World War Two – Page 61 – Old Magazine Articles

A Psychological Study of Valor
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

This is yet another excerpt from Psychology for the Fighting Man which addresses a grave concern that has been on the mind of all soldiers from time immemorial: how to be brave and safe?. In simply three paragraphs the psychologists charged with answering this question actually do a pretty feeble job, but they did a fine job summing up the heavy responsibilities that the front-line G.I. had on his mind when great acts of courage were expected of him.

Perhaps one of the most lucid definitions of bravery was uttered by an anonymous soldier from the Second World War who offered that courage is like a bank, with a finite balance; each soldier is allowed to make a small or a large withdrawal from the account and they can do so when ever they wish, but when the account is empty they can’t go to the bank any longer.

Click here to read a psychological study of fear in combat.

Catching Up With Tokyo Rose
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The Americans arriving in Japan after the surrender proceedings were hellbent on capturing the American traitor who presided over so many disheartening broadcasts — the woman they nicknamed Tokyo Rose:

…one of the supreme objectives of American correspondents landing in Japan was Radio Tokyo. There they hoped to find someone to pass off as the one-and-only Rose and scoop their colleagues. When the information had been sifted a little, a girl named Iva Toguri (Iva Toguri D’Aquino: 1916 – 2006), emerged as the only candidate who came close to filling the bill. For three years she had played records, interspersed with snappy comments, beamed to Allied soldiers on the Zero Hour…Her own name for herself was Orphan Ann.

Toguri’s story was an interesting one that went on for many years and finally resulted in a 1977 pardon granted by one who had listened to many such broadcasts: President Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006), who had served in the Pacific on board the aircraft carrier USS Monterey.

Spies Beheaded in Germany
(Literary Digest, 1935)

This magazine article was filed during the suspenseful phony war that was waged between Poland and Germany over the Danzig issue. It reported on the beheading of two German women convicted of spying on behalf of a Polish cavalry officer by the name of Baron Georges Von Sosnowski:

In London, THE NEWS CHRONICLE, Liberal Party organ, declared that the beheading of the two women was ‘disgusting savagery’, and was not the first evidence of ‘a strain of sheer barbarism in the Nazi creed…

1944 Army Statistcs
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

A printable list of figures regarding U.S. Army and Navy strength as tabulated for the year 1944:

The latest figures, released last week, show that the total strength of the armed forces now comes to about 11,417,000. The House Military Affairs Committee, to which Selective Service gave this information, released it to the public without comment, but several committee members were reported to have said privately that it confirmed their suspicions that some 2,000,000 more men have been inducted than necessary.

Click here to read another article about U.S. casualties up to the year 1944.

A Pacific War Chronology
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Here is a printable list of chronological events and battles that took place in the Pacific Theater between December 7, 1941 through May 3, 1945. Please keep in mind that this is only a partial list, the YANK editors who compiled the chronology had no foreknowledge of the U.S. assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Click here to read an interview with a Kamikaze pilot.

Lloyd George on the Nazi Blitzkrieg
(Click Magazine, 1940)

In this article, former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1863 – 1945) lambasts the leaders of Britain and France for blundering their way into the Second World War having failed to cut Hitler off at the knees on any number of previous occasions:

It is just over twenty-one years ago that France and Britain signed the Armistice with Germany which brought to an end the bloodiest war in history. They are now fighting essentially the same struggle… It is no use keeping up the pretense that things are going well for the democratic cause. We are suffering not from one blunder, but from a series of incredible botcheries. It is a deplorable tale of incompetence and stupidity.

Lloyd George singled-out Chamberlain with particular contempt, while presenting his thoughts about Hitler and Mussolini, the German Blitzkrieg and Soviet neutrality

One Austrian’s Fight Against Global Fascism
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

As far as we know, this 1945 page from YANK was the first article to tell the tale of the incredible Herbert Zipper (1904 – 1997); a story that began in Austria during the Anschluss (1938), carried on through two German concentration camps (Dachau and Buchenwald), continued through to Paris, Manila, and an Imperial Japanese detention center after which the story concludes with Dr. Zipper happily conducting his orchestra in a post-war concert before the victorious American Army.

This story was told in the highly celebrated 1995 documentary film, Never Give Up: The 20th-Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper (American Film Foundation Production). This is a good read; it is a remarkable World War Two story about a rebellious soul with a lot of guts.

World War II in the Jungles of Burma
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Written by correspondent Dave Richardson (1916 – 2005) behind Japanese lines in Northern Burma, this article was characterized as odds and ends from a battered diary of a footsore YANK correspondent after his first 500 miles of marching and Jap-hunting with Merrill’s Marauders.

One of the most highly decorated war correspondents of World War II, Richardson is remembered as the fearless reporter who tramped across 1,000 miles of Asian jungle in order to document the U.S. Army’s four-month campaign against entrenched Japanese forces – armed only with a camera, a typewriter and an M-1 carbine.

