Find old World War 2 articles here. We have great newspaper articles from wwii check them out today!
U.S. submarines toll of Japanese ships reaches 256 since Pearl Harbor . Russell Islands are scenes of bitter dog-fights.
The Submarine War In The Pacific (Pathfinder Magazine, 1943) Read More »
This is the story of Bomber Harris, also known as Sir Arthur Travers Harris, Marshal of the Royal Air Force (1892 – 1984) between the years 1942 through 1945. He was the daily tormentor of Nazi Germany, striving relentlessly to bring an end to German hostilities by bombing their home front without pity. This article tells the tale of Harris the soldier and Harris the man: his W.W. I experiences, his inter-war training and Washington posting, his W.W. II contributions as Air Marshal as well as his family life.
Click here to read W.W. II articles about life in Harris-plagued Germany.
Click here to read about the 1943 bombing campaign against Germany.
The Man Germany Hates Most (Collier’s Magazine, 1944) Read More »
Although historians may like to refer to World War II as the first hi-tech war, some of the ancient tools were still put to use with great effect. The attached article gives a very brief outline concerning the W.W. II use of carrier pigeons and the goings on at Camp Crowder, Missouri, where these birds were trained.
Since 1400 B.C. these birds have acted as couriers; they are the oldest instruments of war still in use. Although they form only a small part of our tremendous Signal Corps resources, the Army maintains a corps of expert pigeoneers who have rendered their birds, by scientific training and breeding, ten percent stronger than those used in World War One.
During the course of World War II the U.S. Army signal Corps deployed more than 50,000 carrier pigeons.
You might also enjoy reading this article about the carrier pigeons of W.W. I.
U.S. Army Carrier Pigeons of World War II (Click Magazine, 1943) Read More »
One month after this article was seen on the newsstands, America would be reading a good deal about the U.S. Army Assault Climbers when they thirsted to read further about those hardy lads who climbed the steep cliffs at Point du Hoc on D-Day; but in May of 1944, the term was new to them. The article is well illustrated with two color images and a brief explanation as to what was involved in the training of those lucky souls who were charged with the task of learning how to climb the rocky terrain held by the Fascist powers.
Read what the U.S. Army psychologists had to say about fear in combat.
‘Assault Climbing” (Click Magazine, 1944) Read More »
D-Day for the lads of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ Eighth Air Force was a time of great excitement and anticipation. Despite the exhaustion that comes with a fifteen hour day, all concerned recognized well that they were participating in an historic event that would be discussed long after they had left this world, but of greater importance was their understanding that the tides of war were shifting in the Allies’ favor.
In his book Wartime, Paul Fussel noted that the Allies had placed as many as 11,000 planes in the skies above France that day.
Click here to read about the 8th Air Force and their bombing efforts in the skies above Germany.
D-Day with the Eighth Air Force (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
Yank staff correspondent Bill Reed wrote the following account of the Fifth Marine Division’s slug fest on the island of Iwo Jima throughout the months on February and March, 1945:
For two days the men who landed on Green beach were pinned to the ground. Murderous machine-gun, sniper, and mortar fire came from a line of pillboxes 300 yards away in the scrubby shrubbery at the foot of the volcano. No one on the beach, whether he was a CP phone operator or a front line rifleman, was exempt. The sight of a head raised above a foxhole was the signal to dozens of Japs, safely hidden in the concrete emplacements, to open up. Men lay on their sides to drink from canteens or urinate. An errand between foxholes became a life-and-death mission for the man who attempted it.
Written by war correspondent Walter Davenport some thirteen months prior to taking the helm as editor-in-chief at Collier’s Magazine, this article gives the reader a sense as to what D-plus-one looked like from the fifty yard line at the Battle of Iwo Jima (Operation Detachment: February 19 – March 26, 1945):
There is no Jap navy here to stop us; no Jap air force, either… So you see Jap? On our way up here to Iwo we flew over more supply ships, more cargo carriers. Those decks carry concrete mixers, Diesel-powered road crushers and rollers. There aren’t many cliffs on Iwo to hide out in, Jap! You can’t live for weeks in the crevices of Suribachi. You can’t grow gardens on that rock. So, while you can still see, look down at what we’re seeing: An American city, a harsh, womanless city is moving in on you.
Davenport’s observations were no doubt a comfort to the Collier’s readers on the home front, but post-war accounting revealed that one quarter of the U.S. Navy’s losses took place at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Click here to read a unique story about the Battle of the Sula Straits…
The Iwo Jima Invasion (Collier’s Magazine, 1945) Read More »
Among the thousands of German POWs captured during the Normandy campaign was this 17 year-old alumnus of the Hitler Jugend program who is the subject in the attached column. The editors at The Stars and Stripes were dumbfounded to discover how thoroughly he had been brainwashed – to prove the point, they printed their interview with the teen.
Q. If Germany wins the war, will you punish the United States?
A. We want living space.
Captured Hitlerjugend (Stars & Stripes, 1944) Read More »
The pages of PEOPLE TODAY, a short-lived gossip rag and probable ancestor of today’s PEOPLE
Spotted in Argentina during the summer of 1951 was Mussolini’s daughter, Edda Ciano (1910 – 1995), Otto Skorzeny (1908 – 1975) and Croatian fascist Ante Pavelić (1889 – 1959). The murderous Pavelić was in the employ of the Argentine dictator, Juan Peron; the other two resided in Europe (Countess Ciano had recently served a two year stint in an Italian prison and Skorzeny, as an ODESSA flunky, was probably no stranger to South America).
Click here to read a related article from NEWSWEEK concerning the post-war presence of Nazis in Argentina.
Click here to read another article about the post-war whereabouts of another Nazi.
Unrepentant Fascists in Argentina (People Today, 1951) Read More »
Four years of global carnage did not simply usher in an era of more destructive weaponry for the inhabitants of Earth to ponder; it also gave cause for tremendous improvements in medical care. This 1945 article anticipated a much better world that would be created from the smoldering remains of Europe and Asia – a world that was better prepared to address the health requirements of the diseased and the burned. The medical advancements that were forged between the years 1939 through 1945 saw remarkable improvements in surgery and anesthesia and brought new light on how the medical establishment understood blood and the treatment of venereal disease.
CLICK HERE… to read one man’s account of his struggle with shell shock…
With the War Came Medical Innovations (Pageant Magazine, 1945) Read More »
