Articles from Pathfinder Magazine
Here is a small article that appeared during the middle of the war saying that there were German parishioners within both Protestant and Catholic churches who offered food and shelter to the various assorted minorities (primarily Jews) who were persecuted by the Nazis.
Franz von Papen (1879 – 1969) was born into the German nobility; he worked as a diplomat, a politician and during both World Wars he served as an intelligence officer in his nation’s army. During the Third Reich von Papen was appointed Vice Chancellor under Adolf Hitler. This article concerns the period in von Papen’s life when, after having been acquitted earlier by the international tribunal, he found himself once more on the docket for another misdeed.
Franz von Papen had an IQ that measured 134 – click here to read about the strangely high IQs of the other lunatics in Nazi leadership…
Recognizing that responsible commanders must always assume the blame for the failings within their respective domains, former U.S. General George C. Marshall and General Leonard T. Gerow stood up and claimed responsibility for leaving Pearl Harbor vulnerable to Japanese attack. Marshall had been FDR’s Army Chief-of-Staff since the Autumn of 1939 and Gerow had been serving as executive officer of the War Plans Division at the time of the sneak attack – however, To read this article is to understand that these men were responsible for Pearl Harbor’s lack of preparedness…
A news column that is appropriately drenched in the gravitas of the day because it announced that the short-lived age of atomic security that brought W.W. II to a close had come to an end. A new epoch had arrived at 11:00 a.m., September 23, 1949, when President Harry Truman announced
We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR.
With nuclear bombs must come a nuclear strategy:
click here to read about that…
Last week, after the Russians announced they would lift the blockade on May 12 [1949], the airlift took a bow and added a modest nod at the 324-day record:
• 189,247 flights;
• 1,528,250 tons delivered;
• best day’s work: April 16 with 12,947 tons hauled in 1,393 flights.
– [and if the West had not chosen to answer the Soviet challenge in Berlin] there might never have been an Atlantic Pact or a Western German state. The Communists might have gone amok in France and Italy. Russia might have won the Cold War in the first heat.
Some seven months before Japan quit the war, the anointed heads of the Institute of Pacific Relations convened in Hot Springs, Virginia to discuss what the Allied Occupation of Japan would look like.
Click here to read about August 28, 1945 – the day the occupation began.
Standing before the judges who made up the 11-nation war crimes tribunal in occupied Tokyo, General Hideko Tojo, among 19 other Japanese wartime leaders, put on the show of his life:
Without hesitation, Tojo accepted full blame for plunging Japan into war. But it was, he insisted, a ‘defensive’ war, and ‘in no manner a violation of international law..’
As you will see by reading the attached article, Mussolini’s flack released no information concerning Rachele Mussolini (1890 – 1979), Il Duce’s second wife. All that they seem to know about the lass was that she had a waistline that rivaled his.
United Nations patrols in Korea probed north last week seeking out an enemy that wouldn’t stand and fight. But early this week, after U.N. advance units had pushed to within eight miles of Seoul, the Communists suddenly stopped playing hide and seek and began to offer stiffer resistance…. The Communist reluctance to fight last week caused much speculation at Eighth Army headquarters. Some officers thought the Reds were regrouping for a major push down the center. Others felt the Chinese had pulled back to give weight to the cease-fire negotiations at Lake Success. But they all agreed on one point: the Communists have paid an appalling price for their Korean adventure.
In hindsight we can say that the musings of the first officers were correct: the Communists were indeed rearming for a major offensive that would begin the following May.
Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.
Here is a smattering of paragraphs that appeared seven months into the war that give a glimpse into how various souls on the American home front had pitched-in for the war effort. My personal favorite is the one about the school children who pooled their money to buy cartons of cigarettes for soldiers.
In a statement for the month of December, President Green of the Federation of Labor placed the number of unemployed at about 5,000,000; estimated that incomes of wage earners had declined over $6,000,000,000 in the past year and said about 50 percent of trade union members had had to lower their standard of living because of lowered incomes.
Attached is a report on President Truman’s efforts to intensify America’s wartime posture. When this article was first read the Korean War had been raging for seven months – with the fifth month bringing the promise of an expanded and very bloody war as a result of Chinese intervention. Compiled in these columns is a list explaining how the Truman administration, the Pentagon and the officials on the American home front had met the Korean challenge thus far.
Do you think your job is tough? Pity the pioneering gynecologists of the 16th Century…
When England and France yielded to Germany in the Munich Agreement of last September, a significant change took place. The balance of power in Europe shifted from the democracies to the dictatorships… [and] the United States had to stop thinking of England and France as America’s ‘first line of defense’ in the time of a European war.
Here is the Pathfinder Magazine article about Air University; established in 1946 by the U.S. Department of War in order to train senior American Air Force officers to serve as strategic thinkers in the realm of national security. In 1949 that meant conceiving of ways to implement a successful strategy in which the Soviet Union would be defeated with nuclear weapons:
At AU’s apex is the Air War College. To its senior officer-students the question of destroying an enemy’s will to resist is grimly real. Killing ten million citizens of an enemy nation is no haphazard problem to the Air War College. In the statistics of modern war, a loss of approximately 4% of a nation’s population saps its will to resist…
Six months after this article was first read, the Soviets tested their first Atomic bomb; click here to read about that event.
In respect to their economic status, it has been estimated that one-half to two-thirds of the city children of America are in homes where annual income is too low to permit the family to buy items called for in an ordinary ‘maintenance’ budget – a budget of about $1,261 to meet the normal needs of living in a family of four.
CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.
When Adolf Hitler was made chancellor of the Third Reich on January 30, 1933, he pledged his government would (1) unify the German people; (2) eliminate class distinction; and (3) secure equal rights abroad for Germany. At that time the Nazi leader addressed the nation: Now, German people, give us four years and then judge us!
That was four years ago.
A sore humiliation to dictator Mussolini of Italy lies in the fact that what should have been a proud conquest has turned into a diplomatic white elephant. Only one democratic nation in the world – Switzerland – has recognized Italy’s claim to Ethiopia.
You can read about his violent death here…
