The Planned Invasion of Japan (Yank Magazine, 1945)
Published four months after the World War II Japanese surrender, the YANK MAGAZINE editors saw fit to publish the happily obsolete plans for the invasion of Japan: operations CORONET and OLYMPIC.
1945
Articles from 1945
War Stories from the Pacific (Yank Magazine, 1945)
The attached article is comprised of numerous war stories from the GIs of the 96th Infantry Division who were assigned the pleasant chore of slugging it out with the Japanese in the Leyte Valley of the Philippines.
Planing the Occupation (Pathfinder Magazine, 1945)
Some seven months before Japan quit the war, the anointed heads of the Institute of Pacific Relations convened in Hot Springs, Virginia to discuss what the Allied Occupation of Japan would look like.
Click here to read about August 28, 1945 – the day the occupation began.
The Trial of Hideko Tojo (Pathfinder Magazine, 1945)
Standing before the judges who made up the 11-nation war crimes tribunal in occupied Tokyo, General Hideko Tojo, among 19 other Japanese wartime leaders, put on the show of his life:
Without hesitation, Tojo accepted full blame for plunging Japan into war. But it was, he insisted, a ‘defensive’ war, and ‘in no manner a violation of international law..’
Testimony (Collier’s Magazine, 1945)
I have visited these [death] camps and I have seen the prisoners and the conditions under which they existed or died. It would be hard, with a mere camera, to overstate the essential horrors of these camps… It is not a pretty site to see – as I did… I fancy that no other generation was ever required to witness horror in this particular shape…
German Paratroops (U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)
Attached is the U.S. War Department study regarding the tactical uses of German airborne forces throughout the course of the Second World War; from the Battle of Crete to the Battle of the Bulge:
In Russia, the Balkans, and the December 1944 counteroffensive in the Ardennes, units varying in strength from a platoon to a battalion have been landed behind enemy lines to disrupt communications, to seize such key points as railroads, roadheads, bridges and power stations.
‘The Most Married Man in America” (Yank Magazine, 1945)
As a result of the generous proxy-marriage laws allowed by the citizens of Kansas City, Kansas, many young women, feeling the urge to marry their beaus residing so far afield as a result of the Second World War, would board buses and trains and head to that far-distant burg with one name on their lips: Finnegan. This is the story of Mr. Thomas H. Finnegan, a successful lawyer back in the day who saw fit to do his patriotic duty by standing-in for all those G.I.s who were unable to attend their own weddings.
The Americans Who First Crossed the Rhine (Yank Magazine, 1945)
The attached article tells the story of the first Americans to cross the Rhine river into Germany following the capture of the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen, Germany.
One of the most striking incidents of the first day’s action on the bridge was the way German snipers opened up on their own men who had been taken prisoners. As each batch of PWs was lead across the bridge, a storm of sniper fire from the surrounding hills swept its ranks. Several were killed.
Pictured on page two is a photograph of the first American to make it across: Sgt. Alexander A. Drabik (1910 – 1993) of the 27th Armored Infantry Division.
Click here to read about a popular all-girl band that performed with the USO.
1945 Victory Strategies for the Pacific Theater (Yank Magazine, 1945)
At the time this article went to press the Nazis and their European allies had been defeated and all eyes turned to the Pacific Theater as to when that enemy would also be forced to quit.
Click here to read about a popular all-girl band that performed with the USO.
A Salute to D.W. Griffith (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1945)
To mark the 67th birthday of the silent film director D.W. Griffith, the editors of a once illustrious Hollywood literary magazine pasted his famous profile on their magazine cover and devoted four columns to his achievements.