World War Two – Page 26 – Old Magazine Articles

‘What Kind of Women are the WAACs?”
(Click Magazine, 1942)

They’re career women, housewives, professionals, factory hands, debutantes. They’ve taught school, modeled, supported themselves, as secretaries, salesgirls, mechanics. Single and married, white and colored, between the ages of 21 and 45, they’re corresponding with a beau, in Ireland, a husband Australia, or the ‘folks back home’ in Flatbush. But varied as their background may be, they’ve enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) with a common purpose: to get behind America’s fighting men and help win a lasting peace.

When well-versed in army-administrative methods, the WAAC will cause the transfer of 450 enlisted men to combat areas each week. It realizes full-well its responsibility and has dedicated itself to the idea that the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps will prove itself equal to the opportunity.

The Women of the U.S. Marine Corps
(Think Magazine, 1946)

Lady Leathernecks’, as the trimly-clad members were affectionately dubbed, responded to their country’s call some 19,000 strong, accomplishing more than 150 different jobs at more than fifty Marine bases and stations throughout the United States.

Organized February 13, 1943 the Women’s Reserve was directed by Lt. Colonel Ruth Cheney Streeter (1895 – 1990). Women in the Marine Corps were authorized to hold the same jobs, ranks and pay as Marines.

The American Way of War
(American Magazine, 1945)

The Yank is not expert at deception, but he can change his plans rapidly. He is a wizard at handling machinery and he can build airfields, roads and advance bases with uncanny speed.

– so wrote one of the bewildered Japanese Army generals concerning his experiences with the American military in the Pacific.

The German Draft and Manpower Supply
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

A U.S. Government study regarding the conscription policies of the German Army during World War II. Attention is paid to the development of this policy from it’s earliest days in 1935, when the draft was introduced, to the total mobilization scheme that followed the battle of Stalingrad.

A Pat on the Back for the GIs
(Coronet Magazine, 1945)

So they’ve given up.

They’re finally done in, and the rat is dead in an alley back of the the Wilhelmstrasse.

Take a Bow, GI – take a bow, little guy.

Far-flung ordinary men, unspectacular but free, rousing out of their habits and their homes – got up early one morning, flexed their muscles, learned the manual of arms (as amateurs) and set out across perilous oceans to whop the bejeepers out of the professionals.

And they did.

Fashion Police
(American Magazine, 1943)

Who was it who deprived men of their suit vests and trouser cuffs? Who banned silk stockings? Who outlawed the flow in flowing skirts? Why, it was the War Production Board of course – click the title link if you want a name and a face…

Why France Fell
(Omnibooks Magazine, 1942)

On assignment for the Hearst papers, H.R. Knickerbocker (1898 – 1949) witnessed the total collapse of the French Army. He made his observations and conclusions available to American readers in his 1941 book Is Tomorrow Hitler’s?, which hit the bookshops shortly after Pearl Harbor.

If [The French] had ignored their low birth rate, been willing to spend lives, had retained the old offensive spirit traditional in the French Army, had known that they had to win or perish, had a Churchill to inspire and lead them, and had no traitors in their ranks, their comparative lack of weapons would not have mattered; they would still be fighting the Germans in France.

Click here to read the observations of U.S. Army Lieutenant Louis L’Amour concerning 1946 Paris.

Another article about a French general who collaborated with the Nazis can be read here…

Ireland Bows Out of the War
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

This article discusses the various complications and contradictions inherent with Irish neutrality in the face of the Nazi march on Europe. Even though it was clear to see that an Allied victory would certainly be an Irish benefit and the Germans had already fire-bombed Irish cities twice, the Irish leader Eamon De Valera (1882 – 1975) was hellbent on seeing to it that Ireland never played favorites.

The Australian Soldier
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Attached is a two page article concerning the basic lot of the World War Two Australian soldier: his pay, his kit, his battles and the general reputation of the Australian Imperial Forces (A.I.F.):

…the Australian Imperial Forces who have – and are seeing action all over the world…has fought in every theater in which British forces have been engaged…They have especially distinguished themselves at El Alamein in the North African campaign and in the Papuan and New Guinea campaigns.

