1945

Articles from 1945

Bloody Iwo (Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

Some Jap officers, unable to face the prospect of defeat, dressed in their best uniforms, laid their samurai swords by their sides and then shot themselves in the head. Tokyo broadcast a plaintive admission from the Jap commander on Iwo Jima, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi:


‘This island is the front line that defends our mainland and I am going to die here.’

He was right on both counts.

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The Invasion of Japan and the Importance of Iwo Jima (Yank Magazine, 1945)

In our day, the significance of the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima is often dismissed as a campaign that should never have been waged; be that as it may, the following attachment is the U.S. Government explanation as to why the invasion of Iwo Jima was an essential part of the American strategy to invade Japan. Although you won’t find the information in this particular YANK article, the Marine and Army units that were to play leading rolls in the Japanese invasion were already selected and were at this point in training for the grim task before them (had it not been for the deployment of the Atomic Bombs, which hastened an end to the hostilities and saved hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides).

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Lt. Alexander Nininger, Jr. (Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

Lt. Alexander Nininger, Jr. (1918 – 1942) was posthumously awarded the first Medal of Honor of the Second World War, but regardless of that fact he got the brush-off in this column which was primarily written in order to inform the public of a new CBS radio program. The radio show was titled CMH and was intended to tell the individual stories of each and every MoH recipient of W.W. II.

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Captain Edward Steichen of the U.S. Navy (Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

As informative as this World War Two article about photographer Edward Steichen (1879 – 1973) is, it fails to convey to the reader what an interesting soul he must have been. Steichen was a respected photographer in modernist circles prior to volunteering for service in the First World War, and by the time he joined the U.S. Navy for the second go-round, his stock was even higher.

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The Capture of Heinrich Himmler (Yank Magazine, 1945)

A quick read, which begins with the story of how the British Army of occupation in Germany managed to detain and identify Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900 – 1945) when he was disguised in the Wehrmacht uniform of a sergeant. The remaining paragraphs are devoted to instructing the reader as to how similar ploys could be managed to identify other German war crimes suspects when they are in captivity.

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‘Fascist Finale” (Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

They killed Mussolini and his henchmen. They killed 1,000 persons in five days in and around Milan. Some Partisans thought the city was still not cleaned of Fascists when the American Army finally entered on Sunday afternoon April 29 and by their presence ended the assassinations.The fighting was about over; the even more difficult struggle was for stability was already beginning but with less excitement.

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‘Terror in Japan” Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

On March 10, 1945, a group of Superforts crossed Japan’s coast line. Behind them came another group, and another in a line stretching far back toward Saipan. In a long, thin file they roared over Tokyo. They flew low and out of their open bellies spilled bombs of jellied gasoline. When they hit, they burst, spewing out billowing, all-consuming fire. The flames leaped across fire lanes, swallowed factories, destroyed skyscrapers.


Click here to read about August 28, 1945 – the day the American occupation began.

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