Author name: editor

VJ-Day in San Francisco | Market Street Party on VJ-Day 1945
1945, Recent Articles, VJ Day, Yank Magazine

VJ Day in San Francisco
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

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Some of the highlights: Firecrackers, hoarded in Chinatown for eight years, rattled like machine guns… Servicemen and civilians played tug-of-war with fire hoses… Market Street, the wide bar-lined thoroughfare that has long been the center of interest for visiting GIs and sailors, was littered with the wreckage of smashed War Bond booths … A plump redhead danced naked on the base of the city’s Native Sons monument after servicemen had torn her clothes off. A sailor lent the woman a coat, and the pair disappeared.

Hotel des Reservoirs 1919 | German Delegation Versailles Treaty Conference 1919
1919, Popular Mechanics Magazine, Recent Articles, Versailles Treaty

Keeping German Diplomats Safe in Paris
(Popular Mechanics, 1919)

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In light of the overwhelming hostility toward Germans, whether they come to Paris to sign a peace treaty or for other reasons, the Parisian Gendarmes thought it best to enclose their hotel with palisade-style fencing, which they hoped would serve the dual purpose of keeping them in as much as it would serve to keep hostile natives out.
A photo of the barricade illustrates the article.

1943 Stage Door Canteen Movie Review | WW II Hollywood Movie Review
1943, Charm Magazine, Hollywood, Recent Articles

United Artists Makes ”Stage Door Canteen”
(Charm, 1943)

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During the Second World War there were two prominent canteens where the Allied soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines could go to see and be seen with the glamorous actor types of their day: the Hollywood Canteen in Los Angeles and the Stage Door Canteen in New York City. It was in these two locales that the stars of both stage and screen could be found both waiting and busing tables, preparing food and cracking wise with the volunteers and draftees of the Allied Armies. We needn’t tell you which of these two establishments Hollywood decided to celebrate on celluloid, but you should know that the film was extremely popular- attached is the review as it appeared in fashion magazine of the time.

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Home Front

New York City Home Front
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

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This is a three page article concerning the city of New York from Yank’s on-going series, Home Towns in Wartime. The Yank correspondent, Sanderson Vanderbilt, characterized Gotham as being overcrowded (in 1945 the population was believed to be 1,902,000; as opposed to the number today: 8,143,197) and I’m sure we can all assume that today’s New Yorkers tend to feel that their fore-bearers did not know the meaning of the word.

New York was the home base of Yank Magazine and this article presents a young man’s view of that town and the differences that he can recall when he remembers it’s pre-war glory (Sanderson tended to feel that the city looked a bit down-at-the-heel).

Click here if you would like to read an article about the celebrations in New York the day World War Two ended.

J. Edgar Hoover on the CPUSA (Coronet Magazine, 1950)
1950, Coronet Magazine, Recent Articles, The Cold War

J. Edgar Hoover on the CPUSA
(Coronet Magazine, 1950)

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This Cold War article about the American Communist Party (CPUSA), penned in 1950 by F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover (1895 – 1972) was published for two reasons:


• To alert the readers that such subversive groups exist and that they are operated by their fellow Americans who take orders from Joseph Stalin –


• and that the F.B.I. is on the job and has thoroughly infiltrated their ranks and watches them very closely.


The column is a good read for all of you out there who enjoy the cloak and dagger type of plot lines; I was surprised to learn that this group had so many secrets to hide – seeing that their problems in the arena of public relations at that time were so overwhelming, one has to wonder how they were actually able to tend to their assignments in espionage, sabotage, propaganda and all other assorted shenanigans Moscow expected of them.


Click here to read about the man who spied on the the American Communist Party.


Click here if you would like to read what the CPUSA was up to during the Great Depression.


In time, J. Edgar Hoover’s prestige began to fade…

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Japan Has Been Beaten. Now What? (United States News, 1945)
1945, Post-War Japan, Recent Articles, The United States News

Japan Has Been Beaten. Now What?
(United States News, 1945)

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The big question for the United States is how long American troops are to occupy Japan. The Potsdam Declaration says that the occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as the objectives outlined are accomplished and ‘there has been established in accordance with the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.’

U.S. officials appear to be thinking in terms of an occupation of only 5 or 10 years. Japanese officials, however, in looking ahead to a resurgence of Japanese power, appear to be thinking in terms of 50 to 100 years.


Read about the German POWs who were schooled in virtues of democracy.

The War Record of the 93rd Division (The Stars and Stripes, 1919)
1919, African-Americans, Recent Articles, The Stars and Stripes

The War Record of the 93rd Division
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

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A post-Armistice Day feature article that reported on the war-time activities of the four infantry regiments that made up the U.S. Ninety-Third Division (the 369th, 370th, 371st and the 372nd).


Two of these regiments were awarded the coveted Croix de Guerre. Accompanying this history is a black and white illustration of the Division’s insignia.

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Home Front Ditties (Yank Magazine, 1945)
1945, Home Front, Recent Articles, Yank Magazine

Home Front Ditties
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

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Attached is a 1945 article written for the many homesick GIs who wondered what musical treats they were missing in their absence. All the great performers are cataloged as well as a list of many of the most popular home front hits from the top forty.

