World War Two – Page 40 – Old Magazine Articles

The Aerial Nurse Corps of America
(The American Magazine, 1941)

To read the U.S. magazines and newspapers printed in 1941 is to gain an understanding as to the sixth sense many Americans had in predicting that W.W. II would soon be upon them – and this article is a fine example. One month before Pearl Harbor the editors of AMERICAN MAGAZINE ran this column about Lauretta Schimmoller (1902 – 1981) who established the Aerial Nurse Corps of America, which, at that time, was composed of over 400 volunteers:

All air-minded registered nurses, they stand ready to fly with medical aid to scenes of disaster…Now established on a nation-wide scale, ANCOA, with its 19 national chapters, has already handled more than 3,000 emergency cases.

Errol Flynn on Trial
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

During the war years, the boys on the front loved reading about a juicy Hollywood scandal just as much as we do today, and Errol Flynn could always be relied upon to provide at least one at any given time. The closest thing to a Hollywood tabloid that the far-flung khaki-clad Joes could ever get their hands on was Yank Magazine, the U.S. army weekly that also provided them with the news from all battlefronts.

Movie star Flynn was tried by the California courts for having gained a fair measure of carnal knowledge from two feminine California movie fans who were both under the age of 18; said knowledge was gained while on board the defendant’s yacht, The Sirocco.

More about this trial and Flynn’s other scandals can be read here…

A Song and Dance Man on Guadalcanal
(Pageant Magazine, 1952)

Four years after his stellar performance as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (MGM, 1939), Hollywood actor and comedian Ray Bolger (1904 – 1987) was performing in many parts of the war-torn Pacific islands on a USO tour for thousands of very grateful GIs and Marines. Attached is a two page reminiscence about one particular Guadalcanal performance, the men he met and the Hell they paid in the years that followed

Reporting D-Day
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

Never had so many correspondents (450) poured so much copy (millions of words) into so many press associations, photo services, newspapers, magazine and radio stations (115 organizations in all). Representing the combined Allied press, some 100 reporters covered every phase of the actual battle operations. Their pooled copy started reaching the United States within four hours of General Eisenhower’s communiqué.

The first newspaper to get the scoop was The New York Daily News (circulation 2,000,999). The First radio station to announce the news was WNEW (NYC).

Click here to read about the extensive press coverage that was devoted to the death of FDR…

The Training of Tank Crews
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

For the Americans, World War II was just four months old when these three color pictures appeared depicting the most up to date (and economical) methods used in the training of Stuart Tank gunners.

U.S. Sailors Wore Earrings?
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

A short notice from a May, 1944, issue of The Pathfinder reported that there was a fashion among the American sea-going men of the enlisted variety to wear a particular style of earring in their left ear if they’d experienced combat. Don’t take our word for it, read on…

Taking the War to Japan’s Doorstep
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The last flight was coming home. The planes circled through the thick mist toward the stern of the Essex-class carrier. One by one they hit the deck: Hellcats, Corsairs and EBMs, with names like ‘Hydraulic Bess’, ‘Miss Fortune’, ‘Sweater Girl’ and ‘Kansas City Kitty’…When the air-crewmen came back from their low low-level raids, the thing they talked about most was the lack of Jap opposition.

Click here to read an interview with a Kamikaze pilot.

Anticipating Cell Phones in 1945
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

I recommend this article primarily for it’s three funny illustrations; the copy is not likely to hold your attention for too long. It concerns civilian applications for military technology, such as that era’s hand-held radios that were the wonder of the period. As you will see from the illustrations, the cartoonist recognized so well that such inventions could serve as the grandfather of the cell phone and he drew people on the street and driving cars -all chatting away on their walkie-talkies. Good fun.

Gaudalcanal to Bougainville and the Progress of the U.S. Navy
(Dept. of the Navy, 1947)

With the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, United States and Japanese carrier strength became nearly equal. At the same time the news that the Japanese advance was creeping down the Solomons and commencing the construction of an airfield on Guadalcanal made it advisable to undertake a limited offensive in the South Pacific.

Read about the Battle of Leyte Gulf…

Gaudalcanal to Bougainville and the Progress of the U.S. Navy
(Dept. of the Navy, 1947)

Read about the Battle of Leyte Gulf…

The Nimitz Strategy
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

An brief article by a former Chief of Naval Operations (1930 – 33), Admiral William V. Pratt praising the Pacific naval strategy of Fleet Admiral Nimitz.

A Nervous Australia
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1943)

General Sir Thomas A. Blamey, Australian commander of Allied ground forces in the Southwest Pacific, declared the Japs have massed 200,000 first-line troops on the approaches to Australia and might be expected to launch an offensive at any time.

The North Atlantic Heats Up
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

April 1917 was Britain’s blackest month in the [First] World War… March 1941 seemed in many ways another grim month like April, 1917, perhaps even worse. Once more Britain faced peril on the sea – a danger which struck home deeper than any defeat of their armies on foreign soil… Not only German U-boats but German battle cruisers have crossed to the American side of the Atlantic and have already sunk some of our independently routed ships not sailing in convoy. They have sunk ships as far west as the 42nd meridian of longitude.

‘Burial at Sea”
(Coronet Magazine, 1945)

This is a short anecdote that recalled a slice of life on board a USN troop ship as it ferried men from one bloody atoll to the next. The two speaking parts in this drama were both officers who butted heads regularly until they understood that what united them was the welfare of the
dying young men returning from the beaches who had given their last full measure.

To read articles about W.W. II submarines, Click here.

The Plot to Assassinate Eisenhower Foiled by Cartoons…(Lion’s Roar, 1946)

An interesting W.W. II story was passed along by actor, announcer, producer and screenwriter John Nesbitt (1910 – 1960), who is best remembered as the narrator for the MGM radio series Passing Parade. Five months after the end of the war, Nesbitt relayed to his audience that during the Battle of the Bulge, U.S.-born Nazi agents, having been ordered to kill General Eisenhower, did not even come close to fulfilling their mission, suffered incarceration among other humiliations – all due to a lack of knowledge where American comic strips were concerned. Read on…

Here is another Now it Can be Told article…

The Tiger Tank at the Aberdeen Proving Ground
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The American army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground rests on 72,962 acres in Aberdeen, Maryland. Since 1917 it has been the one spot where the U.S. Army puts to the test both American and foreign ordnance and in 1944 the gang at Aberdeen got a hold of a 61 1/2 ton German battle-wagon, popularly known as the Tiger Tank (PZKW-VI). This is a nicely illustrated single page article that explains what they learned.

For further reading about the Tiger Tank, click here.

A Study of the German Tiger Tank
(The U.S. War Department, 1945)

Attached is the sweetest conte crayon illustration ever to depict a Tiger tank is accompanied by some vital statistics and assorted observations that were recorded by the U.S. Department of War and printed in one of their manuals in March of 1945:

This tank, originally the Pz. Kpfw. VI, first was encountered by the Russians in the last half of 1942, and by the Western Allies in Tunisia early in 1943…

Click here to read about the German King Tiger Tank.

Click here to read a 1944 article about the Tiger Tank.

The Returned P.O.W.
(Coronet Magazine, 1945)

Merchant Marine William T. Mitchell, having been locked-up for three and half years in a Japanese POW camp, recalled those terrible days intermittently as he explains what it was like to return to a changed America. One of the amusing stories concerned a time when his captors assembled the camp to announce [falsely] that movie stars Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin had been killed:

The Nips had lied to us, and I fell for it. You believe anything – almost – when you’re cut off from your home.