World War Two – Page 17 – Old Magazine Articles

Home Front Chicago
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Chicago, Illinois saw enormous changes take place during the war years, most notably the overnight construction of over 260 defense plants and the opening of its subway system (six miles in length, at that time). Half a million war workers arrived to toil in her new factories while it is said that each city block in Chicago dispatched, on average, at least seven of her sons and daughters for the armed services.

Nerves are taught with war tension. Hard work adds to the strain and increases the tempo. People walk faster in the streets. Stampedes for surface cars, and the new subway are more chaotic than ever… Five thousand block flagpoles have been erected by block committees of the Office of Civilian Defense. Listed in some manner near each are the names of all the GIs from the block. Some of the installations are elaborate and have bulletin boards that are kept up to date with personal news from camps and war theaters.

Shortages
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

The Japanese now are permitted fuel for their homes for only two months of the year and the prices are so high that many homes are without heat the year around.

The Japanese Home Front
(American Magazine, 1943)

This article was written by Max Hill, who was serving as the Tokyo bureau chief for the Associated Press at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. The column consists of his observations as to how the Japanese home front operated during his seven month incarceration.

Click here to read about the Japanese home front during the early period of the Sino-Japanese War.

Click here to read about the W.W. II German home front.

John Thompson of the Chicago Tribune
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

John Thompson of The Chicago Tribune saw more of the World War II than most other correspondents. He had witnessed to the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Paris and the horrors of the Buchenwald death camp. Throughout his life, Thompson held the distinction of being the last surviving war correspondent to land on Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings; by war’s end he had been awarded the Purple Heart, nine battle stars and was the first correspondent to receive the Medal of Freedom. This column was written in 1943 and pertains to some of his experiences in North Africa and Sicily.

Richard Tregaskis of the International News Service
(Coronet, 1944)

Richard Tregaskis (1916 – 1973) covered the invasion of Guadalcanal and the first seven weeks of Marine fighting on that island, the earliest stages of the Tokyo air raid, covered the Battle of Midway, wrote a best-selling book
(Guadalcanal Diary) and accompanied the forces that invaded the Russell Islands.

It wasn’t long after he arrived in the Mediterrian that stories began appearing in American papers under the Tregaskis byline, and he is still ‘somewhere’ on the European fighting front covering the big battles which make news.

The Absent Teachers
(Click Magazine, 1944)

This 1944 article by the U.S. Commissioner of Education, John W. Studebaker (1887 – 1989), reported on the impact that W.W. II was having on the American educational system. Studebaker pointed out that during the course of the national emergency, as many as 115,000 teachers had left the nation’s classrooms in order to help the war effort in one form or another.

Women Behind the Guns
(Assorted Magazines, 1942)

When it became clear to the employers on the American home front that there was going to be a shortage of men, their attention turned to a portion of the labor pool who had seldom been allowed to prove their mettle: they were called women. This article recalls those heady days at the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground when local women were trained to fire enormous artillery pieces in order that the Army weapons specialists understand the gun’s capabilities. This column primarily concerns the delight on all the men’s faces when it was discovered that women were able to perform their tasks just as well as the men.

Soviets Hold Their Reserves for Stalingrad
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

A Pearl Harbor Day Recollection
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

A year after the Pearl harbor attack, one of the PM journalists recalled for their readers how many Americans in the lower 48 had heard the news on the radio that evening.

Stalingrad Exordium
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

A short article explaining the significance of Stalingrad to Stalin (aside from its name) and the battle that took place there 24 years earlier during the revolution – when the city was called Tsaritsyn.

The Drive On Berlin
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

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Ezra Pound of Indiana
(Click Magazine, 1942)

Click Magazine‘s illustrated article about the sedition of American poet Ezra Pound is peppered throughout with assorted quotes that clearly indicate the man’s guilt. The reporter, David Brown, went to some length in explaining what an odd life decision this was for a poet with such a celebrated past – a decisions that ultimately lead to his conviction in Federal Court, followed by his twelve year incarceration in a mad house.

In an effort to understand Pound’s thinking, we have included excerpts from a Wall Street Journal book review of a 2016 Pound biography that presents the poets queer rationale.

Douglas Chandler of Illinois
(Coronet Magazine, 1943)

Douglas Chandler (1889 – ?) was one of several American expatriots to make radio broadcasts on behalf of Adolf Hitler and company. Believing that he was somehow providing a valuable service for the Free and the Brave, he smugly titled his radio program, ‘Paul Revere’.

The Crew of the Enola Gay Fifteen Years Later
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

The men of the Enola Gay were hand-picked experts, chosen for intelligence, emotional stability and discipline, qualities they have put to good use in their post-war careers. Four remained in the service (one died in 1953) and the others are all successful in their business carees. They earn above-average salaries, all but one are married and they have 26 children among them. None of them has been to Japan since the war, and few have met since separation.

The Bombers Speak
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

Appearing in a 1960 issue of Coronet Magazine was this piece that revealed the assorted introspective perceptions of the crew of the Enola Gay.

In the fifteen years that had past since the dropping of the Atomic bomb these are the personal thoughts that were produced after years of sober reflection concerning their part in one of the preeminent events of the last century:

After 15 years the scene over Hiroshima is still sharp and clear to them, and though they disagree on details, they are unanimous on the point of whether they’d do the same things again.

RAF Bombs Munich
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

Throughout the course of the Second World War, the city of Munich was bombed seventy-four times by both the Royal Air Force as well as the U.S. Army Air Corps. The attached article gives an account of the third of these attacks.

Giant four-motored planes flew in over their targets so low that they could clearly see the Brown House and the Beer Hall where Hitler organized his 1923 putsch… The citizens of Munich will, no doubt, be thinking of their Fuehrer today as they survey the bombed-out buildings and piles of rubble in the streets where Hitler first harangued them about his political ideas.

Living Under the Bombs
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Here is one of the reviews of Pattern of Conquest, a book by Joseph C. Harsch (1905 – 1998) – a CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR correspondent who had been posted to Germany during the earliest years of the war:

Harsch says that German morale is ‘fundamentally unsound’ however, and that it took a bad beating when the RAF first bombed Berlin, which Marshal Goering had said would happen only ‘over his dead body’. (‘Have you heard the news?’ Berliners asked each other, after the first raids. ‘Goering’s dead.’)

Click here to read about the 1943 bombing campaign against Germany.

‘Eighth Over Berlin”
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

Comparing the American [daylight] raids with the RAF [nighttime] incursions, it was certainly a great shock to Berliners to find their city now open to round-the-clock bombing.

We don’t mind the Yanks who come when the sun shines and it’s warm. It’s the Tommies sneaking in at night that we don’t like so much.