1944 – Page 12 – Old Magazine Articles

Veronica Lake
(Click Magazine, 1944)

The attached magazine article is a profile of Veronica Lake (1922 – 1973) who was characterized in this column as an artist at making enemies.:

One of the most acute problems in Hollywood is Veronica Lake. Where, and at what precise moment her time-bomb mind will explode with some deviation from what studio bosses consider normal is an ever-present question. Hence, the grapevine of the movie industry always hums with rumors that unless Miss Lake ‘behaves’, she will no longer be tolerated, but cast into oblivion.

Her response was eloquent.

Hollywood Stars in the USO
(Click Magazine, 1944)

Attached is a 1944 article from CLICK MAGAZINE about the touring performers of the U.S.O. during the Second World War. Illustrated with eight photographs picturing many of the most devoted and well-loved of the Hollywood entertainers (Bob Hope, Martha Raye, Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Wini Shaw) the article, by celebrated newspaper critic Leonard Lyons, goes into some detail as to the deep sense of gratitude these show people felt and how happy they were to give some measure of payback. It was estimated that the U.S.O. performed 293,738 shows by the time the war reached an end.

Tom Treanor of the L.A. Times
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

War correspondent Tom Treanor (1914 — 1944) of The Los Angeles Times was billed by writer Damon Runyon as one of the four best reporters developed in this war.:

Landing in Cairo just about the time Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was approaching Alexandria, Treanor went to the British to obtain an accreditation certificate as a war correspondent. But since the British didn’t know him they wouldn’t accredit him. Undaunted he went out and bought a set of correspondent’s insignia for 70 cents, borrowed an army truck, and made a trip to the front and back before the British realized he was gone. They stripped him of his illegal insignia, but in the meantime Tom had obtained material for several ‘hot’ columns. Treanor was killed in France shortly after this column went to press.

The Plan For Post-War Revenge
(Click Magazine, 1944)

This snippet that appeared in Click Magazine during the early months of 1944 supports the argument posed by journalist Gerard Williams and the investigators on the program Hunting Hitler. It stated that a Nazi insider had defected to London where he informed British intelligence of a Nazi plan to launch a third world war from the confines of, it was assumed, another country.

U.S. Army Casualties: 1941 – 1944
(United States News, 1944)

Here are the U.S. Army casualty figures from December, 1941 through November, 1944. The provided graph points out the following major events that ushered in the larger numbers:

• The Philippine collapse

• The American landings in North Africa

• The Battle of Kasserine Pass

• The Sicily Landings

• Anzio

• D-Day

Shortly after this article appeared on the newsstands the Germans launched their winter counter-offensive in the Ardennes. The editors of this magazine anticipated the American losses for 1945 to be the highest yet.

Click here to read General Marshall’s end-of-war remarks about American casualty figures.

A G.I. Rememberance of the ETO dead…

Highlights of the Lend-Lease Act
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

Here is an article that was written on the third anniversary of the passage of the Lend-Lease Act and it lists the numerous munitions that were made available to the allied nations who signed the agreement:

By January, 1944, $19,986,000,000 in American aid had gone out – 14 percent of our total expenditures. To the original recipients – Britain and Greece – had been added China, Russia, Latin America, the Free French and a host of smaller nations.

A 1939 article about Lend-Lease can be read here…

Reporting D-Day
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

Never had so many correspondents (450) poured so much copy (millions of words) into so many press associations, photo services, newspapers, magazine and radio stations (115 organizations in all). Representing the combined Allied press, some 100 reporters covered every phase of the actual battle operations. Their pooled copy started reaching the United States within four hours of General Eisenhower’s communiqué.

The first newspaper to get the scoop was The New York Daily News (circulation 2,000,999). The First radio station to announce the news was WNEW (NYC).

Click here to read about the extensive press coverage that was devoted to the death of FDR…

U.S. Sailors Wore Earrings?
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

A short notice from a May, 1944, issue of The Pathfinder reported that there was a fashion among the American sea-going men of the enlisted variety to wear a particular style of earring in their left ear if they’d experienced combat. Don’t take our word for it, read on…

The White Russian Fascist In America
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

One of the loyal confederates of the American Bund was Anastasy Vonsyatsky (1898 – 1965). It was his sincere belief that Fascism was the only force capable of defeating international communism – and once he conceived of this idea, he was all in: Fascism could do no wrong. Although he worked closely with the American Bund, his true allegiance stood with the Russian Fascist Party in far-off Manchukuo, China
(you can read about Manchukuo here). Vonsyatsky was arrested by the FBI five months after Pearl Harbor and released in 1946.

The Tiger Tank at the Aberdeen Proving Ground
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The American army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground rests on 72,962 acres in Aberdeen, Maryland. Since 1917 it has been the one spot where the U.S. Army puts to the test both American and foreign ordnance and in 1944 the gang at Aberdeen got a hold of a 61 1/2 ton German battle-wagon, popularly known as the Tiger Tank (PZKW-VI). This is a nicely illustrated single page article that explains what they learned.

For further reading about the Tiger Tank, click here.