World War Two – Page 60 – Old Magazine Articles

American Makeup Goes to War
(Click Magazine, 1942)

An interesting look at the beauty products used by American women during the Second World War and how that war effected the cosmetic industry. Students of history will be reminded that when a nation commits itself to a state of total war, all available elements within a government’s grasp will be picked over by that country’s military; even makeup.

If you’re following a routine of ‘beauty as usual’ with qualms of conscience, believing that cosmetics and toiletries use materials essential to the war machine, know for certain that if Uncle Sam needed your lipstick for bombs and bullets, he’d have gotten it first.

The U.S. cosmetics industry was effected in many ways, read the article and find out.

Click here to read an article about a popular 1940s hairstyle.

CLICK HERE to read about the beautiful Blonde Battalions who spied for the Nazis…

VJ-Day in Rome
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

A smattering of opinions on the subject of VJ Day (they all seemed to have been in favor of it) were offered up by a collection of Rome-based American soldiers composed of assorted hues and ranks.

VJ Day in Paris
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The GIs had managed to keep their VJ spirit bottled up through most of the phony rumors, but when the real thing was announced the cork popped with a vengeance. A spontaneous parade, including jeeps and trucks and WACs and GIs and officers and nurses and enlisted me, snaked from the Red Cross Club at Rainbow Corner down to the Place de l’Opera and back…

Constance Drexel of Massachusetts
(Coronet Magazine, 1943)

The hokum that Constance Drexel (1894 – 1856?) coughed-up over the airwaves on behalf of her Nazi paymasters was considered to have been so negligible in content by the U.S. Department of Justice that all charges against her were dropped.

Leo Disher of the United Press
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

Leo Disher was among the war correspondents who sailed for Africa with the American invasion fleet late in October of 1942… Army authorities were so impressed with his conduct under fire that they presented him with a Purple Heart [he was the first W.W. II reporter to earn this distinction]. More important was the fact that the story he dictated from his hospital cot after the shooting was over was displayed on the front pages of most of the UP papers.

Bob Miller of the United Press
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

On the day following the first landing made by United States Marines on Guadalcanal, United Press’ Bob Miller accomplished something which probably no other war correspondent has ever done. Singlehanded, he captured a Jap prisoner.

During the six weeks he spent on Guadalcanal, Miller’s group was bombed almost daily during the entire time, and Jap ground forces were a constant threat.

Miller was known to one and all in the Pacific Theater as Baldy. Shortly before this article appeared in CORONET he had fallen victim to malaria and was returned to the U.S. for convelesence. In 1944 his dispatches to the UnitedPress would concern the liberation of France and the Nuremburg Trials.

The Lady was a Sniper…
(Yank, 1944)

This small notice from a post D-Day issue of YANK announced the capture of a German woman sniper named Myra. It is interesting to note that she was captured in civilian clothing; a male sharp-shooter would have probably been shot immediately. The popular reasoning on all sides during war stems from the fact that snipers do not take prisoners themselves, therefore why should they be afforded the privilege?

If you would like to read an article about women soldiers in W.W. I, click here.

The Psychology of Fear in Combat
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

The YANK MAGAZINE editors remarked that this brief column, which was intended to help American G.I.s deal with panic attacks during combat, was written by the National Research Council and appeared in the Infantry Journal of 1943. It is a segment from a longer article titled, Psychology for the Fighting Man. The psychologists who wrote it presented a number of examples of soldier’s panic (mostly from the last war) and illustrate how best the front-line soldier could deal with this stress while the bullets are flying. Happily, they made it sound so easy.

Click here to read about one other effect the stress of combat wrought upon the luckless men of the Forties.

From Amazon: Psychology for the Fighting Man

– also from Amazon: Cowardice: A Brief History

How the US Helped the Fascists Before Entering the War
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

Although our friends in Asia, Europe and Canada had been fighting the Axis for at least a year and a half, American corporations continued to trade with the fascists all the way up until the U.S. declaration of war. This 1941 article, published seven months prior to that day, goes into some detail on the matter; although corporations are not named, it is pretty easy to identify them by their products.

One reason why America today is short of ships to fill Britain’s desperate needs is [due to] the fact that for six years or more, Japan and her scrap agents bought almost every American cargo vessel placed on the auction blocks, using them for scrap to feed the blazing steel mills of Nipon.

