1945 – Page 10 – Old Magazine Articles

Hispanic Women in the WACs
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

A group of women of Latin-American extraction took the Army oath before more than 6,000 persons in San Antonio’s Municipal Auditorium to become the second section of the Benito Juarez Air-WAC Squadron, named for the hero who helped liberate Mexico from European domination in 1862.

Led by an honor guard from the first Latin-American WAC squadron, the new war-women, marched into the auditorium to be sworn in and to hear words of greeting from Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby (1905 – 1995) and from Mrs. Dwight Eisenhower (1896 – 1979).

The first Hispanic WAC was Carmen Contreras-Bozak.

Click here to read about some of the Puerto Ricans who served with distinction during the war.

From Amazon:
Dressed for Duty: America’s Women in Uniform, 1898-1973

The Murder of Grefreiter Kunz
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

Accusing one of their fellow inmates of treason (Vaterlandsverrater), a Nazi kangaroo court located in the POW camp in Tonkawa, Oklahoma murdered him. The U.S. Army administrators who run the camp dutifully received the body as if justice had been served, and buried it in the camp graveyard. This article explains how all this came about.

The German Army’s Official Report on D-Day
(Dept. of the Army, 1945)

Translated from German, labeled CONFIDENTIAL and printed in a booklet for a class at the U.S. Army Military Academy in 1945 was the attached German Army assessment of the D-Day invasion. Distributed on June 20, 1944, just two weeks after the Normandy landings, the report originated in the offices of Field Marshal von Rundstedt (1875 – 1953) and served to document the German reaction to the Allied Operations in Normandy.

Contest On Okinawa
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Writing about the bitter fighting on Okinawa some years after the war, Marine veteran Eugene Sledge remarked that he and his comrades had been reduced to Twentieth Century savages. Much of what he said is confirmed in the attached Yank article from 1945 that clearly illustrated the terror that was experienced by G.I.s and Marines on that island after the sun went down.

Assessing the U.S. Navy in W.W. II
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1945)

Some four months after VJ-Day U.S. Fleet Admiral Ernest King (1878 – 1956) gave a post-game summary of the Navy’s performance in his third and final report for the Department of War:

• Biggest factor in this victory was the perfection of amphibious landings

• Hardest Pacific battle: Okinawa invasion

• American subs sank at least 275 warships of all types

• Of the 323 Japanese warships lost, the U.S. Navy claimed 257 (figure disputed by Army Air Corps)

Read an article about the many faults of the
German Navy during the Second World War…

Marshal Pétain on Trial
(Commonweal, 1945)

An irate editorial concerning the 1945 trial of French General Henri Philippe Pétain (1856 – 1951).

Whoever is managing the current spectacle in Paris desires us to think that the Petain trial is a revolutionary trial. The thesis is that the whole French nation has risen against the politicians who did not prepare for the war, against the Marshal who signed the the armistice, collaborated with the Germans and betrayed France. And so that trial is not a search for truth, it is a public exposure of truth, it is a simple demonstration…Look at them: Daladier, Reynaud, Weygrand – how they fight each one against the other. Because it is not just Petain who is guilty. It is Petain’s trial. But it is also the trial of all the witnesses… Everyone is guilty.

Marshal Pétain on Trial
(Commonweal, 1945)

An irate editorial concerning the 1945 trial of French General Henri Philippe Pétain (1856 – 1951).

Ol’ Blood ‘N Guts Goes South
(Newsweek, 1945)

Here is the Newsweek obituary for the American W.W. II army commander General George S. Patton:

As spectacular in his tactics as in his speech, he used his armor as Jeb Stuart employed his cavalry… Time after time his divisions broke through and slashed forward in drives which made military history. After the victory, German generals said they had feared him more than any other American field commander.

