1941

Articles from 1941

Winston Churchill Recalled the U-Boat Problem
(Liberty Magazine, 1941)

Former Lord of the Admiralty (1911 – 1915), Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) wrote the attached article sometime after the First World war and recalled the tremendous difficulties faced by the Royal Navy when this new form of warfare came to the fore:


“There followed the fourth prime feature of the war — the grand U-boat attack on the Allied shipping and the food ships and store ships which kept Great Britain alive. Here again we were exposed to a mortal risk. Not merely defeat but subjugation and final ruin confronted by our country.”

”The New Order” in Japan
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

After reading this 1941 article you will come away with a full understanding as to how misguided Imperial Japan was to enter into a war with the United States and the British Empire. At the time of the printing, Japan had been engaged in its second war with a very underdeveloped China; even though Japan had held the momentum in that war, it had still driven the Japanese into a life of highly uncomfortable rationing, which would only get worse as their new war expanded.

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The Arsenal of Democracy Kicks-In
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Sitting before a senate committee, FDR’s Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (1867 – 1950) warned the country that the United States will have a time trying to catch-up with the Germans, who have been producing armaments since 1933. Whether our factories are making weaponry for the Allies alone, or whether we enter the war and have to make ordinance for us and the Allies – a challenge has presented itself.

Nazis in Latin America
(Spot Magazine, 1941)

“The Bad Neighbor Policy of the Axis in Latin America, most sinister menace to Western Hemisphere Democracy, is shown here in a series of remarkable photographs. Hitler, realizing the vulnerability of the U.S. to attack from the south, planned far ahead when he began planting his agents as ‘tourists’ in Central and South American nations… The Chilean Defense League reports 5,060,000 Italians, 1,385,400 German and 200,000 Japanese in South America.”

Feeding American Paratroopers
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

With W.W. II just around the corner, the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps’ “subsistence laboratory” in Chicago was burning the mid-night oil trying to create a nutritious light weight ration with little bulk for the nascent paratrooper divisions.

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The Beginning of the End
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

This article heralds the slippery slope in men’s fashion. Our’s is the era in which it is not odd to see billion-dollar businesses being run by men in flipflops and gym shorts – this is a far cry from how their grandfathers would have dressed were they in the same position. The well-respected fashion journalist (Henry L. Jackson, 1911 – 1948: co-founder of Esquire)
opined in this article that it was suitable for men to cease wearing the darker hues to the office and wear country tweeds; next stop – flipflops.

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Japanese Fleet Crossed the Sea While Kurusu Talked
(PM Tabloid, 1941)

“Don’t believe that the Japanese ordered their dawn assault only yesterday. The fact is that they ordered it not days ago but weeks ago. While Japan’s special envoy, Saburo Kurusu, was busy talking in Washington, the ships that were to attack us were already on their way. While he was staling and waiting ‘for instructions’, they were getting into position. More than that: they had their orders before Kurusu even started talking.”

Arrests
(PM Tabloid, 1941)

The mass arrests of Japanese Americans began the evening of the Pearl Harbor attack:

“As the arrests began last night, Attorney General Francis Biddle announced that FDR had authorized him to apprehend as ‘alien enemies’, Japanese aliens considered dangerous ‘to the peace and security of the U.S.A. He said that at least 1,000 Japanese nationals would be affected, but there would be ‘a fair hearing for all persons apprehended.’ “

Looking for Spies on the Japanese Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

“The spy phobia possesses all inhabitants of Nippon. No one believes a foreigner can possibly be living in or visiting Japan for any simple reason such as business or pleasure. He must be in the pay of a foreign government. This entails a counterespionage system in which every Japanese joins with enthusiasm.”

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”Impregnable Pearl Harbor”
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Six months before Japan’s devastating assault on Pear Harbor came this article concerning how remarkable the Navy’s defensive measures were and how unlikely it would be if the installation was ever to be attacked. A large part of the article concerned how overwhelmingly Japanese the Oahu population was, and the many steps taken by the Army and Navy to keep them off-base. How terribly unimaginative of them to think that Japanese Naval Itelligence wouldn’t think to farm-out spying to an Englishman like Frederick Rutland – which they did.

London Under the Bombs
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

“A German plane dropped a flare. Then the inevitable stick bombs followed and the Savoy [Hotel] trembled. I looked and winced. Two large fires were reaching up into the night. This dwarfed any Blitz I have ever seen. Still both incendiaries and high-explosives screamed down. The night was filled with noise – all of it frightening noise. And above the planes still roared. It was so light that the balloons could be seen clearly. Now and then there would come the rattle of machine gun fire, hardly heard over the crackling of fires and the noise of the bombs. But it told us that the night fighters were up there.”

London Under the Bombs
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

“A German plane dropped a flare. Then the inevitable stick bombs followed and the Savoy [Hotel] trembled. I looked and winced. Two large fires were reaching up into the night. This dwarfed any Blitz I have ever seen. Still both incendiaries and high-explosives screamed down. The night was filled with noise – all of it frightening noise. And above the planes still roared. It was so light that the balloons could be seen clearly. Now and then there would come the rattle of machine gun fire, hardly heard over the crackling of fires and the noise of the bombs. But it told us that the night fighters were up there.”

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London Under the Bombs
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

“A German plane dropped a flare. Then the inevitable stick bombs followed and the Savoy [Hotel] trembled. I looked and winced. Two large fires were reaching up into the night. This dwarfed any Blitz I have ever seen. Still both incendiaries and high-explosives screamed down. The night was filled with noise – all of it frightening noise. And above the planes still roared. It was so light that the balloons could be seen clearly. Now and then there would come the rattle of machine gun fire, hardly heard over the crackling of fires and the noise of the bombs. But it told us that the night fighters were up there.”

A Pen-Picture of the Devastated Soviet Union
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

After touring thousands of miles with a German press-pass throughout Nazi-occupied Russia, American journalist Hugo Speck (1905 – 1970) gave a thorough picture of the violence visited upon that land by both Armies:


“German-occupied Russia is in rags and ruins; huge sweeps of European Soviet territory have been systematically destroyed, partly by the Russians themselves and partly by the devastation of Stukas, panzers, guns and fire…”

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