1944 – Page 5 – Old Magazine Articles

War Stories from the Second Armored Division in Normandy
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

An account relaying a bloody slice of life lived by the officers and men of the U.S. Second Armored Division. The story takes place on the tenth day following the D-Day landings as one armored battalion struggled to free themselves of the hedgerows, placate their slogan-loving general and ultimately make that dinner date in far-off Paris. Yank correspondent Walter Peters weaves an interesting narrative and the reader will get a sense of the business-like mood that predominated among front line soldiers and learn what vehicles were involved during an armored assault

The Invasion of Western Europe
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

The focal point of the attack apparently was aimed at Le Havre, the fine port at the mouth of the Seine. Nazi reports indicated a series of drives to cut the Brittany Peninsula with the center of gravity at Caen. It seemed certain that the Reich was awaiting news of other attacks.

James Forrestal: Secretary of the Navy
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

It was a clear day on a fast track for James Forrestal (1892 – 1949) when the U.S. Congress passed the Two Ocean Navy Bill during the Summer of 1940. At that time both Europe and Asia were engulfed in war and it seemed certain to many that the U.S was not going to be able to avoid it. Serving as the Under Secretary of the Navy, with Frank Knox (1874 – 1944) presiding as his senior, Forrestal was charged with the duty of building the U.S. Navy into something far more dangerous than it already was, and build it he did.

Traveling Movie Theaters
(Click Magazine, 1944)

Two million Americans have as their principal form of visual entertainment nomad movies, run by some 3000 road-showmen who present their motion pictures in tents, auditoriums or churches. Few city folks realize that this is the way in which entertainment is brought to about 5000 U.S. towns of less than 1000 population… Road-showmen say that the favorite shows are fast-action westerns and occasional comedies. Mushy love scenes are box-office poison among their clientele. During harvest seasons, when customers can best afford the ten to twenty-five cents admission charge, these showmen take in between $75.00 and $150.00 a week.

These were not the only traveling entertainers during the Thirties: the Federal Theater Project also sent hoards of players throughout the nation to amuse and beguile – you can read about that here

Click here to read about Marilyn Monroe and watch a terrific documentary about her life.

The Execution of French Traitors
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

The apathetic France of 1939 is dead. Collier’s correspondent, journeying across southern France, found high hope of unity and determination to punish all collaborationists. France, he feels, is reborn.

Rampant Inflation in Post-War Germany
(Click Magazine, 1944)

Author and radio commentator Emil Ludwig (1881 – 1948) recalled the economic catastrophe that devastated post-World War I Germany as a result of their inflated currency:

Inflation in Germany really started on the first day of the war in 1914 when the government voted a credit of five billion marks. This was not a loan…I saw the mark, the German monetary unit corresponding to the British shilling or the American quarter, tumble down and down until you paid as much for a loaf of bread as you would have paid for a limousine before inflation started.

The Returning Army
(United States News, 1944)

The young man going into the Army has a course in orientation to fit him for fighting. He has to be shown what kind of people his enemies are. He has to be told why it is necessary to fight. In the same manner, the Army is finding that the men returning from war have to be fitted for civilian life. They bring back resentment against men and women who have known little privation and less hardship.

The Ike Jacket Goes Mainstream
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

In their book about American soldiers in the war-torn Britain of W.W. II, Overpaid, Over-Sexed and Over Here (1991), authors James Goodson and Norman Franks recall how thoroughly impressed Americans were with the standard issue British Army uniform. The Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, was no exception – he promptly ordered his tailor to suit him in a similar get-up. Other American generals followed in his path as did the cocky young pilots of the Army Air Corps – shortly there after the look soon spread to other branches of the Army. This 1944 article discusses the broad appeal of this jacket and that civilian fashion designers had begun manufacturing the Ike Jacket for the Home Front.