Click here to read about Patton’s prayer for good weather during the Battle of the Bulge…

Click here to read about the Patton Tank in the Korean War…

The Beachmaster
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

One of the most familiar human sounds in any Central Pacific operation is a rasping, oath-throwing voice with a rich Scandinavian accent which booms out over the loudspeaker on the invasion beaches. The voice threatens, gives orders with no reservations, pleads and intimidates. It is the voice of a Navy captain, Carl E. (Squeaky) Anderson, the force, or senior, beachmaster – the man who unloads the ships and keeps the supplies (all 64,000 tons) rolling in.

Iwo Jima, he says, is the worst beach he’s ever had anything to do with.

Marshall’s Strategic Concept
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

An excerpt from General Marshall’s introductory essay to his 1945 Biennial Report for U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson concerning the progress and general status of the American Army through the period beginning on July 31, 1943 through June 30, 1945.

Click here if you would like to read an article about 1940s fabric rationing and the home front fashions.

Tokyo POWs Liberated
(PM Tabloid, 1945)

Click here to read more about W.W. II prisoners of war… What was this evening tabloid PM – click here

Above Nagasaki
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The destruction of Nagasaki looks nothing like the debris in Cassino or Leghorn. The strange thing here is the utter absence of rubble. You can see a couple of square miles of reddish-brown desolation with nothing left but the outlines of houses, a bit of wall here and half a chimney there. In this area you will see a road, and the road will be completely clean. It is too soon after the bombing for the Japs to have done any cleaning of the roads and you can’t see a single brick or pile of broken plaster or lumber on any street or sidewalk in town.

After Nagasaki, Japan surrendered – but there was a lapse of fifteen hours before the Japanese heard that their declaration had been accepted…

Occupation Begins
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

On Tuesday, August 28 (Tokyo time), the Japs got their first taste of the ignominy of surrender… The occupation forces were ordered to go ashore much as they regularly did in amphibious operations – with full combat equipment and battle dress, across beaches and onto docks. No chances were to be taken.

Occupied Berlin and the Summer of ’45
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

An eye-witness account of life in post-war Berlin: the rubble, the black-market, the politics, the night clubs, the newspapers, the natives and the four occupying armies.sumo men. These sumo wrestlers weigh about 300 pounds and are very agile…

You might also like to read articles about post-war Japan.

Milton Caniff: 1940s American Cartoonist

Attached is a profile of Milton Caniff (1907 – 1988), who is remembered as the creator of Terry and the Pirates (1934 – 1946), Mail Call (1942 – 1946) and Steve Canyon (1946 – 1988).

Click here to read an article by G.I. cartoonist Bill Maulden.

Understanding the Veterans
(Pageant Magazine, 1945)

Appearing in various magazines and newspapers on the 1945 home front were articles and interviews with assorted experts who predicted that the demobilized military men would be a burden on society. They cautioned families to be ready for these crushed and broken men, who had seen so much violence and had inflicted the same upon others, would be maladjusted and likely to drift into crime. In response to this blarney stepped Frances Langford (1913 – 2005), the American singer. She wrote in the attached article that she had come to know thousands of soldiers, sailors airmen and Marines during the course of her tours with the USO and that the nation could only benefit from their return.

The African-Americans Fighting in France and Italy
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Here are two Yank Magazine articles from the same issue that report on the all-black combat units that fought the Germans on two fronts in Europe: one organization fought with the Seventh Army in France and Germany, the other fought with the Fifth Army through Italy:

Hitler would have a hemorrhage if he could see the white boys of the 411th Infantry bull-sessioning, going out on mixed patrols, sleeping in the same bombed buildings, sweating out the same chow lines with the Negro GIs.

Click here to read about the African-American efforts during the First World War.

Jackie Robinson: In the Beginning
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

This column concerns Jackie Robinson’s non-professional days in sports; his football seasons at Pasadena Junior College, basketball at UCLA and the Kansas City Monarchs. Being an Army publication, the reporter touched upon Robinson’s brief period as a junior officer in the 761st Tank Battalion.

A 1951 article about the Negro Baseball League can be read here

In 1969, Jackie Robinson wrote about African-American racists, click here to read it…

Click here to read a 1954 article about Willie Mays.