Four years after the Pearl Harbor attack, a Japanese newspaper editorial expressed deep regret for Japan’s aggressiveness in the Second World War, click here to read about it…

The Aussies Pull It Together
(The American Magazine, 1942)

The attached 1942 article tells the remarkable story of Prime Minister John Curtin (1885 – 1945) and his amazing Australians – together they redefined themselves as a wool-producing agrarian nation and began producing the necessary tools of war.

Killing
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

A World War Two article by a young Polish guerrilla who graphically explains what it is like to kill a man, an experience he abhors:

…then all at once he gave a shiver and relaxed, I released my grip and he fell to the ground.

Late War Combat Training: Camp Wheeler
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The attached article weighs the way infantry basic training was conducted at the beginning of the war and how it had changed as the war progressed, evolving into something a bit different by 1945. The training period was originally a 13 week cycle in 1941, yet in time after carefully watching the soldiers in the field and finding that infantrymen needed a broader understanding of the tools at hand, the infantry training at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, had been extended an extra two weeks. One of the obvious factors involved a far wider pool of combat veterans to rely upon as instructors.

Five years after the war, many infantry replacement camps had to reopen…

You might also like to read this article about W.W. II cavalry training.

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

Combat Boxing
(Click Magazine, 1943)

We are not sure how wide-spread boxing exercises were among all the U.S. Army infantry training camps during W.W. II, but the attached photo-essay will cue you in to the fact that it was mighty important at Camp Butner in 1943.

Has Germany Forgotten Anne Frank?
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

In this article the proud father of Anne Frank, Otto Frank (1889 – 1980), explains that by the late Fifties it seemed more and more teenagers were contacting him to say that very few parents or teachers seemed willing to discuss the Nazi years in Germany. These inquiries were too often dismissed as bothersome or simply brushed away with hasty answers like, The Nazis built the Autobahns.

Otto Frank points out that this was not always the case, and goes on to recall that there existed a more sympathetic and regretful Germany for at least a decade after the war. Yet, in 1960 he sensed that there existed a subtle movement to whitewash Hitler; a battle was being waged for the mind of this teenage generation.

From Amazon: A German Generation

Click here to read about the inmate rebellions that took place at Auschwitz, Sobibor and Triblinka.

Brazil Goes to War
(Click Magazine, 1942)

The government of Brazil declared war on Hitler’s Germany on August 22, 1942, and you’d best believe that the over-paid photographers of CLICK MAGAZINE were Johnny-on-the-spot to document all the joyous mayhem that let loose on those flag-strewn boulevards of the Brazilian capitol:

Brazilians are fighting mad. When Brazil joined the United Nations in war on August 22nd, the formal declaration was a climax to the democratic action of its citizens who began, months ago, to let the world know how they felt about the Axis.

The pent-up rage of a sorely-tried nation burst in earnest when war was declared. With unanimous enthusiasm, the people mobbed the streets, cheering everything that was part of the Allied cause…Day after day, anti-fascist demonstrations, and pageants choked the streets of Rio de Janiero, where the pictures on this page were taken.

On that day, Brazil became the 32nd nation to declare war against Germany.

*Read a 1944 Article About the Brazilian Army in Italy*

Can The U.S. Stay Out of The War?
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

Even as early as 1937, the dark clouds of war could be seen on the horizon. The U.S. Congress still smarted from the last world war and did not want to be lured in to newest installment. Six months after this article was first read the Neutrality Act of 1937 would be passed – this column explains much of the thought that went into it.

Ground Zero, New Mexico
(PM Tabloid, 1945)

Weeks after the atomic blast that took place over the city of Nagasaki, American Journalists were allowed to see the crystalized ground that was the Trinity test site in New Mexico. They pocketed the queer pieces of glass that made up ground zero and openly mocked the Japanese scientists who said the radioactivity in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was continuing to kill four weeks later.

How Tokyo Learned of Hiroshima
(Coronet Magazine, 1946)

Shortly after Tokyo’s capitulation, an advance team of American Army researchers were dispatched to Hiroshima to study the effects that the Atom Bomb had on that city. What we found most interesting about this reminiscence was the narrative told by a young Japanese Army major as to how Tokyo learned of the city’s destruction:

Again and again the air-raid defense headquarters called the army wireless station at Hiroshima. No answer. Something had happened to Hiroshima…