1944 – Page 9 – Old Magazine Articles

Warnings From A Soviet Defector
(Reader’s Digest, 1944)

A fascinating article written by a man who just seven years earlier had been a senior officer in Stalin’s army. In order to escape the dictator’s purges, General Alexander Barmine (1899 – 1987) defected to the West in 1937 and made his way to the U.S. where he began writing numerous articles about the NKVD operations in North America. This article concerns the Soviet infiltration of labor unions, the Democratic Party and the U.S. Government.

Port of Embarcation
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

This one page article from YANK MAGAZINE by Irwin Swerdlow will give you a sense of the Herculean task that was involved in the transporting of so many men and supplies across the English Channel to breach Rommel’s Atlantic Wall:

The biggest job of coordination that the world has ever known was under way. Thousands of things had to happen at a certain time, things which, if they did not happen, would delay the entire movement.

Click here to read about unloading supplies on Iwo Jima.

‘Doughboy’s General”
(Reader’s Digest, 1944)

This column summarizes General Bradley’s early life and career with a good deal of space devoted to his leadership during the North African Campaign:

Chosen over dozens his senior in service, he was sent to North Africa in February 1943 as deputy to General Patton. In May he succeeded Patton. On several critical occasions his tactical skill and remarkable sense of timing surprised the Germans and soundly defeated them. One of his favorite maxims: ‘Hit the enemy twice: first to find out what he’s got; then, to take it away from him.’

Restless Nazis in Canada
(Newsweek Magazine, 1942)

Here is an article about all the goings-on at the POW camp in Bowmanville on Lake Ontario, Canada. It concerns the German inclination to escape and the methods employed by the Canadians to keep them in place.

In France with the Canadian Army
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Written four months after the allied invasion of Europe, and seven months to go until the war’s end, YANK MAGAZINE published this account of the Canadian march through France and their heroic stand at the Falaise Gap.

Click here to read about the Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.

Read about the French-Canadians who resisted the draft…

The Canadians on D-Day
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

In the first 48 hours the Canadians had captured a dozen towns, taken more than 600 prisoners, stopped a small enemy tank force outside Caen and then joined the British in repeated attacks on Caen.

Inhumanity
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

Here is a short column that recalls the bestial treatment that was meted out to the American and Filipino prisoners of war by their Japanese masters.

For example, in August of last year, some 300 Japs attacked an unarmed litter train on the Munda Trail. They hacked twenty of the wounded to death…

Personal Efforts On The Home Front
(Assorted Magazines)

Here is a smattering of paragraphs that appeared seven months into the war that give a glimpse into how various souls on the American home front had pitched-in for the war effort. My personal favorite is the one about the school children who pooled their money to buy cartons of cigarettes for soldiers.

D-Day Plus Ten With the 82nd Airborne
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The battle of the hedgerows as experienced by the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division:

They all had been fighting since D-Day. Compared with the obstacles at the beginning of their drive, the hill they had just taken was only a minor deal, but it was no push-over. At some places, one paratrooper told me, the fighting was so close the Krauts didn’t even bother to throw their grenades, they just handed them over to us.

600 Nisei Judged Disloyal
(L.A. Times, 1944)

About 630 American-born Japanese over the age of 17, now at the Poston (AZ.) relocation center, were found to be openly disloyal or of questionable loyalty to the United States, the Dies subcommittee learned at its hearing yesterday in the Federal Building…Among the 630 there were 606 men and 24 women.

The Battle Against Alcohol Dependence
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

Here are five letters to the editor written in response to an article that appeared in one of the Spring, 1944, issues of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE that pertained to two Native American tribal edicts that forbade the use of alcohol.

<img src=https://wp.oldmagazinearticles.com/image_files/james-collins-otipoby-indian-american-chaplain_333.jpg border=0 height=493 width=333 alt=

The Mettle of Americans
(Click Magazine, 1944)

Following his tour of the war fronts, U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1902 – 1985) put pen to paper in an attempt to express his admiration for the brave and selfless acts that Americans were performing all over the globe:

If asked to say what impressed me on my recent trip to the war theater, my answer would be: the heroic qualities displayed by our American boys. My most lasting impressions were gained in the field and in the hospitals around the globe. It is there that one sees the kind of boy America produces.

Additional praise for the American fighting man can be read here…

U.S. Army Mobile Hospitals of World War Two
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The American military personnel who are wounded while fighting the terrorists in both Iraq and Afghanistan are today the beneficiaries of a field hospital system that was developed long ago in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The mobile hospitals developed by the U.S. Army Medical Corps has evolved into a unique life-saving force that has not simply relied on a trained staff but also a fast and well-fueled transportation system. This Yank Magazine article will give the reader a good look at how the medics and doctors had to work during the second War to End All Wars:

A portable surgical hospital is a medical unit of four doctors and generally 32 enlisted men. They’re supposed to work directly behind the line of battle and patch up casualties so they can be removed to an evacuation hospital. Sometimes part of the portable hospital personnel have to be removed, too.

Conscientious Objectors
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Whatever became of the conscientious objectors?
Some of the men who registered as ‘conchies’ with their local selective service boards have been deferred because they are working in essential jobs. About 6,890 conchies have been interned and assigned to Civilian Public Service camps in the States. A handful, just 47, live and work in camps on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the only places outside the continental limits of the States where they may serve. By act of Congress, conscientious objectors may not be sent to foreign lands, but Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, although overseas, are territories of the U.S.

Click here to read about the British conscientious objectors of World War I.

We have an article that pertains to the Korean War draft-dodgers but it also explains the popular methods used by the W.W. II draft-evaders, as well.

To read an article about American draft dodgers of W.W. II, click here.

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.

Moses Soyer on David Bruliuk
(New Masses, 1944)

Albert Ganzenmüller
(New Masses, 1944)

Obergrupenfuehrer Albert Ganzenmüller (1905 – 1996) was responsible for running the German rail roads. This not only involved delivering troops and ordinance to the various fronts but also deporting Jews, Poles, Croats and Slovenes to assorted death camps:

Ganzenmüller’s special contribution to these migrations was his invention of the railroad-car gas chamber to exterminate Jews.

‘Confessions of a Nazi Officer”
(New Masses, 1944)

Lieutenant K. F. Brandes of the German Army was killed on October 24 [1944] on the right bank of the Dnieper. A diary was found on him. I have seen many diaries of German officers and soldiers… It was written by a clever and educated man. Brandes was a Fascist. He calls the conquest of Europe the ‘German Spring’. Like his colleagues he came to Russia for ‘lebensraum’… But as distinct from other Hitlerites, Brandes saw the limit of his dreams. He faithfully described the disintegration of the German Army, showed the meanness of the men who are still ruling Germany. I will cite the most interesting excerpts from his diary.