World War Two

Find old World War 2 articles here. We have great newspaper articles from wwii check them out today!

1944 Army Statistcs
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

A printable list of figures regarding U.S. Army and Navy strength as tabulated for the year 1944:

The latest figures, released last week, show that the total strength of the armed forces now comes to about 11,417,000. The House Military Affairs Committee, to which Selective Service gave this information, released it to the public without comment, but several committee members were reported to have said privately that it confirmed their suspicions that some 2,000,000 more men have been inducted than necessary.


Click here to read another article about U.S. casualties up to the year 1944.

A Pacific War Chronology
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Here is a printable list of chronological events and battles that took place in the Pacific Theater between December 7, 1941 through May 3, 1945. Please keep in mind that this is only a partial list, the YANK editors who compiled the chronology had no foreknowledge of the U.S. assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.


Click here to read an interview with a Kamikaze pilot.

Lloyd George on the Nazi Blitzkrieg
(Click Magazine, 1940)

In this article, former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1863 – 1945) lambasts the leaders of Britain and France for blundering their way into the Second World War having failed to cut Hitler off at the knees on any number of previous occasions:

It is just over twenty-one years ago that France and Britain signed the Armistice with Germany which brought to an end the bloodiest war in history. They are now fighting essentially the same struggle… It is no use keeping up the pretense that things are going well for the democratic cause. We are suffering not from one blunder, but from a series of incredible botcheries. It is a deplorable tale of incompetence and stupidity.

Lloyd George singled-out Chamberlain with particular contempt, while presenting his thoughts about Hitler and Mussolini, the German Blitzkrieg and Soviet neutrality

One Austrian’s Fight Against Global Fascism
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

As far as we know, this 1945 page from YANK was the first article to tell the tale of the incredible Herbert Zipper (1904 – 1997); a story that began in Austria during the Anschluss (1938), carried on through two German concentration camps (Dachau and Buchenwald), continued through to Paris, Manila, and an Imperial Japanese detention center after which the story concludes with Dr. Zipper happily conducting his orchestra in a post-war concert before the victorious American Army.

This story was told in the highly celebrated 1995 documentary film, Never Give Up: The 20th-Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper (American Film Foundation Production). This is a good read; it is a remarkable World War Two story about a rebellious soul with a lot of guts.

World War II in the Jungles of Burma
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Written by correspondent Dave Richardson (1916 – 2005) behind Japanese lines in Northern Burma, this article was characterized as odds and ends from a battered diary of a footsore YANK correspondent after his first 500 miles of marching and Jap-hunting with Merrill’s Marauders.


One of the most highly decorated war correspondents of World War II, Richardson is remembered as the fearless reporter who tramped across 1,000 miles of Asian jungle in order to document the U.S. Army’s four-month campaign against entrenched Japanese forces – armed only with a camera, a typewriter and an M-1 carbine.

Optimistic Plans Regarding the Use of Cavalry
(The Alertmen, 1943)

This illustrated article from an obscure U.S. Army weekly states quite clearly that in light of the successful use of cavalry on the Eastern Front, the U.S. Army was once again training men to fight on horse-back. Referring to the writings of a Soviet General named O.T. Gorodoviko (a probable reference to General O.T. Gorodovikov: 1879 -1960) who had stated in an article written in an undated issue of The Cavalry Journal, that cavalry proved effective in fighting the Nazis when deployed as mounted infantry in limited engagements. The journalist conveyed his enthusiasm that the era of the mounted man was back.

Please give us your thoughts about this article, something seems terribly fishy; did over-extended Soviet Generals have time to write for American journals? Furthermore, you might find that the accompanying photos seem deliberately out of date. The hard-charging post-debutants at OldMagazineArticles.com tend to feel that this article was a hoax intended to throw someone off the trail…

Eisenhower’s D-Day Report
(The Department of the Army, 1945)

The following is an extract from General Eisenhower‘s report on the Allied operations from June 6 through the 26 of August, 1944:

Many factors are woven into warp and woof of this great victory…One was the meticulous care in planning and preparation, another was the fact that we achieved some degree of surprise involving place, timing and strength of attack. The excellence and sufficiency of amphibious equipment, with measures for dealing with beach defenses and obstacles, was also important. In the air, the Luftwaffe has taken a fearful beating. Since June 6, 2378 German aircraft have been destroyed in the air and 1,167 on the ground…

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

General Eisenhower Q & A
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

In two full-dress interviews in Paris and Washington, General Dwight D. Eisenhower talked about some of the high spots of the campaign for Europe and about certain post-VE-Day questions. It’s been generally agreed that the interviews were pretty historic. Here are highlights of the general’s talks to the press in the two Allied capitals…


Clike here to read about General Eisenhower and the German surrender.

Another German Advantage
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

General Marshall’s post-war report remarked on one clear advantage that the German Army was privileged to exploit again and again throughout the war:

The German ammunition was charged with smokeless, flashless powder which in both night and day fighting helped the enemy tremendously in concealing his fire positions.

Scroll to Top