Articles from 1945
Subhas Chandra Bose (1897 – 1945) spent much of the Twenties and Thirties brainstorming with Gandhi and Nehru as to how best they might secure sovereignty for their beloved India. By 1939 Bose broke ranks with his fellows at the Indian National Congress, believing that British rule would end a good deal quicker if the Indians signed on with the Axis.
Hitler’s Man in Delhi (Collier’s Magazine, 1944) Read More »
This brief column tells the story of three women war correspondents who marched at the point of the spear alongside the American infantry in order to report on the collapse of Hitler’s Germany. The correspondents in question were:
• Lee Carson in Remagen
• Iris Carpenter in Remagen
• Ann Stringer in the city of Bonn
The Redhead, The Blonde and the Brunette (Newsweek Magazine, 1945) Read More »
As the American occupation forces began to pour in and spread throughout the cities and countryside of Japan, both occupied and occupier slowly get to learn of the other. The cordial attitude of the Japanese leads General MacArthur to conclude that the military presence need not be as large as he had once believed:
Curious and awed, increasingly friendly Japanese flocked to watch what they called the ‘race of giants’ at work.
The Work Starts (Newsweek Magazine, 1945) Read More »
The reforms that were imposed upon Occupied Japan in the Forties and Fifties did not simply come in the form of death sentences for war criminals – but additionally the Japanese came to know the rights and protections that are guaranteed to All Americans under the United States Constitution. For the first time ever Japanese women were permitted to vote, unions were legalized and equality under the law was mandated. This small notice concerned the overthrow of the feudal laws that governed the Japanese tenant farmers.
Japanese Feudalism Overturned (Pathfinder Magazine, 1945) Read More »
By the time the war ended the WACs were 100,000 strong –
they had earned 314 medals and commendations, including 23 Legion of Merit awards and fourteen Purple Hearts. Throughout the war, seventeen thousand WACs had served overseas but by Christmas of 1945 their global strength had been cut in half.
WACs at Christmas (Newsweek Magazine, 1945) Read More »
In this study concerning the religions of the United States during the mid-to-late period of the Second World War, it was revealed that there were a total of 256 religious bodies in the country; of this 13 reported a membership numbering in excess of one million followers. All-in, there were 72,492,669 who were members of one faith or another:
Catholics:…………………………….. 23,419,791
Methodists:…………………………. 8,046,129
Baptists:………………………………. 5,667,926
All the Protestant denominations added up to 41,943,104. The Jewish congregations clocked-in at 4,641,184.
Statistics on American Religions (America Weekly, 1945) Read More »
The story behind the atomic bomb is a detective story with no Sherlock Holmes for a hero. The number of scientists who took part in the search was without parallel…The dramatic story begins with Dr. Lise Meitner (1878 – 1968), a woman scientist and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. In 1938 Dr. Meitner is bombarding uranium atoms with neutrons and then submitting the uranium to chemical analysis. To her amazement…
How The Atomic Bomb Was Developed (Yank, 1945) Read More »
The President wanted medical, dental and hospital care for all. Doctor’s fees would be paid by a Government insurance fund, financed by a 3% payroll tax, paid 50-50 by employee and employer.
(Strange that sexual reassignment surgery wasn’t included…)
Obamacare’ in the Forties (Atlanta Journal, 1949, Newsweek Magazine, 1945, etc.) Read More »
On the evening of March 26, 1944, fifteen O.S.S. agents were executed following a failed raid on Italian soil to blow-up an Axis railroad tunnel. The sabotage mission was in support of the allied attack taking place further south at Monte Cassino (Battle of Monte Cassino, January 17, 1944 – May 19, 1944) and had the tunnel been successfully blown, supplies to the defending Germans would have been cut off.
This YANK article reported on the first war crime trial of the post World War Two era: the trial of German General Anton Dostler (1891 – 1945), who gave the order to execute the O.S.S. prisoners. In his defense, General Dostler insisted that he was acting under the orders of General Gustav von Zangen, who denied the claim.
O.S.S. Agents Executed by General Anton Dostler (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
This was more than likely the very first mainstream magazine article to address the vital contributions that the Office of Strategic Service made in beating the Axis powers. It appeared on the newsstands just about six weeks after the end of the Second World War and lists various key operations and triumphs that had heretofore been secret.
In 1940 OSS chief Donovan wrote an article about the German-American Bund, Click here to read it.
The O.S.S. (Collier’s Magazine, 1945) Read More »
