Yank magazine articles

[Thorlifter]

These are from the June 17th 1942 issue which was the 1st issue of Yank magazine. As I get time I'll post articles from each issue. I look forward to your comments.

Opening letter from FDR
To you fighting men of our armed forces overseas your Commander in Chief sends greetings in this, the first issue of your own newspaper.

In YANK you have established an publication which cannot be understood by your enemies. It is inconceivable to them that a soldier should be allowed to express his own thoughts, his ideas and his opinions. It is inconceivable to them that any soldiers -- or any citizens, for that matter -- should have any thoughts other than those dictated by their leaders.

But here is the evidence that you have your own ideas, and the intelligence and the humor and the freedom to express them. Every one of you has an individual mission in this war -- the greatest end most decisive of all wars. You are not only fighting for your country and your people -- you are, in the larger sense, delegates of freedom.

Upon you, and upon your comrades in arms of all the United Nations, depend the lives and liberties of all the human race. You bear with you the hopes of all the rnillions who have suffered under the oppression of the war lorjs of Germany and Japan. You bear with you the highest aspirations of mankind for a life of peace and decency
under God.

All of you well know your own personal stakes in this war: your loses, your families, your free schools, your free churches, the thousand and one simple, homely little virtues which Americans fought to establish, and which Americans have fought to protect, and which Americans today are fighting to extend and perpetuate throughout this earth.

I hope that for you men of our armed forces this paper will be a link with your families and your friends. As your Commander in Chief, I look forward myself to reading YANK -- every issue of it -- from cover to cover.

Article 1
Six months to the day after Pearl Harbor, the honorable ancestors of Japan's Emperor Hirohito stirred uneasily in their graves. A mighty Jap fleet, attempting what might have been intended as a prelude to invasion of Hawaii, stabbed at Midway, 1,300 miles to the west and was promptly hurled back with staggering losses by the U. S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps forces. Two or three enemy aircraft carriers were sunk, one or two severely damaged and the planes from three or more lost. Three battleships, six cruisers and three transports took terrific punishment. Some would never reach port. Upon us the Japs inflicted only slight damage. A U.S. aircraft carrier was hit and a destroyer sunk. Casualties were few.

Article 2
On June 3, at Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutians, the soldiers who had been performing such duties as K. P. with no more excitement than their comrades in the States, or at other quiet outposts, got their first taste of war. The fog that enfolds the islands most of the year parted. Out of the sky came planes with the Rising Sun insignia. They dropped bombs and flashed away. Leaving a few warehouses burning beneath them. Next day they struck at Midway. There were no planes lined up on the ground ready for destruction as once there were at Pearl Harbor This time the planes were in the air, not only to defend the island against the raiding force but to take heavy toll of the warships battling American vessels in the surrounding seas. Two days later, as the Jap fleet finally ducked its American pursuers under cover of darkness. The conservative commander of the U. S. Pacific Fleet gave his report on the respective losses. ''This," he declared, "is the balance sheet that Army, Navy and Marine Corps forces in this area offer their country this morning." Soldiers hearing the news over barrack-room radios got the significance: Pearl Harbor had, in part, been avenged.

Article 3
On the other side of the world bad news flowed in a steady stream into the Wilhelmstrasse. Rommel's Afrika Korps had been stopped again in Libya. The Russians continued to hold in the East. The R.A.F . was sending planes, a thousand at a time. to level whole areas of war industries. And now over the radio the British were warning the French, in effect: "If you value your lives, get out of the coastal areas, from the Belgian frontier down to the Pyrenees. We can't tell you where, and we can't tell you when, but we're coming.'' Black-faced Commandos paid nightly visits to Channel ports, sniping at sentries,damaging docks, destroying airdromes and harrying an already nervous defense force. With them were American staff officers, preparing for the night when an ordinary Commando raid might develop into something a little bit bigger.

Article 4 (Yank editors published questions and complaints from enlisted men)
With all this talk in Congress about a pay increase for us, how about some figures on the U. S. Army pay scale in comparison with that of other armies. PVT. B: SOLSTEIN

For your $21 or $30 right at the moment, basic minimum monthly pay for soldiers in other armies is:
Australia $45.00; Canada $30.00; Germany $21.60; Mexico $12.40; Britain $12.20; Argentina $4.76; Russia $4.00; Brazil $2.80; Italy $1.51; Turkey $0.40; Japan $0.30; China $0.28. See story elsewhere in this issue on what you'll be getting soon. (As a note, pay was increased from $21 to $50 for a private/apprentice seaman)

 

[Thorlifter]

June 24th 1942 - Second Issue

Article 1
U. S. War Cost - $200,000,000 a Day
WASHINGTON - Donald M.Nelson, chairman of the War Production Board, predicts in a radio broadcast that before the end of the year U. S. will be spending "just about $200,000,000 every day" on the war effort.