Dispatch from Operation Market Garden
(Stars and Stripes, 1944)

Five days into Operation Market Garden, this hastily written notice was dispatched by a Stars and Stripes reporter on assignment with the allied airborne forces in war-torn Holland.

FDR, African-Americans, and the 1944 Election
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

This article is a segment from a longer piece regarding the 1944 presidential election and the widespread disillusionment held by many Black voters regarding the failings of FDR and his administration:

…the Negro vote, about two million strong, is shifting back into the Republican column.

The report is largely based upon the observations of one HARPER’S MAGAZINE correspondent named Earl Brown.

The Doyle Slugs It Out
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

From the deck of the destroyer U.S.S. Doyle, this Yank correspondent watched for nearly three nights as the grim drama of D-Day unfolded on the American beachhead.

From the Doyle‘s decks I could see the shells strike with the naked eye. First there would be a flash and then a puff of smoke which billowed into the sky. Several tanks and landing crafts were burning at the water’s edge. Through the glasses I watched troops jump from their boats and start running up the beach.

Statistical data concerning the U.S. Army casualties in June and July of 1944 can be read in this article.

June 6, 1944
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

That was the way D-Day began, the second front the Allies had waited for for two years. It came like a shadow in the English midnight… The Nazi news agency, DNB, flashed the first story at 12:40 a.m. on June 6, Eastern wartime. Before dawn, British and American battleships were pounding shells into Havre, Caen and Cherbourg, high-booted skymen of the [88th] and 101st U.S.A. paratroop divisions had dropped into the limestone ridges of the Seine valley and landing barges filled with American, Canadian and British infantrymen nosed up to the beaches along the estuaries of the Orne and Seine rivers.

The First 100 Hours
(Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

Perched on the quarter deck of an LST off the coast of one of the American beachheads during the D-Day invasion, COLLIER’S war correspondent, W.B. Courtney, described the earliest hours of that remarkable day:

I stared through my binoculars at some limp, dark bundles lying a little away from the main activities. In my first casual examination of the beach I had assumed they were part of the debris of defensive obstacles. But they were bodies – American bodies.

Four Glider Pilots on D-Day
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

A three page article about the unique experiences of four American glider pilots on D-Day; how they fared after bringing their infantry-heavy gliders down behind German lines, what they saw and how they got back to the beach.

Vichy Government Flees Paris
(The Stars and Stripes, 1944)

Published in the Stars & Stripes issue marked August 19, 1944 (the official date of the Paris liberation) was the attached notice concerning the hasty disappearance of the Nazi-collaborators who lorded over the French during the occupation:

Laval, Darnand and other Vichyites fled from Paris to Metz, according to a United Press report quoting a French resistance leader who reached the British front from Paris. The whereabouts of Marshal Petain were not known.

The Liberation of Paris
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Two Yank Magazine reporters rode into Paris behind the first tank of the Second French Armored Division, following the story of the city’s liberation in their recently liberated German jeep. Here is a picture of Paris and the reaction of Parisians to their first breath of free air in four years.

As they caught site of the American flag on our car, people crowded around and almost smothered us with kisses…

Click here to read about the fall of Paris…

Paris After the Liberation
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

The capital of France, as of September 1944, is not the same nervous, triumphant paradise city that it was when the Allies first made their entry.

The welcome has died down. When you enter the town, today, whether on foot or in a car, everyone is glad to see you, but there are no more mob scenes of riotous greeting exploding around each jeep. Shows are opening again, and the people are beginning to breathe easier…On the other side, Parisians appear as a very grateful but proud and self-reliant population.

Rome Falls
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

The capture of the Eternal City – first Axis capital to fall to the Allies – came on the 275 day of the Italian invasion and realized the political and psychological objective of the entire campaign. Yet, for the Allied Armies, the fall of Rome was rather the beginning than the end of the job. Paced by the air forces, without a pause the troops rolled on through the city and across the Tiber in a drive aimed at smashing completely the retreating German forces.