Optimistic Plans Regarding the Use of Cavalry
(The Alertmen, 1943)

This illustrated article from an obscure U.S. Army weekly states quite clearly that in light of the successful use of cavalry on the Eastern Front, the U.S. Army was once again training men to fight on horse-back. Referring to the writings of a Soviet General named O.T. Gorodoviko (a probable reference to General O.T. Gorodovikov: 1879 -1960) who had stated in an article written in an undated issue of The Cavalry Journal, that cavalry proved effective in fighting the Nazis when deployed as mounted infantry in limited engagements. The journalist conveyed his enthusiasm that the era of the mounted man was back.

Please give us your thoughts about this article, something seems terribly fishy; did over-extended Soviet Generals have time to write for American journals? Furthermore, you might find that the accompanying photos seem deliberately out of date. The hard-charging post-debutants at OldMagazineArticles.com tend to feel that this article was a hoax intended to throw someone off the trail…

The Liberation of Cherbourg
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

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Eisenhower’s D-Day Report
(The Department of the Army, 1945)

The following is an extract from General Eisenhower‘s report on the Allied operations from June 6 through the 26 of August, 1944:

Many factors are woven into warp and woof of this great victory…One was the meticulous care in planning and preparation, another was the fact that we achieved some degree of surprise involving place, timing and strength of attack. The excellence and sufficiency of amphibious equipment, with measures for dealing with beach defenses and obstacles, was also important. In the air, the Luftwaffe has taken a fearful beating. Since June 6, 2378 German aircraft have been destroyed in the air and 1,167 on the ground…

Statistical data concerning the U.S. Army casualties in June and July of 1944 can be read in this article.

General Eisenhower Q & A
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

In two full-dress interviews in Paris and Washington, General Dwight D. Eisenhower talked about some of the high spots of the campaign for Europe and about certain post-VE-Day questions. It’s been generally agreed that the interviews were pretty historic. Here are highlights of the general’s talks to the press in the two Allied capitals…

Clike here to read about General Eisenhower and the German surrender.

Another German Advantage
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

General Marshall’s post-war report remarked on one clear advantage that the German Army was privileged to exploit again and again throughout the war:

The German ammunition was charged with smokeless, flashless powder which in both night and day fighting helped the enemy tremendously in concealing his fire positions.

General Marshall on the Atomic Bomb
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The tremendous military advantage of this terrifying weapon fell to us through a combination of good luck, good management and prodigious effort. The harnessing of atomic power should give Americans confidence in their destiny…

Click here to read more magazine articles about the Atomic Bomb.

Click here to read one of the fist opinion pieces condemning the use of the Atomic Bomb.

Over One Million Medals for Bravery Were Awarded
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

For those of you out there who collect facts about American World War II medals, here is an article from the early post-war period involving the amount of gallantry medals that were awarded throughout the course of the U.S. involvement to U.S. Army personnel. Keep in mind that this is an immediate assessment from the fall of 1945 and that the Army would continue to distribute the decorations to the deserving G.I.s for many more years to come. The article discusses the amount of Medals of Honor that were awarded and the percentage of that number that were posthumously awarded. The number of Purple Hearts that were distributed is a topic that is not touched upon here.

Read what the U.S. Army psychologists had to say about courage.

Hollywood Fights Its Slowdown
(Click Magazine, 1943)

Hollywood’s manpower problems have multiplied, as in any large industry, since the U.S. entered the war. The draft, war plants, and the Government need for technicians depleted studio staffs all along the line, from producers to prop boys. The majority of Hollywood stars have devoted an untold number of hours to Army camp tours, war work, canteens; they have raised funds for war relief and war bonds. Robert Montgomery (pictured in uniform) is only one of many stars who have entered the armed services. Now he’s a lieutenant in the Navy in charge of a torpedo boat squadron….With the reduction in Hollywood’s talent ranks and the new ruling for a $25,000-net-income ceiling, movie companies face a crises in production.

Click here to read a about a particularly persuasive and
highly effective W.W. II training film…

The Hollywood Happenings in the Spring of ’44
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Tenderly ripped from the brittle pages of a 1944 issue of YANK MAGAZINE was this short paragraph which explained all the goings-on within the sun-bleached confines of Hollywood, California:

Rita Hayworth steps into the top spot in the Columbia production, ‘Tonight and Every Night’; Ethel Barrymore returns to the screen after 11 years’ absence to share honors with with Cary Grant in ‘None but the Loney Heart’…In ‘Something for the Boys’ Carmen Miranda will sing ‘Mairzy Doats’… etc, etc, etc.

Dealing with Lightning
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)

When the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics was let-in on the secret that the U.S. Army intended to manufacture and deploy wooden gliders, a red light went on in their collective heads as they all remembered how susceptible wood and canvas aircraft had been in attracting lightning bolts. This article outlines the steps that were taken to remedy the problem.