Articles from 1945
Earl Blackwell and Ted Strong
Today America has more celebrities than it can keep track of and Celebrity Services aims, simply, to keep track of them.
Celebrity Services’ office is a busy hodge-podge of files, cross-files, indices, cards folders, stuffed pigeonholes, telephones, confidential memos address books, private dossiers and fat envelopes – all pertaining to the lives of 50,000 celeb-utopians.
Carlton Rouh was awarded the M.o.H. for performing numerous acts of courage on the South Pacific island of Peleliu during the September of 1944; in this article he speaks bluntly about the nature of heroes and the discomfort they experience when being praised in a nation that was so deeply in need for such men.
Click here to read about another W.W. II Medal of Honor recipient.
Here is a short notice from a Catholic weekly crediting the editors of THOUGHT magazine for having printed a 1940 protest lodged by the German Cardinals Faulhaber (Munich) and Bertram (Breslau) for the obscene Nazi practice of murdering mental patients.
Remarkable for lacking bravado and deeds of cunning daring-do, this is a war story about two hapless GIs of the 84th Division who got themselves captured and, do to a heavy U.S. artillery barrage (that served as a backdrop throughout much of the story), were able to escape and allude further incarceration. The German officers who (briefly) lorded over these men are beautifully painted as dunderheads that will surely amuse. Wandering in a southerly direction through the frost of Belgium, they make it back to their outfits in time for a New Year’s Day supper.
Click here if you would like to read about a World War One German P.O.W. camp.
Who knows, perhaps the author of Bad Day at Black Rock
It was written by YANK MAGAZINE’s Len Zinberg (1911-1968; a.k.a. Ed Lacy, a.k.a. Steve April); by that time, Zinberg was already an experienced writer with impressive credits and the magazine was lucky to have him. His writings at YANK helped to open the door at THE NEW YORKER, where much of his work was to be seen following the end of hostilities.
A review of the Stuart Davis (1892 – 1964) retrospective that opened at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the fall of 1945. The artist referred to his influences:
In my own case I have enjoyed the dynamic American scene for many years, and all my pictures (including the ones I painted in Paris) are referential to it. They all have their originating impulse in the impact of [the]contemporary American environment.
In the aftermath of World War II Germany found themselves occupied by four armies; in the attached article General Eisenhower explained what the policy of the German occupation was to be:
‘His idea is that the biggest job for right now is riding herd on the rehabilitation of Germany’s political and economic structure…We are working toward a government of Germany by the Germans under the supervision of the Allied General Control Council,’ he said. The government will pass more and more under German civil control. At first we’ll have to look down the German’s necks in everything they do.’
-To read more 1940s articles about General Eisenhower, click here.
When this small piece was published there was a lot of talk concerning the blessings of the tin can. Recycling was in its infancy on the home fronts during the Second World War and tin played a big part for both the military (you can read about that here) and civilly (the home preservation of fruits and vegetables). This short article will tell you more about this helpful invention that aided in the allied victory.
In this article,YANK MAGAZINE correspondent Al Hine summed-up all the assorted happenings on the 1945 Big Band landscape:
The leading big bands now are Woody Herman’s, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton’s. Benny Goodman, who broke up his own band for the umpteenth time, is a featured performer in Billy Rose’s super revue, ‘The Seven Lively Arts’, but the maestro is said to be thinking of turning over his Rose job to Raymond Scott and making another stab at the band business.
In Honolulu, where the war began for the U.S., the first news of it’s ending reached a sleepy-eyed Chinese-American radio technician shortly after 1200 hours (12:00 a.m.) when he had just finished making his regular weekly check on KGU’s station transmitter and was ready to leave for home.
Stand by for important news about the Potsdam ultimatum.
Flight nurse, WACs and GIs all streamed from their barracks and joined the howling procession…
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.
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.
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?
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.
Dashiel Hammett (1894 – 1961) had a pretty swell resume by the time World War Two came along. He had a number of celebrated novels and short stories published as well as a few well-paying gigs writing in Hollywood. It was during this period, in the Thirties, that he had created some of the wonderful characters that are still remembered to this day, such as Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon) and Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man). During the war, it was rare but not unheard of, for an older man with such accomplishments to enlist in the army -and that is just what he did. This one page article clearly spells out Hammett’s period serving on an Alaskan army base; his slow climb from Buck Private to Sergeant; his difficulty with officers and the enjoyment of being anonymous.
Accompanying the article is a black and white image of the writer wearing Uncle Sam’s olive drab, herringbone twill -rather than the tell-tale tweed he was so often photographed wearing.
The Manhattan Project was the code name given to the allied effort to develop the Atomic Bomb during World War Two. The research and development spanned the years 1942 through 1946 and the participating nations behind the effort were the Unites States, Great Britain and Canada. Within the United States, there were as many as three locations where the Manhattan Project was carried out however this article concerns the goings-on at the uranium-enrichment facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The article presents the point of view of your basic PFC on the base; how he had to maintain the necessary secrecy, what was it like living among such a plethora of pointy-headed slide-rule jockeys and how grateful they were to be living the comfortable life, while so many other draftees fared so poorly.
Dashiel Hammett (1894 – 1961) had a pretty swell resume by the time World War II came along. He had written a string of well-received novels and enjoyed a few well-paying gigs in Hollywood. During the war years it was rare, but not unheard of, for an older man with such accomplishments to enlist in the army – and that is just what he did. The attached article spells out Hammett’s period serving on an Alaskan army base, his slow climb from Buck Private to sergeant, his difficulty with officers and the enjoyment of being anonymous.
Accompanying the article is a black and white image of the writer wearing Uncle Sam’s olive drab, herringbone twill – rather than the tell-tale tweed he was so often photographed wearing.
Click here to read a 1939 STAGE MAGAZINE profile of Hammett’s wife, the playwright Lillian Hellman.
In Nazi occupied Paris there was a secret underground movie theater (93 Champs Elysees) operating throughout the entire four year period and it charged an excessive sum of francs to gain entry. Guess which Chaplin film was shown?