Popular music back home hasn’t changed much. The same familiar bands play the new hit tunes.

Would you like to read a 1941 article about Boogie-Woogie?

Paris Fashion: Summer, 1916 (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)
1916, Fashion, Recent Articles, Vanity Fair Magazine

Paris Fashion: Summer, 1916
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

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Paying no mind to the continuing unpleasantness that was taking place somewhere around the Somme (ie. W.W. I), the taste-makers of Paris soldiered-on and created garments for mid-summer that were original and feminine and bore the mark of Paris’ characteristic opulence.


Legendary fashion designer Christian Dior had a good deal of trouble with people who would illegally copy his designs; click here to read about that part of fashion history.

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Signal Corps Movie Men of W.W. I (The Stars and Stripes, 1918)
1918, Stars and Stripes Archive, The Stars and Stripes

Signal Corps Movie Men of W.W. I
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

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Appearing in The Stars and Stripes in mid-February of 1918 was this column about one of the newest disciplines to be introduced to the photographic section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps: the motion picture branch.

There is one movie-officer at present assigned to every division in the A.E.F.; one might call him the camera battery, if one wanted to get really military about it. Under him is a squad of expert photographers, some movie men, some ‘still’ snappers.

From the time when the sun finally decides that he might as well hobble up in the sky and do part of a day’s work, which isn’t often in this region, until the time that the aged, decrepit old solar luminary decides again, about the middle of the afternoon, that he’s done all he’s going to do while the calender is fixed the way it is, the camera battery is up and around taking pot-shots at everything in sight… They may be ‘covering’ a review, a series of field maneuvers ‘up front’ or merely Blank Company’s wash day at the village fountain. But always when the sun is shining, they are at it.


Click here to read a YANK MAGAZINE article about the Signal Corps films in the Second World War

1919, Prisoners of War, The U.S. Army Study

Americans Made Bad Prisoners
(U.S. Army Archive, 1919)

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Immediately after the war General Pershing put the boys in the Army Intelligence Section to work compiling hundreds of pages worth of information concerning what the German Army thought of their American counterparts. It was concluded that, by enlarge, the Germans were afraid of the Doughboys – seeing them as recklessly brave, and unpredictably aggressive – provided with all the food they could want and kitted out with sensible and efficient equipment, the Germans begrudgingly learned not to underestimate their pugnacious enemies from across the sea.


However, the Germans learned just as quickly not to overestimate the American soldier when he was a prisoner of war: the Doughboys were believed to have been defiant, ill-mannered, cheeky and when required to work or salute German officers they would simply refuse.


The report was declassified in 1990.


Click here to read an article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I…

1945 Pétain newspaper article
1945, France, Maptalk

Pétain: ”Life in Prison”
(Maptalk, 1945)

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The man who saved France in 1916 was condemned to die for nearly destroying France at Vichy in 1940, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by General Charles de Gaulle.

Pétain was the twelfth marshal of France to be condemned by a French court since 1440. Eight of them were executed.

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American Trench Periscopes (America's Munitions, 1919)
1919, America's Munitions, Inventions and Weapons, Recent Articles

American Trench Periscopes
(America’s Munitions, 1919)

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The U.S Army only ordered two types of trench periscopes during the war. The first kind was a simple wooden box, painted a lovely shade of olive drab and measuring two inches square and 15 inches in length with two inclined mirrors set at both ends (pictured). This type was manufactured by two companies and well over 100,000 were produced.


The second variety was a mirror that was designed to fixed to the end of a bayonet, a total of 100,000 of these were delivered before the end of July, 1918 and 50,000 additional ones before November.

(Until we get the title link fixed, you can read the article by clicking here.)

Allied Aerial Reconnaissance During World War I (Vanity Fair, 1918)
1918, Inventions and Weapons, Recent Articles, Vanity Fair Magazine

Allied Aerial Reconnaissance During World War I
(Vanity Fair, 1918)

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This article,Photography’s Notable Part in the War was written by an active participant in the aerial reconnaissance arm of the Royal Flying Corps, Captain Henry A. Wildon. He reported that both sides in the conflict recognized early on that intelligence gathering by way of camera and aircraft was a real possibility:

Our first airplanes in France were not supplied with photographic equipment. It was not until the beginning of 1915 that the importance of of photography became apparent, and was made possible by improvements in the type and general stability of the airplane.

A British Shrapnel Grenade (Trench Warfare, 1917)
1917, Inventions and Weapons, Trench Warfare

A British Shrapnel Grenade
(Trench Warfare, 1917)

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During the earliest days of the war the British and Empire armies were seldom issued grenades, but the need for such weaponry became apparent once it was clear to all that trench warfare was going to be the norm. The earliest grenades (improvised by both sides) were simply food tins that were jam-packed with an explosive mixed with nails, glass shards and bits of iron. By 1915 grenade production was in full swing and British historians have estimated that throughout the course of the war on the Western Front, British and Commonwealth forces had used fifteen million hand-grenades.

The following article concern a British shrapnel grenade that is of the heavy friction pattern.

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