1945

Articles from 1945

First Election Planned for Post-Fascist Japan
(Philadelphia Record, 1945)

“The Japanese Cabinet decided yesterday a general election will be held January 20 to 31 [1946], and the Tokyo newspaper Yomuri Hochi urged ‘spontaneous and vigorous action’ toward forming a democratic government.”

Wanting the Japanese Cabinet to know who was in charge, General MacArthur moved the date up to December seventeenth [1945]. It was the first time Japanese women had ever voted.

Discovering the Deathworks
(PM Tabloid, 1945)

“American troops in Germany last week hit the Nazi death camp belt, an area that revealed such horrors – the bodies of thousands of Allied prisoners shot, starved, beaten and burned to death – that even the cynics of the civilized world now could not fail to be convinced of the truth of German atrocities.”

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Returning Nisei Targeted by Racists
(PM Tabloid, 1945)

“It is reported by WRA (War Relocation Authority) that between January 2 and April 22, there have been 16 shooting incidents in California. Nobody was hit. It is clearly terroristic activity aimed at frightening Nisei who have the temerity to come home and try to earn a living from their farms again”.





Dance at Tule Lake.

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The American Leviathan
(Liberty Magazine, 1945)

Between the years 1941 and 1945 the United States achieved a level of power that the tyrants of yore only dreamed about:


“Clearly here was a phenomenon to make anyone sit up and take notice – a new kind of military machine, a new kind of global power that apparently could be delivered anywhere in the world, at any time… By building 75,000 to 100,000 planes yearly and by improving planes and motors, we have emerged suddenly as an air power…No other nation has made a comparable investment in carrier aviation. No other nation would dare to put an expeditionary force to sea against a nation strong in carriers and land -based aircraft…With the object of defending ourselves, we have solved one problem after another until we have stumbled on a formula for conquering most of the world.”


A similar article appeared twenty years earlier…

One Journalist’s Encounter with General Patton
(PM Tabloid, 1945)

We have no idea who Tom O’Reilly was – beyond what can be immediately conjectured, that he was a staff columnist with PM, and so admired that they thought it a grand idea to clean him up and send him off to see Nazi Germany in its death throes. O’Reilly had a very candid, off-the-cuff manner of writing, which came across as quite humorous when he explains how unimpressed he was with General Patton’s dramatic appearance.

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Goering Captured
(PM Tabloid, 1945)

“Reich Marshall Hermann Goering, No. 2 Nazi, wanted by civilization as directly responsible for the torture and death of millions innocent men, women and children, is well and not unhappy…Goering seemed delighted with his captivity and appeared unaware that he may be tried as a major war criminal.”

The Second Strongest in the West
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

When Brazil joined forces with the Allies in 1942, they were soon lavished with numerous ships, submarines and armaments that would aid them in their struggle against global Fascism. By the time 1945 rolled around, it became clear to anyone in the region that Brazil had become the second mightiest nation in the hemisphere.

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Violence Directed at Veterans
(PM Tabloid, 1945)

The White Crackers residing in California cared little about the triumphs of the 442: during the Spring of 1945, two honorably discharged Japanese Americans were fired upon by passing cars – the racists were never caught. Secretary of War Henry Stimson labeled the attacks as “an inexcusable and dastardly outrage.”

American Leviathan

“It is the purpose of this article to show how in three years we have broken the shackles of all

They Gave Their All for the Troops
(Liberty Magazine, 1945)

This is one of the more enjoyable reads on the site. Published during the Summer of 1945, with the war in Europe over and the Japanese capitulation only six weeks away, the Liberty editors saw fit to run an article that recalled the absolute devotion that so many USO performers displayed again and again in order to guarantee that American military personnel abroad was fully entertained and amused – no matter their proximity to the enemy.

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They Gave Their All for the Troops
(Liberty Magazine, 1945)

This is one of the more enjoyable reads on the site. Published during the Summer of 1945, with the war in Europe over and the Japanese capitulation only six weeks away, the Liberty editors saw fit to run an article that recalled the absolute devotion that so many USO performers displayed again and again in order to guarantee that American military personnel abroad was fully entertained and amused – no matter their proximity to the enemy.

Eating Crow
(PM, & Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

Four years after Pearl Harbor, the editors of the Japanese newspaper Asahi gazed out of the windows from their offices and saw the charred remains of their enemy-occupied homeland and recognized that they’d made a fatal mistake:

We once more refresh our horror at the colossal crime committed and are filled with a solemn sense of reflection and self-reproach…

Eating Crow
(PM, & Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

Four years after Pearl Harbor, the editors of the Japanese newspaper Asahi gazed out of the windows from their offices and saw the charred remains of their enemy-occupied homeland and recognized that they’d made a fatal mistake:

We once more refresh our horror at the colossal crime committed and are filled with a solemn sense of reflection and self-reproach…

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