Articles from Yank Magazine
Nine Americans recalled witnessing the deliberate torture and killing of American prisoners of war by their Japanese captors on the Pacific island of Palawan.
The American began begging to be shot and not burned. He screamed in such a high voice I could hear him. Then I could see the Jap pour gasoline on one of his feet and burn it, and then the other. He collapsed…
This one page article from YANK MAGAZINE by Irwin Swerdlow will give you a sense of the Herculean task that was involved in the transporting of so many men and supplies across the English Channel to breach Rommel’s Atlantic Wall:
The biggest job of coordination that the world has ever known was under way. Thousands of things had to happen at a certain time, things which, if they did not happen, would delay the entire movement.
Click here to read about unloading supplies on Iwo Jima.
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).
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.
Written four months after the allied invasion of Europe, and seven months to go until the war’s end, YANK MAGAZINE published this account of the Canadian march through France and their heroic stand at the Falaise Gap.
Click here to read about the Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.
Published four months after the World War II Japanese surrender, the YANK MAGAZINE editors saw fit to publish the happily obsolete plans for the invasion of Japan: operations CORONET and OLYMPIC.
Published four months after the World War II Japanese surrender, the YANK MAGAZINE editors saw fit to publish the happily obsolete plans for the invasion of Japan: operations CORONET and OLYMPIC.
The attached article is comprised of numerous war stories from the GIs of the 96th Infantry Division who were assigned the pleasant chore of slugging it out with the Japanese in the Leyte Valley of the Philippines.
This cautionary article seems like a collaboration between Emily Post, the Twentieth Century’s High-Priestess of manners, and Sigmund Freud. It concerns one-part social instruction and one-part psychology. It offers wise words to the Yank readers as how best to behave when being interrogated by Axis goons; American mothers would have been proud to know that their tax dollars were well-spent advising their progeny to keep in mind manners, manners, manners and always anticipate the direction of the conversation:
It’s best to call your enemy questioner Sir or his rank, if you can figure out what it is. Then when you answer I’m sorry, sir to his questions, there isn’t much he can do about it…
Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.
Moved by the devotion and fortitude of the U.S. Army combat medics serving in the New Guinea campaign, YANK correspondent Dave Richardson wrote this short article in praise of the selfless acts performed by four outstanding medics.
1943 was truly the year that proved to have been the turning point in the war, click here to read about it…
