Articles from Yank Magazine
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.
Four Glider Pilots on D-Day (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
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…
The Liberation of Paris (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
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.
Paris After the Liberation (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
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…
The German Surrender (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
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.
Paris Cheered When Berlin Fell (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
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.
Actor Lew Ayres: Conscientious Objector (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
The editors of Yank assembled six veteran platoon sergeants to talk about mistakes that most U.S. Army replacements make when they go into combat, and to speak seriously about which weapons and small unit tactics work best when confronting the German enemy:
The first mistake recruits make under fire began T/Sgt. Harry R. Moore, rifle platoon sergeant from Fort Worth, Texas, is that they freeze and bunch up. They drop to the ground and just lie there; won’t even fire back. I had one man just lie there while a German came right up and shot him. He still wouldn’t fight back.
<Click here to read about how the Army addressed the problem of soldiers who wouldn’t pull their triggers…
Front-Line Sergeants Talk Combat and Rant About Replacements (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
The philatelists in our audience know well the G.I. stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1945; what they may not know are some of the stories that lay behind them (some stories are sad and some are merely pathetic).
The philatelists in our audience know well the G.I. stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1945; what they may not know are some of the stories that lay behind them (some stories are sad and some are merely pathetic).
Although the the Pershing M26 didn’t get into the fighting in Europe until very late in the game (March, 1945), it was long enough to prove itself. This new 43-toner is the Ordnance Department’s answer to the heavier German Tiger. It mounts a 90-mm high-velocity gun, equipped with a muzzle-brake, as opposed to the 88-mm on a Tiger.
The M26 Pershing tank was the one featured in the movie, Fury (2014).
The Pershing M26 Tank (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
