World War Two – Page 109 – Old Magazine Articles

Robert Best of South Carolina
(Pic Magazine, 1943)

On July 26, 1943, in the same U.S. Federal Court that tried the American poet Ezra Pound (in absentia) for treason, Robert H. Best (1896 – 1952), formerly of the Associated Press, was also convicted on the same charges. What Iva Toguri (the alleged Tokyo Rose) was believed to have done for Hirohito, and what Pound did for Mussolini is what Best did for Adolf Hitler: he had broadcast Nazi radio propaganda.

You might also care to read about the American Bund.

Fred Kaltenbach of Iowa
(Coronet Magazine, 1943)

Pencil-necked geek Frederick Kaltenbach was born in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1895. A former school teacher, he left the U.S. to earn a Ph.D in Germany but somehow ended up translating German texts into English for the Nazi aviation magazine, ADLER. By-and-by this eventually lead to his own radio program, just like all translation jobs always do.

Two Who Escaped the Germans
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Remarkable for lacking bravado and deeds of cunning daring-do, this is a war story about two hapless GIs of the 84th Division who got themselves captured and, do to a heavy U.S. artillery barrage (that served as a backdrop throughout much of the story), were able to escape and allude further incarceration. The German officers who (briefly) lorded over these men are beautifully painted as dunderheads that will surely amuse. Wandering in a southerly direction through the frost of Belgium, they make it back to their outfits in time for a New Year’s Day supper.

Click here if you would like to read about a World War One German P.O.W. camp.

The Abusive Occupying Army
(Collier’s Magazine, 1946)

This editorial lends credibility to Andrei Cherny’s 2007 tome, The Candy Bombers, in which the author states that there was no love lost between the Berliners and the occupying American army in the immediate aftermath of the German surrender:

Stories keep coming back to this country about American soldiers sticking up Berlin restaurants, or beating up German citizens, or looting German homes. How much of this stuff goes on, we don’t know. We do know that some of it goes on, and that any of it is too much. Not that we believe in sobbing unduly over the German people, they let themselves be razzle-dazzled into the war by Hitler and his mobsters.

Nesei Homecoming
(Yank, 1945)

Who knows, perhaps the author of Bad Day at Black Rock, Howard Breslin, had read this striking bit of fiction from YANK MAGAZINE and felt such a deep sense of social injustice that it inspired him to write his novel about anti-Isei mob violence. Either way, this very moving, two column piece is a fictional account about the pathetic homecoming experienced by a member of the Nesei packed 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

It was written by YANK MAGAZINE’s Len Zinberg (1911-1968; a.k.a. Ed Lacy, a.k.a. Steve April); by that time, Zinberg was already an experienced writer with impressive credits and the magazine was lucky to have him. His writings at YANK helped to open the door at THE NEW YORKER, where much of his work was to be seen following the end of hostilities.

‘Loyal Japanese Fight for the U.S.A.”
(Click Magazine, 1943)

This photo essay from CLICK MAGAZINE consists of six black and white images illustrating the Nisei officers and GIs toiling under the merciless sun at Camp Shelby, Mississippi prior to being shipped out for combat duty in Italy. The accompanying paragraph sums up quite nicely their devotion to the United States, declaring that for these Japanese-Americans, democracy outweighs blood ties, yet says not a word about the internment camps.

CLICK HERE to read about the beautiful Blonde Battalions who spied for the Nazis…

A Pill Box in the Hürtgen Forest
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

During the last miserable days of 1944 came this one page, first person account by a common American soldier marching through a shell-pocked German landscape. The fellow went to great effort to describe the general discomfort experienced by all those GIs privileged enough to be posted at the spearhead of that winter advance through the Hürtgen Forest. Halting in frozen rain and blinding winds, his platoon languished around a liberated Nazi pillbox where it was decided that each of them should enjoy a three hour respite inside to escape the cold. When it was our hero’s turn he explains how nice it was to be surrounded by four walls and a roof.

Click here to read about the mobile pill boxes of the Nazi army.

The Policy Behind the Occupation of Germany
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

In the aftermath of World War II Germany found themselves occupied by four armies; in the attached article General Eisenhower explained what the policy of the German occupation was to be:

‘His idea is that the biggest job for right now is riding herd on the rehabilitation of Germany’s political and economic structure…We are working toward a government of Germany by the Germans under the supervision of the Allied General Control Council,’ he said. The government will pass more and more under German civil control. At first we’ll have to look down the German’s necks in everything they do.’

A Failure to Spread the Word
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

Here is a classic story about the failures in global communication during the pre-Twitter era. This article explains how there was a fifteen hour lag between the Japanese surrender and the time in which Tokyo heard that their offer had been accepted by the Allies.

In the midst of a routine radio-teletype conference between GHQ officers in Manila and the War Department in Washington, the teletype suddenly began printing:

‘Stand by for important message **** from Marshall to MacArthur ****you are hereby notified of Japanese capitulation ****’

It all centered on one skanky, bullet-pocked, bomb-damaged Radio Operations Room in Manila.

The Nazis Hated These Guys
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The attached W.W. II magazine article tells the story of the hard-charging Goums – a detachment of French-Moroccan infantry who appeared to the American GIs as genuine curios (Wikipedia definition: Goumier is a term used for Moroccan soldiers, who served in auxiliary units attached to the French Army, between 1908 and 1956).

The Germans definitely don’t like the Goums. As for the Italians, they’re scared to death of them. In the Mateur and Bizerte sectors, where the Goums were attached to the Ninth Division, three Italian companies surrendered en masse as soon as they heard that the guys in front of them were Goums.