Find old World War 2 articles here. We have great newspaper articles from wwii check them out today!
Who knows, perhaps the author of Bad Day at Black Rock
It was written by YANK MAGAZINE’s Len Zinberg (1911-1968; a.k.a. Ed Lacy, a.k.a. Steve April); by that time, Zinberg was already an experienced writer with impressive credits and the magazine was lucky to have him. His writings at YANK helped to open the door at THE NEW YORKER, where much of his work was to be seen following the end of hostilities.
Nesei Homecoming (Yank, 1945) Read More »
This photo essay from CLICK MAGAZINE consists of six black and white images illustrating the Nisei officers and GIs toiling under the merciless sun at Camp Shelby, Mississippi prior to being shipped out for combat duty in Italy. The accompanying paragraph sums up quite nicely their devotion to the United States, declaring that for these Japanese-Americans, democracy outweighs blood ties, yet says not a word about the internment camps.
CLICK HERE to read about the beautiful Blonde Battalions who spied for the Nazis…
‘Loyal Japanese Fight for the U.S.A.” (Click Magazine, 1943) Read More »
During the last miserable days of 1944 came this one page, first person account by a common American soldier marching through a shell-pocked German landscape. The fellow went to great effort to describe the general discomfort experienced by all those GIs privileged enough to be posted at the spearhead of that winter advance through the Hürtgen Forest. Halting in frozen rain and blinding winds, his platoon languished around a liberated Nazi pillbox where it was decided that each of them should enjoy a three hour respite inside to escape the cold. When it was our hero’s turn he explains how nice it was to be surrounded by four walls and a roof.
Click here to read about the mobile pill boxes of the Nazi army.
A Pill Box in the Hürtgen Forest (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
In the aftermath of World War II Germany found themselves occupied by four armies; in the attached article General Eisenhower explained what the policy of the German occupation was to be:
‘His idea is that the biggest job for right now is riding herd on the rehabilitation of Germany’s political and economic structure…We are working toward a government of Germany by the Germans under the supervision of the Allied General Control Council,’ he said. The government will pass more and more under German civil control. At first we’ll have to look down the German’s necks in everything they do.’
-To read more 1940s articles about General Eisenhower, click here.
The Policy Behind the Occupation of Germany (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
Here is a classic story about the failures in global communication during the pre-Twitter era. This article explains how there was a fifteen hour lag between the Japanese surrender and the time in which Tokyo heard that their offer had been accepted by the Allies.
In the midst of a routine radio-teletype conference between GHQ officers in Manila and the War Department in Washington, the teletype suddenly began printing:
‘Stand by for important message **** from Marshall to MacArthur ****you are hereby notified of Japanese capitulation ****’
It all centered on one skanky, bullet-pocked, bomb-damaged Radio Operations Room in Manila.
A Failure to Spread the Word (Coronet Magazine, 1951) Read More »
The attached W.W. II magazine article tells the story of the hard-charging Goums – a detachment of French-Moroccan infantry who appeared to the American GIs as genuine curios (Wikipedia definition: Goumier is a term used for Moroccan soldiers, who served in auxiliary units attached to the French Army, between 1908 and 1956).
The Germans definitely don’t like the Goums. As for the Italians, they’re scared to death of them. In the Mateur and Bizerte sectors, where the Goums were attached to the Ninth Division, three Italian companies surrendered en masse as soon as they heard that the guys in front of them were Goums.
The Nazis Hated These Guys (Yank Magazine, 1944) Read More »
In Honolulu, where the war began for the U.S., the first news of it’s ending reached a sleepy-eyed Chinese-American radio technician shortly after 1200 hours (12:00 a.m.) when he had just finished making his regular weekly check on KGU’s station transmitter and was ready to leave for home.
Stand by for important news about the Potsdam ultimatum.
Flight nurse, WACs and GIs all streamed from their barracks and joined the howling procession…
VJ Day in Honolulu (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
Some of the highlights: Firecrackers, hoarded in Chinatown for eight years, rattled like machine guns… Servicemen and civilians played tug-of-war with fire hoses… Market Street, the wide bar-lined thoroughfare that has long been the center of interest for visiting GIs and sailors, was littered with the wreckage of smashed War Bond booths … A plump redhead danced naked on the base of the city’s Native Sons monument after servicemen had torn her clothes off. A sailor lent the woman a coat, and the pair disappeared.
VJ Day in San Francisco (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
During the Second World War there were two prominent canteens where the Allied soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines could go to see and be seen with the glamorous actor types of their day: the Hollywood Canteen in Los Angeles and the Stage Door Canteen in New York City. It was in these two locales that the stars of both stage and screen could be found both waiting and busing tables, preparing food and cracking wise with the volunteers and draftees of the Allied Armies. We needn’t tell you which of these two establishments Hollywood decided to celebrate on celluloid, but you should know that the film was extremely popular- attached is the review as it appeared in fashion magazine of the time.
United Artists Makes ”Stage Door Canteen” (Charm, 1943) Read More »
This is a three page article concerning the city of New York from Yank’s on-going series, Home Towns in Wartime. The Yank correspondent, Sanderson Vanderbilt, characterized Gotham as being overcrowded (in 1945 the population was believed to be 1,902,000; as opposed to the number today: 8,143,197) and I’m sure we can all assume that today’s New Yorkers tend to feel that their fore-bearers did not know the meaning of the word.
New York was the home base of Yank Magazine and this article presents a young man’s view of that town and the differences that he can recall when he remembers it’s pre-war glory (Sanderson tended to feel that the city looked a bit down-at-the-heel).
Click here if you would like to read an article about the celebrations in New York the day World War Two ended.
New York City Home Front (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »
