Articles from 1945
The article posted herein lists the aleged crimes of General Tomoyuki Yamishita of the Imperial Japanese Army. The article also states the results of his sentencing, death by hanging. Two weeks after the trial he received a stay of execution by the United States Supreme Court.
Nobody tried to deny it. The Germans had achieved perhaps the most valuable of military advantages – surprise. How did they do it? [In these two articles] Allied officers gave some obvious reasons, but critics guessed at some that were less obvious.
By the end of 1944 the P.o.W. population within the U.S. stood somewhere in the neighborhood of 340,000 and was growing at a rate between 25,000 to 30,000 each month. The vast majority of them (300,000) were from the German Army and 51,000 were Italians:
There are reports that these prisoners often are pampered, that they are getting cigarettes when American civilians cannot get them, that they are being served in their camps by American soldiers, that they are often not working at a time when war workers are scarce. The general complaint is that the 46,000 American prisoners in Germany are not faring as well as 3000,000 Germans in this country.
Read about the escaped German POWs who the FBI never found…
Here is the NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE account of the defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944 – January 25, 1945). The article opens with a thorough explanation of General McAuliffe’s famous response to the German officers who came in search of an American surrender.
As the Battle of the Bulge reached its conclusion and the Germans resumed their retreat, British General Bernard Law Montgomery (1887 – 1976) held a press conference in which he praised the fighting abilities and the leadership skills of all those Americans who resisted the German onslaught in the Ardennes:
But when all is said and done, I shall always feel that Rundstedt was really beaten by the good fighting qualities of the American soldier…
Here is a short column that lists the impact that the American counterattack wrought upon the German forces as a result of their winter offensive during the Battle of the Bulge – no explanation was given as to how this information was attained.
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek stepped up to the plate and answered nine questions that were put to him by COLLIER’S editor Henry La Cossitt, concerning the future of democracy in China.
I have always said that there are no good Jews, but that boy proved me wrong.
-so spake the Nazi king-pin Julius Streicher (1885 – 1946) upon being confronted by the goodness of one American serviceman who went out of his way to be kind and identified himself as a Jew.
This small piece is an excerpt from a longer article; to read the entire magazine article, click here.
Julius Streicher had an IQ that measured 106 – click here to read about the IQs of the other lunatics in Nazi leadership…
Click here to read about the inmate rebellions that took place at Auschwitz, Sobibor and Triblinka.
For the 417,034 Axis prisoners of war in this country, the War Department last week had word that repatriation was in sight. The 362,170 Germans and 49,784 Italians definitely would be home by early Spring; the 5,080 Japanese, as soon as General of the Army MacArthur was ready to receive them.
Although the attached cartoon illustrations from Volkischer Beobacher depicts a German soldier using a Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon, the intended readership was actually the old men and under-age boys who made up the out-gunned and under-manned Volkssturm militia units at the close of the war. The panzerfaust (tank fist) has been characterized as the first expendable anti-tank RPG. Also included in this file is the U.S. Army study concerning this weapon.
When the flaks had all said their bit and the Japanese and Germans had all signed on the dotted line, YANK MAGAZINE did what everybody else was doing – they demobilized. When YANK published their last issue numerous magazine and newspaper editors were pretty choked-up about it and they wrote columns about how sad they all were to see it go; this one appeared in another U.S. Army rag.
More on this magazine can be read HERE…
Read about the time when THE STARS & STRIPES ceased printing…
The Battle of the Ardennes was practically over. The salient which once poked 52 miles into Belgium from the German frontier had been ground down to a nub by last week…. The German retreated slowly and in good order. In the sleet and fog of the Ardennes they pulled back their armor and other vehicles while their artillery and infantrymen put up stiff rearguard actions.
When this article was published the war was over and Paris had experienced her second German-free autumn – but life was still difficult in the city. Coal was still rationed, the lines in the shops were long and the average French child was drastically underweight. NEWSWEEK dispatched two gumshoe reporters to get the full picture for the folks at home (where, happily, rationing had ended the the previous August).
Attached is a four page article that reported on the deserters of the U.S. Army who organized themselves into Chicago-style gangs in post-occupied Paris, replete with gun-molls, hideouts, fencing contacts and all the trimmings of a third-rate-blood-and-thunder detective story.
After years of material shortage, the accent is definitely on the feminine, with all of its flounces… A look at all the collections shows that black is the outstanding color for afternoon and dinner. Drapings, wrappings and swathings that girdle the hips are the outstanding line. The favored fabrics are velvet , velveteen, corduroy (used horizontally, as are other striped materials) monotone tweeds, Kashas (a twill-weave fabric of wool mixed with Cashmere), and some Scotch plaids.
It was no secret around Washington that President Franklin Roosevelt was partial to the U.S. Navy. The admirals and other senior officers of the navy certainly knew – and loved it. The attached essay was an appreciative salute to FDR composed shortly after his death by Admiral William Pratt (1869 – 1957):
Other men, military in training and veterans of successful land campaigns, have sat in the White House, but never before in the history of our country has any man ever sat there whose instincts at heart were essentially those of a sailor.
Reporter Robert Shaplen (1917 – 1988) filed this account of how the GIs have reacted to the strangest country they have ever encountered:
Looking at the Japanese, the average GI wonders how they ever managed to prosecute a war in the first place. Everything in Japan, even broken and blasted cities and factories, has a miniature toy-like appearance. Automobiles, the ones that are left, don’t work; trains bear little resemblance to the Twentieth Century Limited or a fast freight back home. The short, slight people are dressed poorly and drably.
