1944

Articles from 1944

D-Day On The Home Front (Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

By the dawn’s early light America awoke to the knowledge that its D-Day had come. Electricity meters clocked a sudden spurt in kilowatt loads as house lights and radios went on; telephone switchboards jammed as excited householders passed the word along. By morning on June 6, scarcely a family failed to know that the nation’s sons and brothers, husbands and sweethearts were even then storming the beaches of Normandy to begin the Allied liberation of Europe.


Click here to read about D-Day…

D-Day On The Home Front (Newsweek Magazine, 1944) Read More »

Home Front Chicago (Yank Magazine, 1944)

Chicago, Illinois saw enormous changes take place during the war years, most notably the overnight construction of over 260 defense plants and the opening of its subway system (six miles in length, at that time). Half a million war workers arrived to toil in her new factories while it is said that each city block in Chicago dispatched, on average, at least seven of her sons and daughters for the armed services.

Nerves are taught with war tension. Hard work adds to the strain and increases the tempo. People walk faster in the streets. Stampedes for surface cars, and the new subway are more chaotic than ever… Five thousand block flagpoles have been erected by block committees of the Office of Civilian Defense. Listed in some manner near each are the names of all the GIs from the block. Some of the installations are elaborate and have bulletin boards that are kept up to date with personal news from camps and war theaters.

Home Front Chicago (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »

John Thompson of the Chicago Tribune (Coronet Magazine, 1944)

John Thompson of The Chicago Tribune saw more of the World War II than most other correspondents. He had witnessed to the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Paris and the horrors of the Buchenwald death camp. Throughout his life, Thompson held the distinction of being the last surviving war correspondent to land on Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings; by war’s end he had been awarded the Purple Heart, nine battle stars and was the first correspondent to receive the Medal of Freedom. This column was written in 1943 and pertains to some of his experiences in North Africa and Sicily.

John Thompson of the Chicago Tribune (Coronet Magazine, 1944) Read More »

John Thompson of the Chicago Tribune (Coronet Magazine, 1944)

John Thompson of The Chicago Tribune saw more of the World War II than most other correspondents. He had witnessed to the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Paris and the horrors of the Buchenwald death camp. Throughout his life, Thompson held the distinction of being the last surviving war correspondent to land on Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings; by war’s end he had been awarded the Purple Heart, nine battle stars and was the first correspondent to receive the Medal of Freedom. This column was written in 1943 and pertains to some of his experiences in North Africa and Sicily.

John Thompson of the Chicago Tribune (Coronet Magazine, 1944) Read More »

Richard Tregaskis of the International News Service (Coronet, 1944)

Richard Tregaskis (1916 – 1973) covered the invasion of Guadalcanal and the first seven weeks of Marine fighting on that island, the earliest stages of the Tokyo air raid, covered the Battle of Midway, wrote a best-selling book
(Guadalcanal Diary) and accompanied the forces that invaded the Russell Islands.

It wasn’t long after he arrived in the Mediterrian that stories began appearing in American papers under the Tregaskis byline, and he is still ‘somewhere’ on the European fighting front covering the big battles which make news.

Richard Tregaskis of the International News Service (Coronet, 1944) Read More »

A World War II Prayer Story (Reader’s Digest, 1944)

A psychologist, in discussing some of the widely publicized ‘miracles’ of the war, puts it this way: ‘God may be likened to an electric dynamo. We can receive the power of this dynamo by attaching ourselves to it by prayer; or we can prove it has no influence in our lives by refusing to attach ourselves to it by prayer. The choice is ours…’ Today indisputable proof of the power of prayer are pouring in from every quarter of the globe. The only surprising thing is that we think it surprising. These praying soldiers, sailors and aviators of ours are merely following the example of Washington who knelt to ask for aid in the snows of Valley Forge and of Lincoln who, in the darkest days of the Civil War, declared: ‘Without the assistance of That Divine Being Who attends me I cannot succeed; with that assistance I cannot fail.’


Click here to read about one of the most famous prayers of the Second World War…

A World War II Prayer Story (Reader’s Digest, 1944) Read More »

Hermann Goering as Fop: a Cartoon (The Jesters in Earnest, 1944)

Here is a W.W. II gag cartoon by the Czech chuckle-meister himself, W. Trier (probably a pseudonym) that was smuggled out of his occupied homeland to Britain where it was published in Jesters in Earnest (1944). The cartoonist truly succeeded in satirizing Goering’s love of costume and his precious self-image. However glorious the drawings may be, they fail to impart to the viewers just how enamored the Reichsmarschall was with perfume (and he was)

Hermann Goering as Fop: a Cartoon (The Jesters in Earnest, 1944) Read More »

Who Was Tougher: The Japanese or The Germans? (Yank Magazine, 1944)

By the end of 1943 Major General Joseph Lawton Collins (1917 – 1987) was one of two U.S. generals to give battle to both the Japanese in the East and the Germans in the West (Curtis Lemay was the other general). In this two page interview with Yank Magazine correspondent Mack Morriss, General Collins answered the question as to which of the two countries produced the most dangerous fighting man:

The Jap is tougher than the German. Even the fanatic SS troops can’t compare with the Jap…Cut off an outfit of Germans and nine times out of 10 they’ll surrender. Not the Jap.


Click here to read another article in which the Japanese and Germans were compared to one another.


Click here to read an interview with a Kamikaze pilot.

Who Was Tougher: The Japanese or The Germans? (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »