World War Two – Page 6 – Old Magazine Articles

With the War Came Medical Innovations
(Pageant Magazine, 1945)

Four years of global carnage did not simply usher in an era of more destructive weaponry for the inhabitants of Earth to ponder; it also gave cause for tremendous improvements in medical care. This 1945 article anticipated a much better world that would be created from the smoldering remains of Europe and Asia – a world that was better prepared to address the health requirements of the diseased and the burned. The medical advancements that were forged between the years 1939 through 1945 saw remarkable improvements in surgery and anesthesia and brought new light on how the medical establishment understood blood and the treatment of venereal disease.

CLICK HERE… to read one man’s account of his struggle with shell shock…

The Scared Infantry
(Regiment of the Century, 1945)

We were men on a chess board being pushed around by people we never saw, by orders we never read, going to places we didn’t know the names of, not knowing where the front was… praying that the ‘old man’ knew what he was doing.

The passage above was found in a year book that told the tale of the 397th (U.S.) Infantry Regiment, of the 100th Division. The 100th Division was on the German’s tale all the way to Berlin.

Click here to read about the depth of suffering American soldiers had to endure during the Battle of the Bulge.

The Death of the German Seventh Army
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

A 1944 Yank Magazine article concerning the destruction of the once mighty German 7th Army:
“We have been told that the German Army, which fought so craftily and gave out to our men a share of death in Normandy, is now almost encircled by the great armored columns which broke through and swept around the enemy. But this army does not die easily…”

Click here to read about the retreat of the Africa Corps.

The Bombing of Monte Cassino
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

The bombing of the Medieval abbey at Montecassino was one of the saddest tactical errors of the Second World War. The decision to bomb the structure was a result an error in translating an intercepted German communique that lead the Allies to believe that there was Nazi battalion contained within the abbey. This was not the case. When the Allies sifted through the rubble they were surprised to find the remains of numerous Italian civilians and very few Germans. The attached article recalls the fantastic view that was enjoyed by the assembled U.S. and British troops as the bombs fell.

The Germans Tried to Secure a Peace
(Confidential Magazine, 1958)

George F. Earle, a former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, recalled his days in the White House during W.W. II when a secret German delegation came around wishing to bring an end to the war. Roosevelt rejected the conditions and Earle openly chastised him for it.

Click here to read an assessment of the late-war German soldier…

Allied Overoptimism
(United States News, 1944)

The surprise that was Hitler’s December Offensive made many people think that the Allies were losing their edge and relying more on air power than infantry; Allies rather than our own divisions. The Battle of the Bulge shook all Americans out of their complacency.

More on the Battle of the Bulge can be read here…

Martha Gellhorn Over Germany
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

An article by the W.W. II war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (1908 – 1998) who rode with the crew of a P-61C Black Widow Night Fighter one evening as they made their rounds over what remained of Hitler’s Germany:

COLLIER’S girl correspondent sat on a wobbly crate and flew over Germany looking for enemy planes at night. Her nose ran, her oxygen mask slipped off, her stomach got mad, she was scared and she froze. They didn’t down any Germans, but otherwise that’s routine for the Black Widow pilots.

Click here to read additional articles about the war correspondents of the Second World War.

Click here to read Martha Gellhorn’s article about what she saw at Dachau.

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

Draft-Resistance In Canada
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

A mob of French-Canadian youths surged through Montreal with skull-and-crossbones sign [that read]: Are We Cannon fodder? Do We Want Conscription? No! Quebec province seethed with rage at Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s decision to send draftees overseas.

Their father’s resisted the draft some twenty years earlier…

‘Guadalcanal Diary”
(The American Magazine, 1943)

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Mangrum, USMC, was a seasoned veteran in the Cactus Air Force that fought the good fight at Henderson Field from Guadalcanal in 1942:

For eight weeks the author and his fellow pilots shared the primitive life of the other Marines at Henderson Field. Some portion of his squadron was almost constantly in the air, attacking enemy reinforcements.