File Sharing
(United States News & World Report, 1948)

This is the story of how Russia got military secrets from the United States during W.W. II. It is a story that has little to do with the spy ring that congressional committees are trying to prove existed during the war period (The Gouzenko Affair: read about it here) . But it does throw light on the methods and purposes of the so-called ‘spy ring’.

Military information was going to Russia as a matter of routine, by official channels, on an organized basis, all during the period when United States Communists and their friends were supposed to be spying out bits of information to send… As an ally of the U.S. in the war against Germany, Russia had free access to far more information than the so-called ‘spy ring’ claims…

‘Tich” of El Alamein
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

This is the story of Tich – the little black dog was the well-loved pet of the British Eighth Army. An admired veteran of three bitter World War II campaigns, she saw battle from North Africa to Sicily and on to Paris – thousands of Allied troops came to know her and like her. Due to her ability to predict in-coming artillery shells, many men owed their lives to her.

On July 1, 1949 Tich was awarded the Dickin Medal at Wembley Stadium, cheered by 10,000 onlookers. Ironically, having survived combat for nearly five straight years, Tich allowed malaria to get the better of her; she was buried at Ilford Animal Cemetery in her adopted home country.

The Post-War Miracle that was Volkswagen
(Pic Magazine, 1955)

Out of the smoldering ruins of Japan came the Honda factories; while Germany amazed their old enemies by rapidly beating their crematoriums into Volkswagens. Confidently managed by a fellow who only a short while before was serving as a lowly private in Hitler’s retreating army, Volkswagen quickly retooled, making the vital improvements that were necessary to compete in the global markets.

Ludwig Erhard (1897 – 1977), West Germany’s Minister of Economics between the years 1949 and 1963, once remarked that Germany was able to launch its Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) by implementing the principles of a market economy and laissez-fair capitalism within the framework of a semi-socialist state.

Manpower Balance
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

General Marshall recalled the decisions made concerning how many American men would be drafted and in what branches of service they would be needed. He recalled the number of divisions each Allied nation raised and how many divisions the Germans and Japanese put in the field. The article also remembers that two thirds of the German Army was deployed along the Eastern front and he wondered what might the Americans have done had Germany defeated the Reds.

It is remarkable how exactly the mobilization plan fitted the requirements for victory. When Admiral Doenitz surrendered the German Government, every American division was in operational theaters.

The German Army of 1945
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

After five and a half years of ever growing battle against ever-stronger enemies, the German Army in 1945 looks, at a glance, much the worse for wear. It is beset on all sides and is short of everything. It has suffered appalling casualties and must resort to old men, boys, invalids and unreliable foreigners for its cannon fodder…Yet this shabby, war-weary machine has struggled on a in a desperate effort to postpone it’s inevitable demise. At the end of 1944 it was still able to mount an offensive calculated to delay for months the definitive piercing of the Western bulwarks of Germany.

Total War
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

The introductory essay from the U.S. War Department’s intelligence manual concerning fascist Germany:

Total war is neither a contemporary invention nor a German monopoly. But total mobilization, in the sense of the complete and scientific control of all the efforts of the nation for the purpose of war, and total utilization of war as an instrument of national policy have been developed to their highest degree by the German militarists.

To gain some understanding of the nature of total war, you might want to click here and read about how the American cosmetics industry of the 1940s was forced to alter their production patters.

The Discipline and Training of German Soldiers
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

A one and a half page study on the training of the W.W. II German soldier – the soldier’s oath and the rigorous system of discipline that he had to adhere to. Also discussed is the German salute (Heil…), and the German Army’s understanding of soldierly duty.

Also discussed the German Army’s alternate pledge penned especially for atheists.

From Amazon: Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949

The Discipline and Training of German Soldiers
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

From Amazon: Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949

A Study of the German Tactical Doctrine
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

A one page study of German World War II tactics that was created by the United States Department of War two months prior to the German surrender:

…the Germans have placed a considerable reliance on novel and sensational weapons such as the mass use of armor, the robot bomb, and the super-heavy tank. Their principal weaknesses in this regard have been their failure to integrate these new techniques with established arms and tactics –German field artillery, for example, did not maintain pace with German armor -and their devotion to automatic weapons at the expense of accuracy.