Yank Magazine – Page 7 – Old Magazine Articles

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?

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.

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 Division; 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.

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.

Four Glider Pilots on D-Day
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

A three page article about the unique experiences of four American glider pilots on D-Day; how they fared after bringing their infantry-heavy gliders down behind German lines, what they saw and how they got back to the beach.

The Liberation of Paris
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Two Yank Magazine reporters rode into Paris behind the first tank of the Second French Armored Division, following the story of the city’s liberation in their recently liberated German jeep. Here is a picture of Paris and the reaction of Parisians to their first breath of free air in four years.

As they caught site of the American flag on our car, people crowded around and almost smothered us with kisses…

Click here to read about the fall of Paris…

Paris After the Liberation
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The capital of France, as of September 1944, is not the same nervous, triumphant paradise city that it was when the Allies first made their entry.

The welcome has died down. When you enter the town, today, whether on foot or in a car, everyone is glad to see you, but there are no more mob scenes of riotous greeting exploding around each jeep. Shows are opening again, and the people are beginning to breathe easier…On the other side, Parisians appear as a very grateful but proud and self-reliant population.

The German Surrender
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The attached article is an eye-witness account of the World War II surrender proceedings in Reims, France in the early days of May, 1945. Written in the patois of the 1940s American soldier (which sounded a good deal like the movies of the time), this article describes the goings-on that day by members of the U.S. Army’s 201st Military Police Company, who were not impressed in the least by the likes of German General Gustav Jodl or his naval counterpart, Admiral Hans von Friedeburg:

Sgt. Henry Wheeler of Youngstown, N.Y., said, ‘The wind-up was pretty much what we expected. ‘Ike’ didn’t have anything to do with those phonies until they were ready to quit. Then he went in and told them to sign up. And what does he do as he comes out of the meeting? He shakes hands with the first GI he comes to.

Click here to read about the fall of Paris…

Paris Cheered When Berlin Fell
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

An eyewitness account of all the excitement that was V.E. Day in Paris:

On the Champs Elysees they were singing ‘It’s a Long Wat to Tipperary,’ and it was a long way even the few blocks from Fouquet’s restaurant to the Arc de Triomphe if you tried to walk up the Champs on V-E Day in Paris. From one side of the broad and beautiful avenue to the other, all the way to the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe in the Place de l’Etoile, there was hardly any place to breathe and no place at all to move. That was the way it was in the Place l’Opera and the Place de la Republique and all the other famous spots and in a lot of obscure little side streets that nobody but Parisians know.

Actor Lew Ayres: Conscientious Objector
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

This short notice from a 1944 issue of the U.S. Army’s Yank Magazine can be printed or read on screen if you prefer; the article is accompanied by a photo of Lew Ayres (1908 – 1996: Ayres is best remembered for his performance in All Quiet on the Western Front) wearing his Army togs while performing his tasks as a chaplain’s assistant on Wake Island (New Guinea).

‘I am still a conscientious objector to war,’ Ayres says. He went to a camp for conchies at Wyeth, Oregon early in 1942 but volunteered a short time later for medical service. After training as a hospital ward attendant and then becoming an instructor at Camp Barkley, Texas, the ex-movie actor shipped overseas as a staff sergeant.

Click here to read more about American conscientious objectors in W.W. II.