World War Two – Page 48 – Old Magazine Articles

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…

Japanese Spies on the West-Coast
(Ken Magazine, 1939)

A 1939 magazine article that reported on the assorted activities of Japanese spies operating around the Tijuana/San Diego region (their presence was well-documented by the Mexican military in addition to the F.B.I.).

A year and a half before the Pearl Harbor attack, Naval Intelligence sold a Japanese agent some bogus plans of the naval installation – more about this can be read here.

‘They Saw Hamburg Die”
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Here is a 1943 article that was cabled from Stockholm, Sweden, relaying assorted eyewitness accounts of the Allied bombing campaign over the German city of Hamburg in 1943:

The people of Germany have now learned, through the terror-filled hours of sleepless nights and days, that air mastery, the annihilating blitz weapon of the Nazis in 1939 and 1940, has been taken over by by the Allies…The most terrible of these punches has been the flood of nitroglycerin and phosphorus that in five days and nights destroyed Hamburg.

Click here to read about the bombing of Japan.

It was an Englishman nick-named Bomber Harris who planned and organized the nightly raids over Nazi Germany: click here to read about him.

The 6th Rangers on Luzon
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

This notice was the Yank magazine account of what has come to be known as the Great Raid that was commanded by Lt Col. Henry A. Mucci (1909 – 1997). On January 30, 1945 Mucci lead a raiding party of 121 hand-picked men of the 6th Rangers accompanied by some 300 Filipino guerrillas into the jungles on Luzon (The Philippines) in order to liberate the survivors of the Bataan Death March from the Cabanatuan Prison Camp. At the loss of only two men, the raiders freed 510 American POWs.

Click here to read more about the Cabanatuan POW camp.

The Rangers Go Public
(Newsweek Magazine, 1942)

The first time the American public learned of the existence of the now famous U.S. Army Rangers was through articles like this one, that appeared during August of 1942. This article made public the fact that fewer than 100 Rangers had participated in the not-terribly-successful raid on Dieppe.

The Rangers were named after Rogers’ Rangers, the rough and crafty Indian fighters of colonial days who battled near the Canadian border under their leader, Major Robert Rogers… All Rangers are volunteers, selected for strength and ability to use such weapons as daggers, grenades, fists, tommy guns and mortars.

German Army Thirsted for Grozny Oil
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

The summer of 1942 found the German Army in the Soviet Union nearing the end of its oil reserves. It was decided that this problem could best be solved by seizing the Red oilfields of the Caucasus Mountains – and so began the Battle of the Caucasus (25 July 1942 – 12 May 1944).

‘They Dropped The A-Bomb On Me”
(Tab Magazine, 1958)

During the Cold war, as many as 400,000 American military personnel were forced to witness Atomic explosions. Having been sworn to secrecy, this veteran wrote his testimony under the penname, Soldier X:

Then I saw the true power and fury of nature as a giant fireball sluggishly rolled upward through the thick layer of dust: I estimated its distance at about 1500 feet up. Surrounding the red mass are twisting white snakes of clouds….This is color as few humans have ever seen it, magnificent, threatening and horrible.