Collier’s Magazine – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

A Pen-Picture of the Devastated Soviet Union
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

After touring thousands of miles with a German press-pass throughout Nazi-occupied Russia, American journalist Hugo Speck (1905 – 1970) gave a thorough picture of the violence visited upon that land by both Armies:

“German-occupied Russia is in rags and ruins; huge sweeps of European Soviet territory have been systematically destroyed, partly by the Russians themselves and partly by the devastation of Stukas, panzers, guns and fire…”

Destroying Germany from Above
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

“The Reich is being methodically pulverized. The Eighth U.S. Air Force by day and the R.A.F. by night have only begun their deadly round-the-clock job. The coming months will see them unleash a fury that surpasses all the world’s earthquakes.”

Life on a B-17 Base in England
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

This is an amazing article that recalls the open-all-night cities that were the B-17 bases in Britain during World War Two. Such were the lives of the ground crews, who worked all night and then found sleep impossible – preferring to stay-up and stare at the skies in anticipation for their returning bombers.

“A crew chief stumbles past you on his way to the hangar. He’s been going seventy-two hours without taking his shoes off; his face is unshaven, and his eyes look like holes burned in a blanket.”

Life on a B-17 Base in England
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Soldiers Speak-Out About the Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

“There is no other country at war with such an enormous gulf in sacrifice between fighting men and civilians. There is no other country where the men at the front have given up everything, while the people at home have given up practically nothing. And the soldiers know it…‘A few bombs would do this country a lot of good.’ I heard that in San Francisco from a curly-headed sailor who had been sunk in the Pacific, and I heard it again in Washington from a corporal who had left his leg on Hill 609. Both added, rather anxiously, that, of course, they wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Debauchery Near the Army Camps
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Even before the Home Front kicked into high-gear, the men who had been picked up in the 1940 draft were causing real problems in every area where a military training camp could be found. Knowing that the enlistments were soon to grow and these problems would be getting worse, the brass hats joined arms with the town elders to curb the drinking and whoremongering. The cure for these difficulties came in the form of the USO, which would be eatablished before the year was out.

A similar article can be read here.

”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.

Miracle at 20,000 Feet
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Flying home after bombing Tunis, the B-17 All-American with a full crew of ten onboard was sliced open at the rear by a nazi fighter plane that nearly severed her tail. How the craft stayed up in the air was anybody’s guess.

The Success of the Ploesti Raid
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Here is an article from 1943, the year everything changed for the Axis. The article explains all that was involved with the stout-hearted raid on the Ploesti oil fields in Rumania. 177 American bombers were sent to do the job.

“From Ploesti, the Nazis extracted oil and oil products which maintained the entire German and Italian fleets, and third of the whole German air force in Russia. Around the Ploesti installations, the Germans had raised a forest of antiaircraft guns of large and small calibers. They had built blast walls around plants’ vital parts and spotted airdromes from which fighters could rise to intercept our bombers.”

Child Labor During W.W. II
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

“Throughout the land, child labor is making a comeback as already inadequate laws buckle under pressure of fraudulent appeals to patriotism. Here is what greed and indifference are doing to America’s greatest asset: its children:”

“[The Devious] prefer children – the child worker is cheaper, more agile and willing, has less bargaining power. So the cry goes out for more and more children, ‘to help win the war!'”

“Just how it helps win the war for an Alabama girl of 11 to work in the fields till she collapses and is taken to a hospital with heart trouble has not been made clear.”

”My Patient, Adolf Hitler”
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Dr. Eduard Bloch (1872 – 1945) was the Austrian physician who treated the family Hitler throughout the 1880’s up until 1908. He knew the future tyrant well. Oddly, the doctor seems quite sympathetic toward Hitler – he couldn’t have known that his patient would become one of the greatest monsters of the Twentieth Century, but he had read Hitler’s book and knew what he was capable of.

“What kind of boy was Adolf Hitler? Many biographers have put him down as harsh-voiced, defiant, untidy; as a young ruffian who personified all that is unattractive. This simply is not true. As a youth he was quiet, well-mannered and neatly dressed.”

The Bombed-Out Germans
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

A report by a Swiss journalist as to what becomes of the Germans who are left homeless after the bombings:

“In most cities they immediately get 200 marks cash payment. The money is fresh and clean from the press… With cup in hand, the bombed-outers wait in the streets for the army goulash truck to drive up and give them a feed. Sometimes they wait for as much forty-eight hours. People who don’t like or cannot get the army goulash build themselves a fire and cook the horses, dogs and cats that lie around the street…”

He was One of a Kind
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Here is an article by George Creel (1876 – 1953) regarding the life and career of General George Marshall (1880 – 1959) and all the unique elements within him that made him an ideal Chief of Staff for his time:

“He can not only talk with civilians in their own language, but he can also see things from the civilian point of view. Even during the years when Congress denied adequate appropriations for the Army, no one ever heard him snarl at rotten politicians. He saw the unwillingness to prepare for war as a democracy’s hatred of war, and even while regretting it, he understood.”

Click here to read about the Marshall Plan.

”With Eisenhower in Sicily”
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

“On the first day of operations, I heard him say, ‘By golly, we’ve done it again! By golly, I wouldn’t have believed it1’ Meaning the surprise landings really turned out to be a surprise. And [turning to the press corps] he added, ‘This is the period when you fellows want to know everything, but military folks are scared to death just now. Darn it, I can’t tell you anything! After all, I’m the man responsible.”

Hollywood Feels the Actor Shortages
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

“What Hollywood is saying secretly and can’t say publicly is: The Armed Forces are taking away all our actors, all our technical men. Things are serious now; in six months they will be desperate. But if anybody in Hollywood got up and said that unless a great change in public policy is made, the movies might be out of business in six months…”

“[Movie stars have] a duty and Hollywood has a duty and they should be made to stick to it.”

Amphibian Engineers
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

“The motto of the Engineer Amphibian Command is “Put’em Across”, and its principle is aptly put by Brigadier General Daniel Noce (1894−1976) , chief of the U.S. Army’s amphibious operations in the European theater, who built this force from scratch. ‘Water between us and the enemy is an avenue, not an obstacle’ he says.”

Fair Treatment
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

To us, the most interesting part of this 1943 editorial is in the opening sentence, where an accounting is given as to the number of prisoners acquired after a full year and a half of war. The U.S. military had amassed 22,000 Germans, 14,000 Italians – yet only 62 (sixty-two) Japanese prisoners of war! This is famously due to the instructions given to the Emperor’s combatants to not be taken prisoner – but we certainly expected there to be more than that. The writer goes on speaking in favor of just treatment for Axis prisoners – but please don’t pamper our Nisei in Arizona.

Frank Coffyn
(Collier’s Magazine, 1934)

Frank Coffyn (1878 – 1960) was one of the earliest pioneer aviators in the United States. In this article he recalls those heady days when he regularly broke bread and talked shop with the likes of Orville Wright and other assorted fathers of aviation. Coffyn has long been remembered for being the first pilot to fly his camera-mounted Wright Flyer over Manhattan and under both Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges in 1912 – which he recalls herein.