World War Two – Page 26 – Old Magazine Articles

From the 1940 editorial pages of PM came this column by Henry Paynter (1899 – 1960) who wrote amusingly about the many frustrations facing Japanese spies in North America.

The identity of almost every Japanese spy or saboteur has been known to U.S. authorities. Every instruction they have received or sent has been decoded…

At the height of their irritation, they confided in the German Consul-General stationed in San Francisco – only to learn after the war that he was an FBI informant (you can read about him here).

Japanese Spies and Their Many Troubles (PM Tabloid, 1940) Read More »

All-In for the Eastern Front (PM Tabloid, 1942)

In a message to the German Red Cross, Hitler referred to Russia as ‘an enemy whose victory would mean the end of everything’

When Hitler says ‘the end of everything‘ he means the end of Nazism.

All-In for the Eastern Front (PM Tabloid, 1942) Read More »

The German Eastward Thrust (PM Tabloid 1941)

Sub-surface evidence that the war on the Russian Front is going into a more crucial phase is mounting… if the present German drive achieves the bulk of its objectives, the Russians will have had some of their resistance power taken away from them. They will not have quite the same communications, the same supply facilities or the same freedom of movement they have had to work with thus far.

The German Eastward Thrust (PM Tabloid 1941) Read More »

Women Worked The Farms (Click Magazine, 1943)

Although the Selective Service agency granted 4,192,000 draft deferments to farmers throughout the course of World War II, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recognized that this number alone would never be enough to harvest the food necessary to feed both the home front and the armed forces. With this shortage in mind, the Women’s Land Army was created in 1943 to provide that essential farm labor that proved so vital in winning the war. Between the years 1943 and 1945 millions of American women from various backgrounds rolled up their denim sleeves and got the job done. The attached magazine article is one of the first to tell the tale of this organization, and was printed at a time when there were only 60,000 women in the field.<

Women Worked The Farms (Click Magazine, 1943) Read More »

What The GIs Thought of The Films of the Forties (Yank Magazine, 1945)

After four hard years of watching sappy Hollywood drivel about the war and the home front, the censorship machine was finally dismantled – which allowed the servicemen to speak their minds about what they REALLY thought about those movies…

What The GIs Thought of The Films of the Forties (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »

More Boys Are Born During War (Yank & Pic Magazines, 1945)

The fact that more boy babies are born during and immediately after major wars is a phenomenon that was discovered by the underpaid statisticians employed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1942. The articles that are attached are but two of what was probably four hundred articles that appeared on the topic that year. The writers and thinkers of the digital age continue studying this actuality – among them is the gang over at Psychology Today who wrote:

Scientists have known for a long time that more boys than usual are born during and after major wars. The phenomenon was first noticed in 1954 with regard to white children born during World War II in the United States. It has since been replicated for most of the belligerent nations in both World Wars. The phenomenon has been dubbed the ‘returning soldier effect.’ There is no doubt that the phenomenon is real, but nobody has been able to explain it. Why are soldiers who return from wars more likely to father sons than other men?

More Boys Are Born During War (Yank & Pic Magazines, 1945) Read More »

The Brutality of Combat (Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

The shock of modern battle is so severe to nervous systems that the hair color of thousands of young men in the Pacific and European theaters of war has turned gray overnight.

Not surprisingly, the young men in question had no interest in resembling their grandfathers
and so the services of a patriotic hair dye manu- facturing firm were secured.

The Brutality of Combat (Pathfinder Magazine, 1944) Read More »

Hispanic Women in the WACs (Yank Magazine, 1945)

A group of women of Latin-American extraction took the Army oath before more than 6,000 persons in San Antonio’s Municipal Auditorium to become the second section of the Benito Juarez Air-WAC Squadron, named for the hero who helped liberate Mexico from European domination in 1862.

Led by an honor guard from the first Latin-American WAC squadron, the new war-women, marched into the auditorium to be sworn in and to hear words of greeting from Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby (1905 – 1995) and from Mrs. Dwight Eisenhower (1896 – 1979).

The first Hispanic WAC was Carmen Contreras-Bozak.

Click here to read about some of the Puerto Ricans who served with distinction during the war.

From Amazon:
Dressed for Duty: America’s Women in Uniform, 1898-1973

Hispanic Women in the WACs (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »

Andrew Higgins: He Made D-Day Possible (Click Magazine, 1942)

During an informal conversation with his biographer, Stephen Ambrose, Dwight Eisenhower once remarked that it was Andrew Higgins (1886 – 1952) who had won the war for us. Knowing that such words do not flow from the lips of generals easily, Eisenhower went on to explain to Ambrose that if it were not for the creation of Higgin’s landing crafts, the architects of the Allied victory would have had to seize the existing, and well-fortified, harbors of Europe in order to unload their invasion forces – and who knows how the island-hopping war in the Pacific would been fought?

Attached is a five page photo-essay from the Fall of 1942 about the man and his early contributions.

Andrew Higgins: He Made D-Day Possible (Click Magazine, 1942) Read More »