1945

Articles from 1945

A Profile of George Lansbury
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1945)

The attached article is disguised as a Hollywood fluff piece about actress Angela Lansbury (b. 1925), who at that time was about to earn her first and only Academy Award, but journalist Peter Churchill devoted the majority of column space to the life and career of her socialist grandfather George Lansbury (1859 – 1940), one time Member of Parliament and star of the British Labor Party:

Old George was born, bred, lived and died among the poor of London, and never had any money, and yes, that goes for the time he was a member of His Britanic Majesty’s Cabinet, too. But the folks down at the less desirable parts (we don’t talk of slums) of the Bow and Bromley district of London where he lived could tell you what a difference it made to have a Cabinet Minister for a neighbor.


Click here to read George Lansbury’s account of time he met Lenin…


You Might Also Want to Read an Article About Lady Nancy Astor, M.P.


Click here to read about an American woman who grew heartily sick of the socialists who loitered on every street corner during the Great Depression…

VJ Day in New Orleans
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

In a city prone to revelry, New Orleans had prematurely celebrated the end of World War Two on three previous occasions; not willing to go down that path a fourth time, the residents were in a state of disbelief when the news of the Japanese surrender began to circulate all over again. However, when it was understood that this time the rumor proved true everyone seemed grateful for the rehearsal time.

Iva Toguri of California
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Throughout the course of the war in the Pacific, there were as many as twelve Japanese female radio commentators broadcasting assorted varieties of demoralizing radio programming to the American and Allied forces from Japan. However the Americans knew nothing of this collective and simply assumed that all the broadcasts were hosted by one woman, who they dubbed, Tokyo Rose.


The story told in this article begins in the late summer of 1945 when:

…one of the supreme objectives of American correspondents landing in Japan was Radio Tokyo. There they hoped to find someone to pass off as the one-and-only Rose and scoop their colleagues. When the information had been sifted a little, a girl named Iva Toguri (Iva Toguri D’Aquino: 1916 – 2006), emerged as the only candidate who came close to filling the bill. For three years she had played records, interspersed with snappy comments, beamed to Allied soldiers on the Zero Hour…Her own name for herself was Orphan Ann.

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A Word on the American M-1 Garand Rifle
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Kind words regarding the M-1 Garand rifle were written in a 1945 report by the Department of the Army; it was widely believed in those circles that this American weapon was one of the primary advantages that lead to victory.

Click here to read about the mobile pill boxes of the Nazi army.

Dogs Used in the Rescue of Downed Pilots
(Collier’s, 1945)

The use of animals in war is as old as war itself; but the concept of kicking dogs out of perfectly good aircraft so they might be able to parachute onto snowy hilltops and deliver aid to wounded combatants dates to World War II. This printable Collier’s Magazine article tells the story of the Parapups:

Completely G.I., the dogs have service records, serial numbers, enlistment papers and shots against disease. Sentimentalists along the Alaska Division even proposed that they be authorized to wear Parawings after five jumps.

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Wool of the 1940s
(Click Magazine, 1945)

The attached 1945 article was intended to serve as a suit-buying-guide for all those young men who were in the throes of trading in their military uniforms for civilian attire.


The one kind of wool that is not discussed in this article is worsted: this was the wool that was specifically reserved for the uniforms of the U.S. military (enough to outfit 12 million souls) and there wasn’t a single thread of it that could be purchased on the civilian market.

Inadequacies in Combat Training
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Training for combat, according to veterans in Italy, should be a hell of a lot more realistic and a hell of a lot more thorough.

‘They oughta learn them guys’ is that favorite beef you hear from combat veterans when they talk about replacements who have just joined their outfits…the average replacement doesn’t know enough about the weapons an infantryman uses. ‘He usually knows enough about one or two weapons…but he should know them all. He may know how to use and take care of the M1 or carbine, but if you need a BARman or machine-gunner quick, you’re up a creek.’


Statistical data concerning the U.S. Army casualties in June and July of 1944 can be read in this article.

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P.O.W. Camp for the S.S. Women
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Among the many dubious legacies of the Second World War is a growing cult of males who have tended to feel that the German women of the SS are worthy of their attention (Kate Winslet’s appearance in the 2008 movie, The Reader didn’t help). This article (and the accompanying photographs) make it quite clear that no one would have found these men more pathetic than the G.I. guards of Prisoner of War Enclosure 334, who were charged with the task of lording over these Teutonic gorgons and who, to the man, found these women to be wildly unattractive.

The girls who served in Adolf’s army are a sorry, slovenly looking lot. In a P.O.W. camp near Florence they spill their gripes to G.I guards.

Click here to read about a member of Hitler’s SS in captivity.

VJ-Day in Washington, D.C.
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

When World War Two finally reached it’s end, the small, quiet and usually well-behaved city of Washington, D.C. gave a big sigh of relief, forgot about Robert’s Rules of Order for the day and shrieked with joy:


One officer, standing in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House, waved a fifth of Rye at arms length, repeatedly inviting passers-by to have a drink on the European Theater of Operations.


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

Wounded POWs Liberated in Germany
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

A printable account from a YANK correspondent assigned to General Patton’s Third Army as it swept through Germany and liberated the wounded Air Corps personnel who had been kept at a German military hospital during their recuperation.

Statistical data concerning the U.S. Army casualties in June and July of 1944 can be read in this article.

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The Surrender of a Gestapo General
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Within the moldy, dank confines an abandoned brewery located within the walls of Metz, a troupe of exhausted GIs stumbled upon a German general who was earnestly hoping to avoid capture.

He turned out to be Major General Anton Dunckern, police president of Metz and Gestapo commander for Alsace-Lorraine. He’s the first big Gestapo man we’ve taken; he ranks close to Himmler and is one of the prize catches of the war.

The Surrender of a Gestapo General
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Within the moldy, dank confines an abandoned brewery located within the walls of Metz, a troupe of exhausted GIs stumbled upon a German general who was earnestly hoping to avoid capture.

He turned out to be Major General Anton Dunckern, police president of Metz and Gestapo commander for Alsace-Lorraine. He’s the first big Gestapo man we’ve taken; he ranks close to Himmler and is one of the prize catches of the war.

Home Front Culture and Men Without Uniforms
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

…you think it’s easy for a guy my age not to be in the Army? You think I’m having a good time? Every place I go people spit on me…


So spake one of the 4-F men interviewed for this magazine article when asked what it was like to be a twenty-year-old excused from military service during World War Two. This article makes clear the resentment experienced at the deepest levels by all other manner of men forced to soldier-on in uniform; and so Yank had one of their writers stand on a street corner to ask the slackers what it was like to wear civies during wartime.


Read about the 4-F guy who creamed three obnoxious GIs.
Click here to read an article about a World War Two draft board.

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