1943 – Old Magazine Articles

The Sullivans
(Liberty Magazine, 1943)

In 1943, Twentieth Century Fox released a movie that told the story of one of the earlies heroes of the war, The Sullivans. These five Iowa brothers enlisted in the U.S. Navy just three weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack. Assigned to the cruiser Juneau, three were killed that summer during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (1942), and the two others died the next day. The nation as a whole was very moved by this saga and cherished their memory.

“Five unknown actors play the Sullivan lads. And because their faces are fresh and new, they seem amazingly convincing and real.”

A Mighty Voice Talent
(Liberty Magazine, 1943)

“Eleven years ago, when Fred Allen, then a vaudeville star, was just starting in radio, somebody urged him to hire – as a screwball character – a certain young girl who weighed about a hundred pounds, stood scarcely five feet tall, and had about as much glamor as a sack of cement.”

– so begins the Liberty article about Minerva Pious (1903 – 1979), the zany comic, well-known back in the day for bringing to life some of the kookiest characters on radio.

A Nastier Enemy
(Liberty Magazine, 1943)

The Germans we fought in World War Two were very different from the ones we fought twenty-one years earlier.

A Nastier Enemy
(Liberty Magazine, 1943)

The Germans we fought in World War Two were very different from the ones we fought twenty-one years earlier.

Linda Darnell Downsizes
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Everyone on the home front was used to making sacrifices, and Hollywood star Linda Darnell (1923 – 1965) was no exception:

“Allowances must be made for Linda Darnell who has been sorely tried. Instead of six servants, she now has two – and she hears strange sounds from the kitchen that convince her she will soon be alone. Her chauffer has been drafted; her butler is working at Lockheed. Her flower gardens are a wreck because the Japs who once tended them are in internment camps… ‘Why, this gas rationing… it’s worse than being bombed!'”

The Nation’s Capital as ‘Boomtown’
(American Legion Magazine, 1943)

“Every day in Washington, and twice on Sundays, there will be parades. You love parades. You’ll never get tired of turning out for bands, even though they always stop playing just as they get opposite you…. Anyhow, there will always be the feel of parades in Washington, and the echoes of martial music, and the sight of waving flags. Where else, oh where elese, could they sing so fervently God Bless America?”

Japan’s Industrial Shortcomings
(American Legion Magazine, 1943)

This article said nothing to the American home front readers that they didn’t already know, in fact the Associated Press ran a similar article that appeared on numerous front pages on December 8th of 1941. Simply stated, it reported that the Japanese were totally incapable of maintaining prominence in a war against the United States due to the fact that Japan’s war industry was far too small and they had few natural resources to rely upon. The reason that the subject was broached again in early 1943 was because it was all beginning to appear quite true. During the first 13 months of the war the Japanese let loose with everything they had, now they were on the defensive, and discovering that their industry was woefully inadequate.

Articles about the significance of 1943 can be read here can be read here and here…

1943: The Year the Japanese Had Shot Their Wad
(American Legion Magazine, 1943)

“Japan in the first 13 months of war let loose virtually everything she had against us. Now she’s feeling the pinch, for her lack of industrial capacity makes replacements slow, and she hasn’t the savvy to keep up with her opponents in improving plants and weapons. This is particularly true in the all-important matter of aircraft.”

Jim Crow in Trenton
(PM Tabloid, 1943)

In 1943 the NAACP asked the administrators at Trenton’s New Lincoln Junior High School to explain why it should be entirely reserved for only Black students when such a practice was in violation of the State Civil rights Act.
The bureaucrats responded that ever since the school was built in the Twenties, that’s the way it had always been. Integration soon started.

Establishing a Jewish Homeland – But Not In Israel
(PM Tabloid, 1943)

Having no idea that The Great I Am had His own plans for the Jews of Europe, numerous heads of government convened to plan a homeland for the Jews – in Latin America.

“A vast plan for resettling thousands of Jews and other refugees in South America currently is being studied in several important Latin American capitals…”