Find old World War 2 articles here. We have great newspaper articles from wwii check them out today!
Some Jap officers, unable to face the prospect of defeat, dressed in their best uniforms, laid their samurai swords by their sides and then shot themselves in the head. Tokyo broadcast a plaintive admission from the Jap commander on Iwo Jima, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi:
‘This island is the front line that defends our mainland and I am going to die here.’
He was right on both counts.
In our day, the significance of the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima is often dismissed as a campaign that should never have been waged; be that as it may, the following attachment is the U.S. Government explanation as to why the invasion of Iwo Jima was an essential part of the American strategy to invade Japan. Although you won’t find the information in this particular YANK article, the Marine and Army units that were to play leading rolls in the Japanese invasion were already selected and were at this point in training for the grim task before them (had it not been for the deployment of the Atomic Bombs, which hastened an end to the hostilities and saved hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides).
An eye-witness account of the 1945 German Army surrender proceedings in Reims, France in the early days of May, 1945.
Penned in that unique english of the 1940s American soldier (which sounded a good deal like the movies of the time), this article describes the goings-on that day by members of the U.S. Army’s 201st Military Police Company, who were not impressed in the least by the likes of German General Gustav Jodl or his naval counterpart, Admiral Hans von Friedeburg:
Sgt. Henry Wheeler of Youngstown, N.Y., said, ‘The wind-up was pretty much what we expected. ‘Ike’ didn’t have anything to do with those phonies until they were ready to quit. Then he went in and told them to sign up. And what does he do as he comes out of the meeting? He shakes hands with the first GI he comes to.
An eye-witness account of the 1945 German Army surrender proceedings in Reims, France in the early days of May, 1945.
Penned in that unique english of the 1940s American soldier (which sounded a good deal like the movies of the time), this article describes the goings-on that day by members of the U.S. Army’s 201st Military Police Company, who were not impressed in the least by the likes of German General Gustav Jodl or his naval counterpart, Admiral Hans von Friedeburg:
Sgt. Henry Wheeler of Youngstown, N.Y., said, ‘The wind-up was pretty much what we expected. ‘Ike’ didn’t have anything to do with those phonies until they were ready to quit. Then he went in and told them to sign up. And what does he do as he comes out of the meeting? He shakes hands with the first GI he comes to.
Lt. Alexander Nininger, Jr. (1918 – 1942) was posthumously awarded the first Medal of Honor of the Second World War, but regardless of that fact he got the brush-off in this column which was primarily written in order to inform the public of a new CBS radio program. The radio show was titled CMH and was intended to tell the individual stories of each and every MoH recipient of W.W. II.
This column summarizes General Bradley’s early life and career with a good deal of space devoted to his leadership during the North African Campaign:
Chosen over dozens his senior in service, he was sent to North Africa in February 1943 as deputy to General Patton. In May he succeeded Patton. On several critical occasions his tactical skill and remarkable sense of timing surprised the Germans and soundly defeated them. One of his favorite maxims: ‘Hit the enemy twice: first to find out what he’s got; then, to take it away from him.’
As informative as this World War Two article about photographer Edward Steichen (1879 – 1973) is, it fails to convey to the reader what an interesting soul he must have been. Steichen was a respected photographer in modernist circles prior to volunteering for service in the First World War, and by the time he joined the U.S. Navy for the second go-round, his stock was even higher.
A report from the trials that were held in late August, 1945, in order to prosecute those Allied POWs who collaborated with their Nazi captors. The four who were discussed in this column were all Canadians.
A quick read, which begins with the story of how the British Army of occupation in Germany managed to detain and identify Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900 – 1945) when he was disguised in the Wehrmacht uniform of a sergeant. The remaining paragraphs are devoted to instructing the reader as to how similar ploys could be managed to identify other German war crimes suspects when they are in captivity.
Here is an article about all the goings-on at the POW camp in Bowmanville on Lake Ontario, Canada. It concerns the German inclination to escape and the methods employed by the Canadians to keep them in place.
Written four months after the allied invasion of Europe, and seven months to go until the war’s end, YANK MAGAZINE published this account of the Canadian march through France and their heroic stand at the Falaise Gap.
Click here to read about the Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.
In the first 48 hours the Canadians had captured a dozen towns, taken more than 600 prisoners, stopped a small enemy tank force outside Caen and then joined the British in repeated attacks on Caen.
On March 10, 1945, a group of Superforts crossed Japan’s coast line. Behind them came another group, and another in a line stretching far back toward Saipan. In a long, thin file they roared over Tokyo. They flew low and out of their open bellies spilled bombs of jellied gasoline. When they hit, they burst, spewing out billowing, all-consuming fire. The flames leaped across fire lanes, swallowed factories, destroyed skyscrapers.
Click here to read about August 28, 1945 – the day the American occupation began.
Published four months after the World War II Japanese surrender, the YANK MAGAZINE editors saw fit to publish the happily obsolete plans for the invasion of Japan: operations CORONET and OLYMPIC.
Published four months after the World War II Japanese surrender, the YANK MAGAZINE editors saw fit to publish the happily obsolete plans for the invasion of Japan: operations CORONET and OLYMPIC.
The attached article is comprised of numerous war stories from the GIs of the 96th Infantry Division who were assigned the pleasant chore of slugging it out with the Japanese in the Leyte Valley of the Philippines.
If you’ve been looking for an editorial that was intended to take General MacArthur down a peg or two, you’ve found it. It was penned by Shelley Mydans (1915 – 2002), a journalist who was primarily known at the time for her LIFE MAGAZINE news dispatches; she found the General to be both admirable and repulsive at the same time and was thoroughly baffled as to why he was so loved on so many different continents.
Written two years before General MacArthur’s stunning 1950 victory in the Korean War (the Battle of Inchon), this article makes apparent a deep-seated fear held within the senior leadership of the Democratic party that MacArthur was planning to challenge Truman in the 1948 presidential election.
Another article on General MacArthur can be read here…
Japan’s one purpose now is to fight back and stall for more time – not to attack. That period in her war is over, and she came out on top…All signs now point to a growing major Allied offensive, and for the first time the enemy will be faced with the problem of holding territory which he can’t afford to lose.
1943 was truly the year that proved to have been the turning point in the war, click here to read about it…
