Attached is a two page article concerning the basic lot of the World War Two Australian soldier: his pay, his kit, his battles and the general reputation of the Australian Imperial Forces (A.I.F.):
"...the Australian Imperial Forces who have - and are seeing action all over the world...has fought in every theater in which British forces have been engaged...They have especially distinguished themselves at El Alamein in the North African campaign and in the Papuan and New Guinea campaigns."
Four years after the Pearl Harbor attack, a Japanese newspaper editorial expressed deep regret for Japan's aggressiveness in the Second World War, click here to read about it...
This illustrated article from an obscure U.S. Army weekly states quite clearly that in light of the successful use of cavalry on the Eastern Front, the U.S. Army was once again training men to fight on horse-back. Referring to the writings of a Soviet General named O.T. Gorodoviko (a probable reference to General O.T. Gorodovikov: 1879 -1960) who had stated in an article written in an undated issue of The Cavalry Journal, that cavalry proved effective in fighting the Nazis when deployed as mounted infantry in limited engagements. The journalist conveyed his enthusiasm that the era of the mounted man was back. A printable list of figures regarding U.S. Army and Navy strength as tabulated for the year 1944: "The latest figures, released last week, show that the total strength of the armed forces now comes to about 11,417,000. The House Military Affairs Committee, to which Selective Service gave this information, released it to the public without comment, but several committee members were reported to have said privately that it confirmed their suspicions that some 2,000,000 more men have been inducted than necessary."
Click here to read another article about U.S. casualties up to the year 1944.
Some have said that America's first introduction to Latin culture came with "Ricky Ricardo"; others say Carmen Miranda, Xavier Cugat, Charo or Chico and the Man. The dilettantes at OldMagazineArticles.com are not qualified to answer such deep questions, but we do know that for a bunch of unfortunate Nazis and their far-flung Japanese allies, their first brush with "la vida loco Latino" came in the form of Private Anibal Irizarry, Colonel Pedro del Valle and Lieutenant Manuel Vicente: three stout-hearted Puerto Ricans who distinguished themselves in combat and lived to tell about it.
In 1917 the U.S. Congress granted American citizenship rights to the citizens of Puerto Rico - but they didn't move to New York until the Fifties. Click here to read about that...
Click here to read an article about Latinas in the WAACs. Writing about the bitter fighting on Okinawa some years after the war, Marine veteran Eugene Sledge remarked that he and his comrades had been reduced to "Twentieth Century savages". Much of what he said is confirmed in the attached Yank article from 1945 that clearly illustrated the terror that was experienced by G.I.s and Marines on that island after the sun went down. A light and breezy review concerning the findings of a U.S. government study regarding the effectiveness of the Allied strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany: "...the survey authorities report that although air power might have been more advantageously applied in this case or that, its decisive bearing on the victory was undeniable...At sea, its contribution, combined with naval air power, brought an end to the enemy's greatest naval threat -the U-boat; on land, it helped turn the tide overwhelmingly in favor of allied ground forces."
Articles about the daily hardships in post-war Germany can be read by clicking here.
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