Yank Magazine

Articles from Yank Magazine

The African-Americans Fighting in France and Italy (Yank Magazine, 1945)

Here are two Yank Magazine articles from the same issue that report on the all-black combat units that fought the Germans on two fronts in Europe: one organization fought with the Seventh Army in France and Germany, the other fought with the Fifth Army through Italy:

Hitler would have a hemorrhage if he could see the white boys of the 411th Infantry bull-sessioning, going out on mixed patrols, sleeping in the same bombed buildings, sweating out the same chow lines with the Negro GIs.


Click here to read about the African-American efforts during the First World War.

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Jackie Robinson: In the Beginning (Yank Magazine, 1945)

This column concerns Jackie Robinson’s non-professional days in sports; his football seasons at Pasadena Junior College, basketball at UCLA and the Kansas City Monarchs. Being an Army publication, the reporter touched upon Robinson’s brief period as a junior officer in the 761st Tank Battalion.


A 1951 article about the Negro Baseball League can be read here


In 1969, Jackie Robinson wrote about African-American racists, click here to read it…


Click here to read a 1954 article about Willie Mays.

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The Malmedy Massacre (Yank Magazine, 1945)

Attached is a stirring collection of eyewitness accounts by the American survivors of the Malmedy Massacre (December 17, 1944) that took place during the Battle of the Bulge.

The German officer in the car stood up, took deliberate aim with a pistol at an American medical officer in the front rank of the prisoners and fired. As the medical officer fell, the Germans fired again and another American dropped. Immediately two tanks at the end of the field opened up with their machine guns on the defenseless prisoners…


By thew war’s end it was revealed that 43% of American prisoners of war had died in Japanese camps; by contrast, 1% had died in German POW camps.


Click here to read about the Nazi murder of an American Jewish P.O.W.

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An Interview with the Author (Yank Magazine, 1945)

A Yank Magazine interview with the author of Gone with the Wind (1936).

At the time this article was printed, Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949; Pulitzer Prize 1937) was an American publishing phenomenon; Gone with the Wind (or GWTW, to those in the know) was said to be the fastest selling novel in the history of American publishing. Her one book had a sales record of 50,000 copies in one day and approximately 1,500,000 during it’s first year. By May of 1941 the sales reached 3,368,000 in the English language alone (there were 18 translations made in all; the novel was a blockbuster in Germany, where 5000,000 editions were swiftly sold).


Available from Amazon: Gone with the Windstyle=border:none

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The Jumping General: James Gavin of the 82nd Airborne (Yank Magazine, 1945)

In the fall of 1978 former TIME MAGAZINE war correspondent Bill Walton remarked privately about how wildly inappropriate it was to cast the pretty-boy actor Ryan O’Neal in the roll as General James M. Gavin (1907 – 1990) for the epic war film, A Bridge Too Far. Having dropped into Normandy in 1944 with a typewriter strapped to his chest, Walton witnessed first-hand the grit and combat leadership skills that made Gavin so remarkable. The attached YANK article tells the tale of Gavin’s teen-age enlistment, his meteoric rise up the chain of command and his early advocacy for a U.S. Army parachute infantry divisions.


Another article contrasting the Germans and the Japanese can be read here…


Is your name Anderson?

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FDR, African-Americans, and the 1944 Election (Yank Magazine, 1944)

This article is a segment from a longer piece regarding the 1944 presidential election and the widespread disillusionment held by many Black voters regarding the failings of FDR and his administration:

…the Negro vote, about two million strong, is shifting back into the Republican column.


The report is largely based upon the observations of one HARPER’S MAGAZINE correspondent named Earl Brown.

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34th Division: From Kasserine, All the Way up the Boot (Yank Magazine, 1945)

On January 26, 1942 the long awaited boatload of U.S. troops to Great Britain had finally arrived. The first American G.I. to step off the plank and plant his foot on British soil was Pfc. Milburn H. Henke (1918 – 1998) of the 34th Infantry Divisionstyle=border:none; and as the news spread throughout all of John Bull’s island that help had arrived and the first guy had a German surname, the Brits (always big fans of irony) had a good laugh all around.


This article tells the tale of the 1st Battalion, 34th Division which had the distinction of being the longest serving U.S. combat unit in the course of the entire war. It was these men of the Mid-West who took it on the chin that day at Kasserine (America’s first W.W. II battle, which was a defeat), avenged their dead at El Guettar, landed at Salerno, Anzio and fought their way up to Bologna. By the time the war ended, there weren’t many of the original men left, but what few there were reminisce in this article. Interesting gripes about the problems of American uniforms can be read.

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The Doyle Slugs It Out (Yank Magazine, 1944)

From the deck of the destroyer U.S.S. Doyle, this Yank correspondent watched for nearly three nights as the grim drama of D-Day unfolded on the American beachhead.

From the Doyle‘s decks I could see the shells strike with the naked eye. First there would be a flash and then a puff of smoke which billowed into the sky. Several tanks and landing crafts were burning at the water’s edge. Through the glasses I watched troops jump from their boats and start running up the beach.


Statistical data concerning the U.S. Army casualties in June and July of 1944 can be read in this article.

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