souls on the American home front had pitched-in for the war effort. My personal favorite is the one about the school children who pooled their money to buy cartons of cigarettes for soldiers.

D-Day Plus Ten With the 82nd Airborne (Yank Magazine, 1944)

The battle of the hedgerows as experienced by the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division:

They all had been fighting since D-Day. Compared with the obstacles at the beginning of their drive, the hill they had just taken was only a minor deal, but it was no push-over. At some places, one paratrooper told me, the fighting was so close the Krauts didn’t even bother to throw their grenades, they just handed them over to us.

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