Articles from 1951
Not too long after the end of World War II, the French, British and Americans found that they had to assemble a coalition of nations (NATO) that would be willing to fight the Soviets for what was believed to be an even bigger rumble in the future – but after losing two enormous wars, West Germany refused to join.
This article is about Nancy Chaffee (1929 – 2002), another California-born tennis champion of the post-war era. Chaffee had once been ranked as the fourth-place women’s tennis champ in all the world, winning three consecutive national indoor championships (1950-1952). She first came to view in 1947 playing alongside the men on the U.S.C. tennis team (there was no women’s team at the time). The year before this article appeared on the newsstands, Chaffee made the semi-finals at Forrest Hills, her record at Wimbledon can be read here
The ink-stained editors at QUICK MAGAZINE rarely ever concerned themselves with the Bohemian-happenings of the New York art world, but when the abstract expressionist painter Robert Motherwell (1915 – 1991) strayed from the standard-issue art supply tools and used a reflective fabric called Scotchlite in the creation of a 12 foot, three-paneled mural – the editors thought it was news.
Lt. Colonel Frementle (1835 – 1901), a member of the Coldstream Guards, was a guest of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Gettysburg campaign. After the Battle of Gettysburg, he returned to England and published Three months in the Southern States
The position into which the enemy had been driven was evidently a strong one. His right appeared to rest on a cemetery, on the top of a high ridge to the right of Gettysburg, as we looked at it.
General Hill now came up and told me he had been very unwell all day, and in fact he looks very delicate. He said he had had two of his divisions engaged, and had driven the enemy four miles into his present position, capturing a great many prisoners, some cannon, and some colors; he said, however, that the Yankees had fought with a determination unusual to them.
Attacking across a 125 mile front, the Chinese Army launched their spring offensive on May 17, 1951; unable to make any advances, they retired two weeks later, leaving behind some 80,000 dead.
The Communist hit first on the east central front. A quick rout of two ROK divisions caught the U.S. 2nd Division, commanded by Major General Clark Ruffner, in a dangerous pocket with their east flank exposed…One officer called the Red onslaught ‘an astounding demonstration. They wade right through macine gun or artillery fire. The bodies pile up and they walk right over the bodies and the pile of bodies gets higher.’
Eight months into the Korean War came this editorial from an American news magazine pointing out that the burden of defending South Korea was not being evenly shared by the other member states of the United Nations and that the U.S. was over-represented on the battlefields:
When the Korean Communists invaded South Korea last June, the U.N. was quick to authorize the use of armed force to combat the aggression, but not so quick when it came to contributing troops. [As of February, 1951] U.N. forces in Korea total about 275,000. Of this number 150,000 are American and 100,000 are South Koreans. This leaves less than 25,000 from 11 of the other U.N. members – a pitifully small contribution… What is there definition of ‘collective security’? Have they so soon forgotten Munich? Have they forgotten that collective firmness by the Allies, when Germany invaded the Rhineland, might have prevented World War II?
