World War Two – Page 107 – Old Magazine Articles

Military Buildup in the United States
(Literary Digest, 1936)

At midnight, December 31, the Naval Limitations Treaty of 1930 will expire and, tho a treaty of a sort was negotiated last April, apparently it will not be ratified and put into effect by the end of the year.

With this in mind, Congress authorized the construction of two battleships at the cost of $50,000,000 each.

And is it worth it, in these days of fleet and deadly torpedo planes or great diving bombers clutching demolition bombs weighing a ton apiece? Naval experts think so. The Battleship, they say, is still the backbone of the battle-fleet. In the phrase of the street, the battleship can dish it out.

The Navy would soon learn that they were actually living in the age of the aircraft carrier.

Click here to read more about the expansion of the U.S. Navy.

Post-War Nazis
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1951)

By clicking the title link posted above you will see a photo of what appears to be the Fascist’s answer to the von Trapp Family Singers – but hold, good reader – it was something far more sinister.

Read about American censorship in Occupied-Japan…

The Price of Victory

The first two paragraphs from General Marshall’s Biennial Report concentrate on the number of casualties counted from December 7, 1941 up to June 30, 1945 (keep in mind that this immediate estimate would have to be adjusted as time advanced and more men would continue to die of the wounds inflicted during earlier periods of the war).

The last two paragraphs in the report concern the remarkably low amount of non-battle deaths suffered by the U.S. military during the course of the war. General Marshall attributed this fact to the broad immunization program that was enacted on all fronts by the army medical corps.

Click here to read a news report on the American military casualties that were amassed from 1941 up to November, 1944.

Assessing U.S. Army Management

As he looked back on all that the U.S. military was able to accomplish during the last two years of World War Two, General George Marshall was full of praise for the War Department’s General Staff; however, it was management of these three major commands that impressed him time and again:

*the collective efforts of the American Air Forces

*the Army Ground Command and

*the Service Forces.

The English-German Phrase Book for Occupying Forces
(U.S. Army, 1943)

Printed years before Germany’s surrender, here is the digitized copy of the English/German phrase book that was printed by the U.S. Army for distribution among those soldiers who would be occupying that country in 1945. It is beautifully illustrated by the cartoonist Milton Caniff and is sixty-seven pages in length.

Father and Son Over Pearl Harbor
(Pageant Magazine, 1970)

One morning a 17 year-old boy exclaimed to his amateur aviator father: Let’s fly around the island, Dad! – this article wouldn’t seem worthy of appearing on the internet if they lived on Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard, but the island in question was Honolulu and the morning was December 7, 1941…

Germany, The Unrepentant
(See Magazine, 1950)

Filed from Berlin by the respected American journalist William Shirer (1904 – 1993), he read the findings of a German opinion poll revealing that

• A majority of Germans tended to hold that Nazism was good, when properly administered.

• Antisemitism was rapidly assuming its customary spot within German society.

• War guilt was largely non-existent and Nazi publications were rolling off the smaller presses with predictable regularity.

Shirer also reported that unrepentant, senior Nazis like Max Amann were getting out of prison, expecting to wield the power they once enjoyed as as one of Hitler’s yes-men.

The Hunt in Occupied-Germany
(Pic Magazine, 1946)

While the hunt for Nazis and hidden weapons cachés was taking place in allied-occupied Germany, a small number of U.S. Army detectives happened upon the entire archives of the Nazi Party.

The San Francisco Home Front
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

San Francisco played an active roll in World War Two and it was the largest port of embarkation, ferrying millions of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines off to their unknown fates in the Pacific War. Between 1942 and 1945, the San Francisco population increased by some 150,000 – yet despite the growth, traffic along Market Street was just as heavy as it was before the war. Taxis were fewer and far more dilapidated, trolley car rides were raised to seven cents and despite a government restriction obliging all coffee vendors to charge no more than five cents for each cup, the caffeine-addicted San Franciscans paid twice that amount. U.S.O shows were plentiful throughout San Francisco and with so many of the city’s police officer’s called up, some parts of the city were patrolled by women.

True fans of San Francisco will enjoy this article.

Read about the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake…

From Amazon:

The Bad City in the Good War

General Hap Arnold, U.S. Air Corps
(Coronet Magazine, 1946)

The famous smile which has won General Arnold the nickname of Happy is a pleasant front for a shrewd and grimly purposeful character. His real nature shows in his determined stride, his set jaw. He’s a fighter. He’s been fighting for our safety for almost forty years.

In his direction of the Air Force’s gigantic growth, General Arnold’s first thought was always for his men. The Training Command he planned and organized turned out, swiftly and safely, the thousands of air crews needed. He demanded, and got, the planes his men needed where and when they needed them. He directed our best doctors and scientists in medical and technological research that kept his men and equipment in the peak of fighting condition.