1943 – Page 10 – Old Magazine Articles

The Saucy Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girl Orchestra
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

One of the most popular women’s group of the 1940s was Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girl Orchestra; few were surprised to hear that they were first girl band to be signed by the USO when America entered W.W. II. Sired by two vaudevillians, Ada Leonard (1915 – 1997) briefly toiled as a stripper in Chicago nightclubs before embarking on her career in music.

This interview displays for the readers her salty, fully-armored personality and her disgust concerning the total lack of glamor that accompanies USO shows, topped-off by a photo of her pretty face.

Reading and listening from Amazon
Take-Off: American All-Girl Bands
During World War II

Home Front Feminism
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

1940s feminism bares no resemblance to the take-no-prisoners feminism of today. This is made clear in the attached article by Amaran Scheinfeld (1900 – 1979), a writer, whose book Women and Men (1944), as stated by the New York Times, foreshadowed many issues of the feminist movement. The primary difference between the two lay in the fact that seventy-five years ago it was believed that it was nature that had established many of the rolls played by the (two) genders.

Jane Anderson of Georgia
(Coronet Magazine, 1943)

Jane Anderson began broadcasting from Berlin on April 14, 1941. When Nazi Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941 American citizens were repatriated from Germany but Anderson chose to remain.
She broadcast Nazi propaganda by way of a short wave radio for the German State Radio’s U.S.A. Zone, the Germans named her ‘The Georgia Peach’. Her programs regularly heaped high praise upon Adolf Hitler and ran ‘exposés’ of the ‘communist domination’ of the Roosevelt and Churchill administrations. She conducted numerous on-air interviews, the most famous among them was of her co-worker, the British traitor William Joyce. When Berlin fell she was on the run up until April of 1947, when she was caught in Salzburg, Austria and placed in the custody of the U.S. military.

The American Half-Track
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

This YANK MAGAZINEarticle was written shortly after the U.S. Army’s triumphant performance during the Battle of El Guettar in Tunisia (March 23 – April 7, 1943) and rambles on with much enthusiasm regarding the admirable performance of the M2 Half Tracks. Half Tracks were used on many fronts throughout the war and in many ways, yet as this article makes clear these armored vehicles at El Guettar were mounted with a field gun and used to devastating effect as tank-destroyers against the German 10th Panzer Division.

The writer, Ralph G. Martin

went on in later years to become a prolific historian and biographer.

Click here to read an article about German half-tracks.

The American Half-Track
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

The writer, Ralph G. Martin

went on in later years to become a prolific historian and biographer.

Click here to read an article about German half-tracks.

The American Half-Track
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

The writer, Ralph G. Martin

went on in later years to become a prolific historian and biographer.

Click here to read an article about German half-tracks.

Guys & WAACs
(Click Magazine, 1943)

Fort Warren, Wyoming, is bleak, windswept, desolate. It is no wonder that the soldiers stationed there looked forward to the arrival at the lonely post of a unit of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). [When the women arrived] The men of Company H, Fifth Quartermaster Training Regiment, sent over an invitation to a party… The party was informal but military. The hosts marched in formation to their guests’ barracks where the two companies fell in behind their respective officers for the return trip. The evening included a buffet supper, attendance at boxing matches and refreshments afterwards.

Social Groups Within the Internment Camps
(U.S. Government, 1943-45)

A list provided by the War Relocation Authority of the seven groups that maintained ties and created various social and educational activities for the interned Japanese-Americans spanning the years 1943 through 1945. The Y.W.C.A., the Boy Scouts and the American Red Cross are just three of the seven organizations.

For years prior to W.W. II and the creation of the Japanese-American internment camps, the people of the United States had been steadily spoon fed hundreds articles detailing why they should be weary of the Japanese presence in North America; if you would like to read one that was printed as late as 1939, click here.

The Battle of Yichang
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1943)

KEY WORDS: major victory for the chinese army 1943,chinese rice bowl provinces 1943,capture of Yuyangkwan 1943,14th United States Air Force

She Worked The Graveyard Shift
(The American Magazine, 1943)

Thousands of American girls are traveling the same road as 21-year-old Dorthy Vogely, our new Cover Girl this month. No longer do they live at home waiting for a nice young man. Instead they’ve gone on their own to help win the war…

The Lay-Out Plan for the Rohwer Internment Camp
(U.S. Gov. 1943)

Attached is a black and white plan depicting the Rohwer Relocation Center, which was located in Desha County, Arkansas. The plan clearly illustrates how the residential huts were to be placed in addition to the churches, shops and schools.

Berlin’s Man In Brussels
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Léon Degrelle (1906 – 1994) was a Belgian con-man and Nazi collaborator:

Handsome, plausible and glib, politics eventually appealed to him as a field for his talents, but repeated bids for office resulted in defeat. Nothing seemed more certain than that the ‘man with the electric voice’ would remain a local windbag, but in 1935, Adolf Hitler began the development of fifth columns in other countries, and Léon Degrelle was his choice in Belgium.

Soprano Dorothy Kirsten
(Click Magazine, 1943)

Illustrated with a black and white photograph of the 33 year-old soprano was this small notice announcing the discovery of Dorthy Kirsten (1910 – 1992) of Montclair, New Jersey. Kirsten went on to great heights, performing with the Metropolitan Opera for the next thirty years, she would also enjoy some popularity singing duets on the radio with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nelson Eddy, and Perry Como.

The Nazis Liked to Flatter Themselves
(Pic Magazine, 1943)

The Nazis had so many wonderful things to say – about themselves…

Yes, we are barbarians! We want to be barbarians. It is an honorable title. We shall rejuvenate the world.

Proclamation Number 2525
(U.S. Government Document, 1943)

Signed by President Roosevelt on December 7, 1941, Proclamation 2525 enabled the U.S. government to relocate anyone it chose from all areas believed to be of military value.

…the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.

Dance at Tule Lake.

Work Clothes for Rosie the Riveter
(Advertisement, 1943)

Two images depicting the factory clothing prescribed for women war-workers on the American home front during the Second World War.

More on the women war workers of W.W. II can be read here…

Can Congress Kill the New Deal?
(Click Magazine, 1943)

This is a 1943 editorial that was penned by Republican Senator Robert Taft (1889 – 1953) who explained in the most clinical terms that President Roosevelt’s loyal opposition on Capitol Hill can be relied upon to support him in all matters involving his roll as Commander-in-Chief. However, Taft implied, any further efforts to go gallivanting about the Capitol creating any more of those agencies with the New Deal trademark names like FSA, WPA, NYA, REA, TVA etc. etc. etc will be met with the stiffest opposition from the Republicans, who were well outnumbered, anyway.

Taft’s column was answered by his opposite number in the Democratic Party: New York Senator Robert F. Wagner (1877 – 1953); his column can also be read here.

The historian Henry Steele Commager chose to rank FDR at number 19 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned – click here to understand his reasoning…

Drawings of German POWs in America
(Click Magazine, 1943)

This account of life aboard a U.S. train carrying Nazi prisoners of war to prison camps is an authentic bit of after-the battle reporting by an army MP who was a civilian artist. That his eye missed no telling detail is evident from both his first-person story and his on-the-spot pencil sketches.

The Nazis are extremely curious about America, they gaze out of the windows constantly…War plants along our routes are the real eye-openers to the Nazis; those factories blazing away as we travel across America day after day. At first the prisoners look with mere interest and curiosity, then they stare unbelievingly, and before we reach the camps they just sit dumbfounded at the train windows.

Click here to read about Hitler’s slanderous comment regarding the glutinous Hermann Goering.