Collier’s Magazine – Page 10 – Old Magazine Articles

The Siege Of Leningrad
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

Reporting by radio from the city of Moscow, the celebrated Russian poet Vera Inber (1890 – 1972) gave an account of the difficult life lived by the civilians of Leningrad when the Nazi war machine laid siege to that city between September 8, 1941 through January 27, 1944:

I will never forget the winter of 1941 – 42, when the bread ration was 4.4 ounces daily – and nothing else but bread was issued. In those days, we would bury our dead in long ditches – common graves. To bury your dead in separate graves, you needed fourteen ounces of bread for the gravedigger and your own shovel. Otherwise, you would have to wait your turn for days and days. Children’s sleighs served as hearses to the cemetery.

1940’s Sportswear for Men
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

Halfway through 1944 American magazines began their individual count-downs until the war’s end; running with articles about the post-war world, the end of rationing, the demobilized military and the guaranteed boom that would come in the menswear industry. The attached fashion editorial appeared early in 1945 promotes the versatility of gabardine wool, it’s earliest appearance in the Middle ages, it’s use in uniforms and it’s newest application in sportswear.

The article is illustrated with five terrific color photographs.

The Stewardship of General MacArthur
(Collier’s Magazine, 1948)

The attached article is about the governance of
General Douglas MacArthur (1880 – 1964) over conquered Japan following the close of World War II and was written half way through the American occupation period by the well-respected American journalist George Creel (1876 – 1953). The article clarifies what regime change meant for post-war Japan and the roll that MacArthur’s creed and character played in the process.

Click here to read about the 1918 portrait of General MacArthur painted by Joseph Cummings Chase.

The P-47N
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

A printable one page article that expounds on the evolution of the P-47 Thunderbolt through varying stages of development into the fuel-efficient juggernaut called the P-47N. Remembered in the World War II annals as the dependable escort of the B-29 Super fortresses that bedeviled the axis capitals during the closing months of the war.

No sacrifice was made in ammunition, guns or protective armor to provide the P-47N with this long range. It still carries eight 50.-caliber guns, four in each wing. It also can carry 10 five-inch rockets which pack the destructive power of five-inch artillery or naval shells.

The Grumman Hellcat
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

An enthusiastic piece that informed the folks on the home front that the days of the Japanese Zero were numbered:

Hellcat, daughter of battle, answers all the prayers of Navy pilots. She’s a low-winged Navy fighter; F6F, the Navy’s newest and the world’s best…F6F is a ship that can fight the Jap Zero on the Zero’s own terms, a plane that can stand up and slug, that can bore in with those terrible body blows.

Joe Rosenthal on Iwo Jima
(Collier’s Magazine, 1955)

Associated Press combat photographer Joe Rosenthal (1911 – 2006) wrote the attached article ten years after snapping the world famous image of the four U.S. Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the battle of Iwo Jima. In five pages, he explains the remarkable impact that the photo had on the American psyche as well as the popular culture on the American home front, both during the war and afterward. Rosenthal was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for capturing on film one of the greatest events of W.W. II and briefly explains that the three surviving men who participated in the event were thrust into fame for years afterward.

•Read our article about the treason of Ezra Pound.•

FDR on His Efforts to Pack the Court
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

In writing the attached article for Collier’s, FDR made his feelings clear that he felt a deep sense of urgency to alleviate the collective pain spreading across the nation as a result of the Great Depression. Believing that it was the Supreme Court that was prolonging the agony of the American unemployed, FDR quickly began to examine all his options as to how he could best secure a majority on the court:

Here was one man, not elected by the people, who by a nod of the head could apparently ify or uphold the will of the overwhelming majority of a nation of 130,000,000.

Time would not allow us to wait for vacancies. Things were happening.

Click here to read about American
communists and their Soviet overlords.

Life in W.W. II Germany
(Collier’s, 1943)

This Collier’s article clearly illustrated the gloom that hung over the German home front of 1943:

Nobody escapes war service in Germany. Children serve in air-raid squads; women work very hard…The black market flourishes everywhere. More fats are required, as are fruits and vegetables, for the people’s strength is declining. A report I have seen of Health Minister Conti shows that the mortality rate for some diseases rose 49 percent in 1941 – 1942.

Click here to read about the dating history of Adolf Hitler.

The Training of Tank Crews
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

For the Americans, World War II was just four months old when these three color pictures appeared depicting the most up to date (and economical) methods used in the training of Stuart Tank gunners.

Skiiers Discover Aspen
(Collier’s Magazine, 1948)

A late Forties travel article that simultaneously announced the end of Aspen, Colorado, as a ghost town and the beginning of it’s reign as a ski resort of the first order.

Aspen is a tiny Colorado village tucked away in one corner of a lush green valley ringed by snow-capped peaks rising to altitudes of more than 14,000 feet…

The Hobo News
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

The Hobo News printed poems, cartoons, pin-ups, essays and news items that were useful to that unique class of men who rode the rails and frequent flop-houses. It was established in New York City by Pat The Roaming Dreamer Mulkern (1903 – 1948); the paper was run by hobos, for hobos and printed proudly across the awnings of their assorted offices were the words a little cheer to match the sorrow. Mulkern recognized that no self-respecting litigator would ever stoop to sue a newspaper with such a pathetic name, and so the paper was voluntarily in constant violation of U.S. copyright law by habitually printing the articles they most admired that had earlier appeared in Collier’s, The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post.

Heinrich Himmler
(Collier’s Magazine, 1938)

A 1938 article covering the ascent of Reichfurhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900 – 1945):

Himmler has dossiers on every man of substance in Germany. Nazi party functionary, business leader, churchman, diplomat, army officer or statesman; all are nicely indexed for the day when their case histories might be needed in a hurry. Because in Germany, everyone is suspect. Some Nazis will even tell you that Himmler has a dossier on himself.

Click here to read an eyewitness account of the suicide of Himmler.

Click here to read about the dating history of Adolf Hitler.

Baldur von Schirach
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

A Glossary of WAC Slang
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

Like other Army and Navy personnel, the members of the Women’s Army Corps have coined their own slanguage. If you hear a WAC say:

I’m off on an orchid hunt, kids – and no PFC. My night maneuvers are gonna be with a varsity crewman.

-you’ll know what she means after you’ve studied this [attached] glossary.

Eleanor Roosevelt on Japanese-American Internment
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

In this article, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 – 1962) attempted to play (very politically) both sides of the street, implying on the one hand that the creation of the Japanese-American internment camps seemed a reasonable measure in wartime; but the reader doesn’t have to have a degree in psychology to recognize that she believed otherwise.

Woodrow Wilson on Lincoln
(Collier’s Magazine, 1916)

Here is a paragraph that was pulled from an interview with President Wilson in 1916 in which the bookish president remarked upon the various interesting aspects of President Lincoln:

He was not fit to be president until he was president.

Did President Lincoln Really Need the Beard?
(Collier’s Magazine, 1948)

When an eleven year-old girl advised Abraham Lincoln to grow some whiskers, the great man humbly took her suggestion to heart:

I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.

The rest is history.

Click here to read an 1862 review about the Civil War photographs of Mathew Brady.

S/Sgt. Henry E. Erwin Off the Coast of Japan
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

War correspondents see and hear about many courageous acts that serve as a testimony to the level of personal commitment held high by many (but not all) of the American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who served in the Second World War, and when I read the opening paragraphs about this hero, I knew it was going to be unique:

His name is Staff Sergeant Henry E. Erwin of Bessemer, Alabama. He was the radio operator on a B-29, and what he did, we think, was the bravest thing we ever heard of.