Articles from 1945
A smattering of opinions on the subject of VJ Day (they all seemed to have been in favor of it) were offered up by a collection of Rome-based American soldiers composed of assorted hues and ranks.
This column, by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, was an articulate effort at make some sense of her husband’s death, which took place during one of the most critical periods in world history:
Perhaps in His wisdom, the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart a way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building. It cannot be the work of one man, nor can the responsibility be laid upon his shoulders, and so when the time comes for peoples to assume the burden more fully, he is given rest.
The GIs had managed to keep their VJ spirit bottled up through most of the phony rumors, but when the real thing was announced the cork popped with a vengeance. A spontaneous parade, including jeeps and trucks and WACs and GIs and officers and nurses and enlisted me, snaked from the Red Cross Club at Rainbow Corner down to the Place de l’Opera and back…
On the matter of the American fashion designer Adele Simpson (1904 – 1995), it must be remembered that she was a prominent player in American fashion for many decades; a woman who had been awarded both a Coty Award (1949) as well as a Neiman Marcus Award (1946). Her creations were highly sought after by the crowned heads of both Europe and Hollywood.
Click here to read about wartime fabric rationing in the 1940s.
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?
General Marshall recalled the decisions made concerning how many American men would be drafted and in what branches of service they would be needed. He recalled the number of divisions each Allied nation raised and how many divisions the Germans and Japanese put in the field. The article also remembers that two thirds of the German Army was deployed along the Eastern front and he wondered what might the Americans have done had Germany defeated the Reds.
It is remarkable how exactly the mobilization plan fitted the requirements for victory. When Admiral Doenitz surrendered the German Government, every American division was in operational theaters.
After five and a half years of ever growing battle against ever-stronger enemies, the German Army in 1945 looks, at a glance, much the worse for wear. It is beset on all sides and is short of everything. It has suffered appalling casualties and must resort to old men, boys, invalids and unreliable foreigners for its cannon fodder…Yet this shabby, war-weary machine has struggled on a in a desperate effort to postpone it’s inevitable demise. At the end of 1944 it was still able to mount an offensive calculated to delay for months the definitive piercing of the Western bulwarks of Germany.
The introductory essay from the U.S. War Department’s intelligence manual concerning fascist Germany:
Total war is neither a contemporary invention nor a German monopoly. But total mobilization, in the sense of the complete and scientific control of all the efforts of the nation for the purpose of war, and total utilization of war as an instrument of national policy have been developed to their highest degree by the German militarists.
To gain some understanding of the nature of total war, you might want to click here and read about how the American cosmetics industry of the 1940s was forced to alter their production patters.
A one and a half page study on the training of the W.W. II German soldier – the soldier’s oath and the rigorous system of discipline that he had to adhere to. Also discussed is the German salute (Heil…), and the German Army’s understanding of soldierly duty.
Also discussed the German Army’s alternate pledge penned especially for atheists.
From Amazon: Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949
A one page study of German World War II tactics that was created by the United States Department of War two months prior to the German surrender:
…the Germans have placed a considerable reliance on novel and sensational weapons such as the mass use of armor, the robot bomb, and the super-heavy tank. Their principal weaknesses in this regard have been their failure to integrate these new techniques with established arms and tactics –German field artillery, for example, did not maintain pace with German armor -and their devotion to automatic weapons at the expense of accuracy.
The Americans arriving in Japan after the surrender proceedings were hellbent on capturing the American traitor who presided over so many disheartening broadcasts — the woman they nicknamed Tokyo Rose:
…one of the supreme objectives of American correspondents landing in Japan was Radio Tokyo. There they hoped to find someone to pass off as the one-and-only Rose and scoop their colleagues. When the information had been sifted a little, a girl named Iva Toguri (Iva Toguri D’Aquino: 1916 – 2006), emerged as the only candidate who came close to filling the bill. For three years she had played records, interspersed with snappy comments, beamed to Allied soldiers on the Zero Hour…Her own name for herself was Orphan Ann.
Toguri’s story was an interesting one that went on for many years and finally resulted in a 1977 pardon granted by one who had listened to many such broadcasts: President Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006), who had served in the Pacific on board the aircraft carrier USS Monterey.
Here is an instructional cartoon for students illustrating how the United Nations was intended to function during a crises.
The cartoonist clearly indicated the step-by-step protocol that was designed to eradicate world wars with a diplomatic process beginning jointly in both the U.N. General Assembly as well as the U.N. Security Council, proceeding on to three other possible U.N. committees (such as the Trusteeship Council, the Military Staff Committee or the International Courts) before the general body would be able to deploy any international force on it’s behalf.
While in the process of drawing up the charter for the United Nations, several foreign dignitaries took time out to look around at the citizens of San Francisco and share their candid observations with the editors of YANK MAGAZINE as to what an American is.
During the summer of 1938 the Nazis allowed one of their photo journalists out of the Fatherland to wander the highways and byways of the United States. This is what he saw…
Here is a printable list of chronological events and battles that took place in the Pacific Theater between December 7, 1941 through May 3, 1945. Please keep in mind that this is only a partial list, the YANK editors who compiled the chronology had no foreknowledge of the U.S. assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Click here to read an interview with a Kamikaze pilot.
General Marshall’s post-war report remarked on one clear advantage that the German Army was privileged to exploit again and again throughout the war:
The German ammunition was charged with smokeless, flashless powder which in both night and day fighting helped the enemy tremendously in concealing his fire positions.
An illustrated wartime study by the United States Department of War explaining the German Gewehr 98 and the Gewehr 41: their caliber, weight, range and over-all length.
We highly recommend that you watch the film clip linked below for additional information.
Click here to read about the German M.G. 34.
The tremendous military advantage of this terrifying weapon fell to us through a combination of good luck, good management and prodigious effort. The harnessing of atomic power should give Americans confidence in their destiny…
Click here to read more magazine articles about the Atomic Bomb.
Click here to read one of the fist opinion pieces condemning the use of the Atomic Bomb.
A page from a 1945 YANK MAGAZINE which offers a smattering of sports info.
