1944

Articles from 1944

She Lead The WAACs (Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

Here is the skinny on Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby (1905 – 1995). This article begins at a crucial point in her life, when she took charge of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (later the Women’s Army Corps). With no prior military experience, Hobby entered the U.S. Army as a major and immediately began organizing the Women’s Army Auxiliary into an efficient clerical element within the army. Her abilities were evident and she was soon elevated to the rank of colonel; in a similar light, the skills and abilities of the WAACs were also recognized and they, too, were given more challenging jobs. After the war, Hobby went on to distinguish herself in a number of other government positions.


Click here to read about WAC accomplishments by the end of 1945.

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Tarawa (Yank Magazine, 1944)

The editors at Yank Magazine were always aware that the publication existed primarily to keep U.S. Army morale on the upward swing, but they never wished to patronize their readers by feeding them Army approved malarkey either. They knew fully that they had to give the straight dope as often as possible or they, too, would be eating k-rations at the front. There are examples of articles that seriously downplayed the disappointing outcomes of major engagements (such as Kasserine Pass and Operation Market Garden) but, by enlarge, the sugar-coating was lighter than you might think. That is why this 1944 article concerning the Battle of Tarawa is important. Yank correspondent John Bushemi (1917 – 1944) made it quite clear the U.S. Marine losses were heavy, and for that reason alone the battle was of historical significance.


Click to read about the U.S. fabric rationing during W.W. II.

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Home Front Philadelphia (Yank Magazine, 1944)

You can boil down nearly all the changes that have taken place in Philadelphia since Pearl Harbor to one word: prosperity.

In 1940 the average factory worker in Philadelphia was making $27 a week and the city’s total factory pay roll was 393 millions. In 1943 Philadelphia’s factory workers averaged $48 a week and the total factory payroll was one and a quarter billions…The Philadelphia social life, too, has taken a terrific shot in the arm…

Read about Wartime San Francisco.

Click here to read about wartime Washington, D.C..

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Meat Rationing Lead To Alternatives (Click Magazine, 1944)

As a result of the rationing of beef some people along the W.W. II home front turned to whale meat as a substitute for beef:

If you walk into a Seattle, Washington butcher shop and ask for a steak, you might be offered a whale steak. No ration points will be required, and the flavor will be somewhere between that of veal and beef. You can prepare your steak just as you would a sirloin, or you can have it ground into whaleburger.



When the U.S. was fighting the First World War, twenty years earlier, it was found that the oil extracted from whales proved useful in the production of explosives.

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The Most Dreaded Telegram on the Home Front (Coronet Magazine, 1944)

By the time this historic piece was written, thousands upon thousands of Western Union casualty telegrams had been delivered to altogether too many American households. This article lucidly explains how they should be delivered and how they shouldn’t be delivered. Recognizing the solemnity of the task, the men who passed the news along were often older men, who had tasted some of life’s bitterness:


One mother, receiving the news that her son was dead, crushed the paper in her hand and looking beyond the messenger, said, ‘If it hadn’t been my son, it would have been some other mother’s’.

The Most Dreaded Telegram on the Home Front (Coronet Magazine, 1944) Read More »