The Flight of Rudolf Hess
(Newsweek, 1942 & Maptalk, 1946)

Here are two short notices from the Forties about Rudolf Hess (1894 – 1987) and the motivation behind his mad dash to Scotland. The paragraphs ascribe two very different purposes to the flight.

Humor in Uniform
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

In the years to come, he would be known as the Oscar Award winning screenwriter for A Place in the Sun, SANDS OF IWO JIMA and OCEAN’S ELEVEN – but in 1943 Harry Brown
(1917 – 1986) was writing tongue and cheek essays like this one on the history of warfare under the nome de guerre Artie Greengroin:

War is a very popular pass-time of humane beings. It is fought by men, on sides, with the popular intentions of killing people of the other side. The more people get killed the more you win. That is war. Historically, war has been fought for a long time and several people have won them. Some people have been Alexander, Julius Caesar and some other people…

1943 was truly the year that proved to have been the turning point in the war, click here to read about it…

‘Doughboy’s General”
(Reader’s Digest, 1944)

This column summarizes General Bradley’s early life and career with a good deal of space devoted to his leadership during the North African Campaign:

Chosen over dozens his senior in service, he was sent to North Africa in February 1943 as deputy to General Patton. In May he succeeded Patton. On several critical occasions his tactical skill and remarkable sense of timing surprised the Germans and soundly defeated them. One of his favorite maxims: ‘Hit the enemy twice: first to find out what he’s got; then, to take it away from him.’

In France with the Canadian Army
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Written four months after the allied invasion of Europe, and seven months to go until the war’s end, YANK MAGAZINE published this account of the Canadian march through France and their heroic stand at the Falaise Gap.

Click here to read about the Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.

Read about the French-Canadians who resisted the draft…

‘Terror in Japan” Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

On March 10, 1945, a group of Superforts crossed Japan’s coast line. Behind them came another group, and another in a line stretching far back toward Saipan. In a long, thin file they roared over Tokyo. They flew low and out of their open bellies spilled bombs of jellied gasoline. When they hit, they burst, spewing out billowing, all-consuming fire. The flames leaped across fire lanes, swallowed factories, destroyed skyscrapers.

Click here to read about August 28, 1945 – the day the American occupation began.

The Planned Invasion of Japan
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Published four months after the World War II Japanese surrender, the YANK MAGAZINE editors saw fit to publish the happily obsolete plans for the invasion of Japan: operations CORONET and OLYMPIC.

Click here to read articles about post-war Japan.

War Stories from the Pacific
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

The attached article is comprised of numerous war stories from the GIs of the 96th Infantry Division who were assigned the pleasant chore of slugging it out with the Japanese in the Leyte Valley of the Philippines.

Click here to read articles about post-war Japan.

General Douglas MacArthur
(’48 Magazine)

If you’ve been looking for an editorial that was intended to take General MacArthur down a peg or two, you’ve found it. It was penned by Shelley Mydans (1915 – 2002), a journalist who was primarily known at the time for her LIFE MAGAZINE news dispatches; she found the General to be both admirable and repulsive at the same time and was thoroughly baffled as to why he was so loved on so many different continents.

Written two years before General MacArthur’s stunning 1950 victory in the Korean War (the Battle of Inchon), this article makes apparent a deep-seated fear held within the senior leadership of the Democratic party that MacArthur was planning to challenge Truman in the 1948 presidential election.

Another article on General MacArthur can be read here…

When Japan Went on the Defensive
(Click Magazine, 1943)

Japan’s one purpose now is to fight back and stall for more time – not to attack. That period in her war is over, and she came out on top…All signs now point to a growing major Allied offensive, and for the first time the enemy will be faced with the problem of holding territory which he can’t afford to lose.

1943 was truly the year that proved to have been the turning point in the war, click here to read about it…