World War Two

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

The Birth of American Parachute Infantry (The American Magazine, 1941)

Here is an account of the earliest days of the paratrooper branch of the U.S. Army. It is told by a man who claims the unique distinction of being the first volunteer to be recruited into the organization, Captain William T. Ryder (1913 – 1992). At this point in history the word paratrooper was not is use – the author uses the term jump-fighter, instead.

The Birth of American Parachute Infantry (The American Magazine, 1941) Read More »

Allied Efforts in North Africa (PM Tabloid, 1943)

By the time this article appeared at the New York City newsstands, the British had chased Rommel’s Afrika Korps out of Egypt, the Americans had suffered their first defeat at the Kasserine Pass and was in the process of walloping the Tenth Panzer at El Guettar. The anonymous general who penned this article took all that into consideration but believed there was much more fight left in the Germans than there actually was.


The U.S. 34th Division fought in Tunisia, click here to read about them.

Allied Efforts in North Africa (PM Tabloid, 1943) Read More »

34th Division: From Kasserine, All the Way up the Boot (Yank Magazine, 1945)

On January 26, 1942 the long awaited boatload of U.S. troops to Great Britain had finally arrived. The first American G.I. to step off the plank and plant his foot on British soil was Pfc. Milburn H. Henke (1918 – 1998) of the 34th Infantry Divisionstyle=border:none; and as the news spread throughout all of John Bull’s island that help had arrived and the first guy had a German surname, the Brits (always big fans of irony) had a good laugh all around.


This article tells the tale of the 1st Battalion, 34th Division which had the distinction of being the longest serving U.S. combat unit in the course of the entire war. It was these men of the Mid-West who took it on the chin that day at Kasserine (America’s first W.W. II battle, which was a defeat), avenged their dead at El Guettar, landed at Salerno, Anzio and fought their way up to Bologna. By the time the war ended, there weren’t many of the original men left, but what few there were reminisce in this article. Interesting gripes about the problems of American uniforms can be read.

34th Division: From Kasserine, All the Way up the Boot (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »

The U.S. Army Nurse Corps (Think Magazine, 1946)

The Army Nurse during World War II was at work in every quarter of the globe, serving on land, on the sea in hospital ships and in the air, evacuating the wounded by plane. Because of the rugged conditions under which she served, she was trained to use foxholes and to understand gas defense, to purify water in the field and to crawl , heavily equipped, under barbed wire.


By the time VJ-Day rolled around, the Army Nurse Corps was 55,000 strong.


(From Amazon: G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War IIstyle=border:none)

The U.S. Army Nurse Corps (Think Magazine, 1946) Read More »

‘The Story of GI Joe” (Pic Magazine, 1945)

The Story of G.I. Joestyle=border:none was released shortly before the war ended and was praised by General Eisenhower for being the best war movie he had ever seen. Directed by William Wellman, the film was applauded by American combat veterans of the time for it’s accuracy – in their letters home, many would write that Wellman’s film had brought them to tears. The movie was based on the war reporting of Ernie Pyle as it appeared in his 1943 memoir, Here Is Your War: Story of G.I. Joestyle=border:none. Although it is not mentioned here, Pyle himself had spent some time on the set as a technical adviser, and the film was released two months after his death.


More on Ernie Pyle can be read here…

‘The Story of GI Joe” (Pic Magazine, 1945) Read More »

The Doyle Slugs It Out (Yank Magazine, 1944)

From the deck of the destroyer U.S.S. Doyle, this Yank correspondent watched for nearly three nights as the grim drama of D-Day unfolded on the American beachhead.

From the Doyle‘s decks I could see the shells strike with the naked eye. First there would be a flash and then a puff of smoke which billowed into the sky. Several tanks and landing crafts were burning at the water’s edge. Through the glasses I watched troops jump from their boats and start running up the beach.


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

The Doyle Slugs It Out (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »

June 6, 1944 (Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

That was the way D-Day began, the second front the Allies had waited for for two years. It came like a shadow in the English midnight… The Nazi news agency, DNB, flashed the first story at 12:40 a.m. on June 6, Eastern wartime. Before dawn, British and American battleships were pounding shells into Havre, Caen and Cherbourg, high-booted skymen of the [88th] and 101st U.S.A. paratroop divisions had dropped into the limestone ridges of the Seine valley and landing barges filled with American, Canadian and British infantrymen nosed up to the beaches along the estuaries of the Orne and Seine rivers.

June 6, 1944 (Pathfinder Magazine, 1944) Read More »

The First 100 Hours (Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

Perched on the quarter deck of an LST off the coast of one of the American beachheads during the D-Day invasion, COLLIER’S war correspondent, W.B. Courtney, described the earliest hours of that remarkable day:

I stared through my binoculars at some limp, dark bundles lying a little away from the main activities. In my first casual examination of the beach I had assumed they were part of the debris of defensive obstacles. But they were bodies – American bodies.

The First 100 Hours (Collier’s Magazine, 1944) Read More »