1947

Articles from 1947

1946: The Camps Close
(Collier’s Year Book, 1947)

“On June 30, 1946 the central office of the War Relocation Authority [an arm of the Department of the Interior] closed on schedule with substantial completion of its war-time task of providing ‘relocation, maintenance, and supervision’ of the 120,313 persons of Japanese ancestry who were in its custody as a result of the War Department’s evacuation in 1942 of the West Coast. Of this number, 5,981 were born in the ten relocation centers maintained by the Authority.”

The Truman Doctrine
(See Magazine, 1947)

“The Truman Doctrine is the only road to lasting peace. Twice within 30 years the stubbornly-observed practice of ‘minding our business’ has brought war.”

The Further Education of Harry Truman
(Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

President Harry Truman (1884 – 1972) Came to the presidency following the death of FDR on April 12, 1945. He said of the post, “I wasn’t briefed for the job, I had to learn it from the ground up”; by 1947, he was no longer “Roosevelt’s stand-in, reading from a New Deal script” – he was his own man and this was becoming clearer and clearer to his critics in Washington. This article, by Frank Gervasi (1908 – 1990), covers Truman’s earliest years in the White House, and his handling of some of the hotest potatoes that landed in his lap.


What was the Truman Doctrine?

FDR, Congress and the Plan to Pack the Supreme Court
(Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

Attached is an article by James A. Farley (1888 – 1976), who in 1933 was appointed by F.D.R. to serve as both the Postmaster General as well as the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. During the Thirties, Farley was also FDR’s go-to-guy in all matters involving politics on Capitol Hill, and he wrote the attached article two years after Roosevelt’s death in order to explain how the Court-packing scheme was received in Congress and how his relationship with FDR soon soured.

Boss, I asked him, why didn’t you advise the senators in advance that you were sending them the Court bill?
Jim, I just couldn’t, he answered earnestly. I didn’t want to have it get to the press prematurely…

The U.S. Navy’s War: Tarawa to Tokyo
(Dept. of the Navy, 1947)

Attached is a 1947 report by the U.S. Navy summing up the remarkable roll that naval aviation played during the last half of the war with Imperial Japan:

In the advance across the Central Pacific the carrier task force with it’s extreme flexibility and mobility had been the dominant factor. It established the conditions under which long-range amphibious advances were possible. It never failed to gain command of the air at the required time and place, successively overwhelming the air garrisons not only of the Japanese perimeter but of the major fortresses of Formosa and the Philippines, and maintained command of the air until shore-based air forces could be established.


To read articles about W.W. II submarines, Click here.

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