World War Two – Page 30 – Old Magazine Articles

The Leader of Free France
(The American Magazine, 1942)

Almost literally,
he has built Free France from magnificent words. The miracle began on June 18, 1940, when he stepped before a London microphone with defiant, solemn appeal, beginning, ‘I, Charles de Gaulle, General of France’ – and ending superbly, ‘Soldiers of France, wherever you may be, arise!’.

The truth is that, to followers of de Gaulle, he is not a human being at all; he is a symbol, like the flag.

War Stories from the Second Armored Division in Normandy
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

An account relaying a bloody slice of life lived by the officers and men of the U.S. Second Armored Division. The story takes place on the tenth day following the D-Day landings as one armored battalion struggled to free themselves of the hedgerows, placate their slogan-loving general and ultimately make that dinner date in far-off Paris. Yank correspondent Walter Peters weaves an interesting narrative and the reader will get a sense of the business-like mood that predominated among front line soldiers and learn what vehicles were involved during an armored assault

The Invasion of Western Europe
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

The focal point of the attack apparently was aimed at Le Havre, the fine port at the mouth of the Seine. Nazi reports indicated a series of drives to cut the Brittany Peninsula with the center of gravity at Caen. It seemed certain that the Reich was awaiting news of other attacks.

The German Army’s Official Report on D-Day
(Dept. of the Army, 1945)

Translated from German, labeled CONFIDENTIAL and printed in a booklet for a class at the U.S. Army Military Academy in 1945 was the attached German Army assessment of the D-Day invasion. Distributed on June 20, 1944, just two weeks after the Normandy landings, the report originated in the offices of Field Marshal von Rundstedt (1875 – 1953) and served to document the German reaction to the Allied Operations in Normandy.

The Japanese Death Ray?
(Quick Magazine, 1949)

An odd dispatch from W.W. II appeared on the pages of a 1949 issue of QUICK MAGAZINE declaring that the weapons laboratories of Imperial Japan had been developing a ray gun throughout much of the war. When they realized that the jig was up they tossed the contraption in a nearby lake.

What worked considerably better than the Death Ray was hi-altitude hydrogen balloon-bombs that the Japanese let-loose on the Western states at the end of the war – click here to read about them…

Contest On Okinawa
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Writing about the bitter fighting on Okinawa some years after the war, Marine veteran Eugene Sledge remarked that he and his comrades had been reduced to Twentieth Century savages. Much of what he said is confirmed in the attached Yank article from 1945 that clearly illustrated the terror that was experienced by G.I.s and Marines on that island after the sun went down.

Assessing the U.S. Navy in W.W. II
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1945)

Some four months after VJ-Day U.S. Fleet Admiral Ernest King (1878 – 1956) gave a post-game summary of the Navy’s performance in his third and final report for the Department of War:

• Biggest factor in this victory was the perfection of amphibious landings

• Hardest Pacific battle: Okinawa invasion

• American subs sank at least 275 warships of all types

• Of the 323 Japanese warships lost, the U.S. Navy claimed 257 (figure disputed by Army Air Corps)

Read an article about the many faults of the
German Navy during the Second World War…

The Need For A New Word
(Collier’s Magazine, 1951)

James Forrestal: Secretary of the Navy
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

It was a clear day on a fast track for James Forrestal (1892 – 1949) when the U.S. Congress passed the Two Ocean Navy Bill during the Summer of 1940. At that time both Europe and Asia were engulfed in war and it seemed certain to many that the U.S was not going to be able to avoid it. Serving as the Under Secretary of the Navy, with Frank Knox (1874 – 1944) presiding as his senior, Forrestal was charged with the duty of building the U.S. Navy into something far more dangerous than it already was, and build it he did.

Blitzkrieg: In the Words of Nazi Officers
(American Legion Weekly, 1940)

An article by military historian and biographer Fairfax Downey (1894 – 1990) concerning the unique manner of mechanized warfare that the Germans had introduced to the world during the opening weeks of the Second World War:

Thunder rumbles, lightening flashes and strikes. Incredibly swiftly it is over. So, compared to the campaigns of the First World War, was the German Blitzkrieg, rumbling, flashing and striking down Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France. How did it work? What made it click?

Marshal Pétain on Trial
(Commonweal, 1945)

An irate editorial concerning the 1945 trial of French General Henri Philippe Pétain (1856 – 1951).

Whoever is managing the current spectacle in Paris desires us to think that the Petain trial is a revolutionary trial. The thesis is that the whole French nation has risen against the politicians who did not prepare for the war, against the Marshal who signed the the armistice, collaborated with the Germans and betrayed France. And so that trial is not a search for truth, it is a public exposure of truth, it is a simple demonstration…Look at them: Daladier, Reynaud, Weygrand – how they fight each one against the other. Because it is not just Petain who is guilty. It is Petain’s trial. But it is also the trial of all the witnesses… Everyone is guilty.

Marshal Pétain on Trial
(Commonweal, 1945)

An irate editorial concerning the 1945 trial of French General Henri Philippe Pétain (1856 – 1951).

Marshal Pétain on Trial
(Commonweal, 1945)

An irate editorial concerning the 1945 trial of French General Henri Philippe Pétain (1856 – 1951).

The General Who Failed France
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

General Maxime Weygand (1867 – 1965) is remembered as the French military commander who allowed himself to be out-maneuvered and out-generaled when France was invaded by the German Army in May of 1940. The Battle for France lasted roughly 42 days before Weygrand’s forces collapsed.

The Maginot Line Will Save Us
(Literary Digest, 1938)

The Maginot Line will permit calm French mobilization, experts say, in the event of a crisis. It may be noted, from a study of these forts on a map, that the chief point of concentration is approximately opposite the reoccupied Rhine zone. The Paris newspaper, Le Soir, says that no army can break down the Maginot Line.

Click here to read an article about French confidence in the Maginot Line.

Ol’ Blood ‘N Guts Goes South
(Newsweek, 1945)

Here is the Newsweek obituary for the American W.W. II army commander General George S. Patton:

As spectacular in his tactics as in his speech, he used his armor as Jeb Stuart employed his cavalry… Time after time his divisions broke through and slashed forward in drives which made military history. After the victory, German generals said they had feared him more than any other American field commander.

Click here to read about Patton’s prayer for good weather during the Battle of the Bulge…

Click here to read about the Patton Tank in the Korean War…

The Japanese Did Not Like The Germans
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

A ranking member of of the German embassy staff in Tokyo told me a few weeks before Pearl Harbor, ‘If Japan goes to war against America and Britain, our days will be numbered here, too. Japan will wage a race war in which we Germans will be regarded as enemies along with the rest of the white race. It is only a matter of time. They intend to conquer all of us, but they are smart enough not to tackle all of us at once.’

Imperial Japan had a great many reasons to dislike their Nazi ally and most of them were far more legitimate than this one. All of them are are laid out in the attached article.

The Beachmaster
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

One of the most familiar human sounds in any Central Pacific operation is a rasping, oath-throwing voice with a rich Scandinavian accent which booms out over the loudspeaker on the invasion beaches. The voice threatens, gives orders with no reservations, pleads and intimidates. It is the voice of a Navy captain, Carl E. (Squeaky) Anderson, the force, or senior, beachmaster – the man who unloads the ships and keeps the supplies (all 64,000 tons) rolling in.

Iwo Jima, he says, is the worst beach he’s ever had anything to do with.