1942 – Page 7 – Old Magazine Articles

Americans ♥ Winston Churchill
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

Shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a solemn visit to the White House in order to plot the course of the war with FDR. The affect that the Prime Minister impressed upon the average American was profound and was soon made manifest in the form of innumerable gifts that began descending upon the White House addressed to him. An unsigned editorial in Collier’s Magazine noticed the event and remarked:

If we hadn’t liked Mr. Churchill immensely from the moment he arrived here, none of us would have sent him anything. The size and variety of this shower of gifts are the best measure of the terrific hit he made with all kinds and conditions of Americans.

Bundist Arrested As Spy
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

Johannes Kroeger, ex-leader of the German-American Bund was picked up by the FBI in the Fall of 1942 for espionage. Employed as a bus driver on Long Island, New York, Kroeger would regularly carry the employees of the Republic Aviation Company to and from work. When pressed for details, the FBI remarked:

Workers in aviation plants talk too much.

Night Attacks On Bataan
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

Filed from General MacArthur’s headquarters in Australia, here is Frank Hewlett’s (1913 – 1983) eyewitness account of the defense of American positions in the Philippines (January 7 – April 9, 1942).

Spiritual Warfare
(Newsweek Magazine, 1942)

For the believers in this world, it is very easy to see World War II as a spiritual conflict waged against the righteous by the evil forces of darkness. The atheist Nazis were truly having their way with the lukewarm Christians who filled the ranks of the European Armies – up until the arrival of a particular North American army whose motto is In God We Trust. Even to this day, the U.S. Military holds the record as having built more churches than any other institution (every base, fort and naval installation had one). This article reports that the U.S.Army did not simply deliver weaponry to our Chinese allies, they delivered millions of Bibles, too.

U-507 In The Gulf of Mexico
(Newsweek Magazine, 1942)

For the first time, U-boats became active in the Gulf, evidently under command of men familiar with its shallow waters. Two freighters, one American and one Honduran, were sunk.

The Battle of the Coral Sea
(Newsweek & Yank Magazines, 1942 – 3)

From the 4th through the 8th of May, 1942, the Japanese and American fleets exchanged blows in their first major engagement. The Americans won, but not by much; the most important battle would take place four weeks later at Midway. But the Yanks were happy with the way it turned out nonetheless:

It was a victory all right – but it was not as decisive as it sounded, to a jubilant America. For in the north in the mandated islands the main Japanese Fleet still stood ready for action at any moment – a fleet as yet largely unscathed, a fleet that has always come back for more, a fleet that does not like the taste of defeat.

Read about the Battle of Leyte Gulf…

‘We Can Win On Both Oceans”
(The American Magazine, 1942)

Frank Knox was FDR’s Secretary of the Navy between 1940 through 1944. Arm and arm with his lieutenant, Under Secretary James Forrestal, the two men made good on the Two-Ocean Navy Bill passed by Congress during the summer of 1940:

I am proud of this Navy of ours. Every American has a right to be proud of it, to know that it is, up to now, the greatest navy in history. But we cannot afford to be complacent about it. It is still not the navy that our country needs and that our fighting men in the ships deserve.

A Busy Year for the FBI
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

The FBI had been tangling Axis spies throughout the mid-to-late Thirties, but with the December 8, 1941, declaration of war the FBI was emboldened with far greater powers. This explains why Director Hoover exclaimed that his agency had just completed the busiest year in its history.

Under-Age Workers Step-Up
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

The National Youth Administration (NYA) was established in 1935 as one of FDR’s many alphabet agencies created to alleviate the sting of the Great Depression; it was tasked with providing work and education for young Americans between the ages of 16 through 25. By the time World War II kicked -in, many in Congress felt it was time to do away with the organization, but as this article spells out, NYA members could now be put to work in the defense plants.

Click here to read about the travails of young adults during the Great Depression.

Carl Jung on Hitler
(Omnibook Magazine, 1942)

H.R. Knickerbocker (1898 – 1949), foreign correspondent for the Hearst papers, recalled a 1938 conversation he had with the noted Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung concerning Adolf Hitler and his broad appeal among the German people:

He is like a man who listens intently to a stream of suggestions in a whispered voice from a mysterious source, and then acts upon them… In our case, even if occasionally our unconscious does reach us in dreams, we have too much rationality to obey it – but Hitler listens and obeys.

Click here to read about the origins of Fascist thought…