Yank Magazine

Articles from Yank Magazine

The Tiger Tank at the Aberdeen Proving Ground
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The American army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground rests on 72,962 acres in Aberdeen, Maryland. Since 1917 it has been the one spot where the U.S. Army puts to the test both American and foreign ordnance and in 1944 the gang at Aberdeen got a hold of a 61 1/2 ton German battle-wagon, popularly known as the Tiger Tank (PZKW-VI). This is a nicely illustrated single page article that explains what they learned.


For further reading about the Tiger Tank, click here.

World War Two Hollywood
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The attached article is a swell piece of journalism that truly catches the spirit of home front America. You will read about the war-weary Hollywood that existed between the years 1941-1945 and the movie shortages, the hair-pin rationing, the rise of the independent producers and the ascent of Van Johnson (4-F slacker) and Lauren Becall:

Lauren, a Warner Brothers property, is a blonde-haired chick with a tall, hippy figure, a voice that sounds like a sexy foghorn and a pair of so-what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it eyes

Washington, D.C. During Wartime
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Washington, D.C. has always been described as a pretty dull place and the only ones who ever seem to feel differently must have had a good deal of experiences in far worse locations. In this case, I am referring to Iowa and the war-torn portions of the South Pacific, which are the only two locations this YANK journalist had ever called home; so he liked Washington just fine. The author in question, Sergeant Merle Miller (1919 – 1986), does not ramble on about historic bone-yards or any other pedantic clap-trap, but rather presents useful information that a G.I. can apply to his life:

Of course, getting a fair date while you’re in town is no problem. A Canadian newspaperman recently discovered that, judging from ration-book requests, there are 82,000 single girls of what he called the right marrying age of 20 to 24 in town, and only 26,000 men of the same age Therefore, he concluded, a girl has only about a 30-percent chance of getting a husband — or, for that matter, a date


The missing period at the close of the article, I assume, is due entirely to war-time shortages.


To read about the VJ-Day celebrations in Washington, click here.

British Attempts to Comprehend the American Lingo
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

Attached is small Yank Magazine article pertaining to a booklet titled, When You Meet an American that was distributed to assorted British girls by their government during the Second World War:

Try not to appear shocked at some of their expressions…if a lad from back home asks for a hot dog he actually means, ‘fried sausage in split rolls’…’Hi’ya baby!’ is legitimate.


Click here to read further about American teen slang.

Peace Comes to the United States
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Even though the war had ended some four months earlier, the American people were still receiving envelopes from the Department of War about the deaths and maimings of their sons when this article appeared.


These columns reported that peacetime took some getting used to, but day by day, the nation was slowly swinging into its post-war stride.



What if the Atomic Bomb had never been invented? When would the war have ended?


Articles about the daily hardships in post-war Germany can be read by clicking here.

VJ-Day and the End of the War
(Yank, 1945)

If you’ve been looking for a manifesto that would serve as a document of intention for the entire mass of Americans who make up the Greatest Generation, you might have found it.


While the other articles on VJ-Day on this site illustrate well the pure joy and delight that was experienced by so many that day, this editorial cautions the G.I. readers to remember all that they have learned from the war while laying the groundwork for the policy that would check Soviet expansion all over the globe.

Americans Tell of Japanese Prison Camps
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

A well illustrated magazine article which relays the tale of two Marines who were captured at the fall of Corregidor in 1941 and spent the remainder of the war in a Japanese prisoner of war camp on the island of Honshu, Japan. The two men told Yank correspondent Bill Lindau all about their various hardships and the atrocities they witnessed as well as the manner in which their lot improved when their guards were told that Japan had surrendered.


Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.

Click here if you would like to read about a World War One German P.O.W. camp.

The Japanese Prison Camp at Cabanatuan
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Here is an interview with the American P.O.W.s who were strong enough to survive the abuses at the Japanese Prison Camp at Cabanatuan (Luzon, Philippines).These men were the survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March:

You were on the Death March? somebody asked him.

Is that what they call it?…Yes, we walked to Capas, about 65 miles. Three days and three nights without food, only such water as we could sneak out of the ditches. We were loaded into steel boxcars at Campas, 100 men to a car – they jammed us in with rifle butts…

The rescue of these men by the 6th Ranger Battalion (U.S. Army) was dramatized in a 2005 television production titled The Great Raid.

Click here if you would like to read more about the 6th Rangers and the liberation of the Cabanatuan P.O.W. camp.

Prisoners of the Japanese
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

An escaped Australian Private, having been rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine, recalls how life was in the hell of a Japanese jungle P.O.W. camp, where all Allied prisoners were forced to build a railroad for the Emperor:

‘I often sit and wonder what I’m doing here’ reflected Pvt. James L. Boulton of Melbourne, Australia. ‘By the law of averages I should have been dead two years ago, and yet here I am smoking Yank cigarettes, eating Yank food with Yank nurses taking care of me. When I was a PW in the jungles of Burma I never thought I’d survive the beatings and fevers and ulcers.’

Click here to read articles about post-war Japan.

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