Article 2
N.Y. Sees Army, Buys War Bonds
NEW YORK—An 11-hour demonstration of the military might of America gave impetus June 13 to a drive by 200,000 Treasury Department "'minute men" to pledge New York families to buy $1,900,000,000 worth of war bonds.

Half a million persons — men from all branches of the armed services and civilians engaged in every type of war work—marched up Fifth Avenue before an estimated 2,500,000 spectators. With them were hundreds of floats, tanks, guns and trucks, and watching them from the reviewing stand before the Public Library were such prominent persons as Vice President Henry A. Wallace, King George II of Greece and Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippine Commonwealth.

Response to the appeals of the "minute men," who began to visit homes throughout the city the following day, was heartening.

"Come in," said a charwoman, "I'll give $2 of my $10 weekly salary."

Mr. and Mrs. Hans Arndt, natives of Berlin and naturalized American citizens, signed up for a $25 bond each month. "Better we should give 10 per cent to bonds than 45 per cent to Hitler, like in the old country," Mr. Arndt remarked.

They were typical of greetings which campaign workers received throughout the city from dreary tenement areas to upper-crust apartment districts. The "minute men" reported that the average pledge was close to the 10 per cent of income quota set by the Treasury Department.

Article 3
FRISCO RADIO NETTLES JAPS
For six months the Japs have been trying to jam KGEI, San Francisco, and throttle the truth in the Far East. Only short-wave outlet west of the Mississippi, KGEI is the one station consistently heard in the Orient, according to American troops based there. It broadcasts 17 hours daily in 11 languages. Jap engineers have been ordered to cloud its reception. Thus far they've failed, because KGEI operates simultaneously on two to four different wave lengths. The Japs have a long grievance against the station.

When the Japs marched into Manila some months ago, they heard KGEI warning the natives not only in English and Spanish, but in their own Japanese: "Japanese troops in the Philippines are passing out counterfeit money. They are doing this to strip your stores and farms at no cost to themselves. Do not accept this counterfeit money made in Japan. Be on your guard." So productive was this announcement that a week later Tokyo threatened the death penalty for any native who refused to accept a Jap's money.

When MacArthur's men retired to the hills of Bataan, it was KGEI kept them in touch with the U. S. and encouraged them in their stand. KGEI broadcast swing music to the Burma Road, newscasts to the Borneo jungles, and Bing Crosby to Corregidor. That's not all. Every morning in a program called "Japan versus Japan," KGEI short-waves the truth to Tokyo. Prepared in Japanese by the Office of Strategic Services, the show is designed to inform the Japs how their own war lords have misled them. The Japs, of course, try to retaliate.

As one example, they broadcast:
"American troops in the Pacific, listen! The city of San Francisco, California, was bombed into shambles by Japanese aircraft last night." Fifteen minutes later KGEI was on the air, denying the Jap fable.

 

[fahrens]

nice job!

 

[Gnomey]

Good stuff!

 

[Thorlifter]

July 1, 1942

Article 1
42 Billion Bux For War Dept.
WASHINGTON—The largest single appropriation bill in the history of the world is well on its way to becoming law. Every cent of it goes to our War Department. It's more dough than Croesus ever had in his sock, and it's all strictly G.I. The measure calls for 42 BILLION bucks. It's to carry the War Department through the fiscal year beginning July 1, and already it has been passed by the House. The vote was 352 to 0.

The bill in itself is a fair indication of what Washington thinks about this war. It's here to stay awhile. The only safe thing to do, one representative told newspapermen before voting yes on the measure, is to assume the war will last five years at least. Of course, that is not an official opinion voiced by a board of strategy, but it is some indication that we are not expected to get out of the trenches, as they used to say, before Christmas.

The bill breaks down like this: Ten billion bucks goes for Army personnel. That includes your monthly pay, the clothes on your back,' your chow, medical care (shots included) and welfare.

The air corps gets 11 billion bucks —and that ain't million, either, brother—while ordnance is scheduled to buy a lot of stuff with almost 10 billion bucks. Transportation is going to cost almost 4 billion, and that ought to get us a hell of a long way toward those super autobahns that Adolf Hitler taped all over the face of the Third Reich.

The appropriations committee of the House explained in its report that funds for the air corps will build 23,500 airplanes, including spares and accessory equipment. This will complete the War Department's part of the program enunciated by the President On January 6, 1942, which calls for the production of 60,000 airplanes for the calendar year 1942 and 125,000 airplanes for the calendar year 1943. That's a hell of a lot of airplanes, Adolf. You, too, Hiro.

Article 2
U-Boats Plague U. S. Shipping
Adolf Hitler started playing around in our back yard again during June. His own submarines, and maybe a few he got on axis-lend-lease from his friend Musso, sank 14 United Nations ships between June 3 and 14 in the Caribbean. Five were U. S. vessels.

We hit back hard. The Navy disclosed that it has been convoying ships off the Atlantic coast for more than a month, and for the first time the role our own Army is playing in the Battle of the Atlantic was divulged. Army minesweepers, it is now disclosed, are plowing right alongside the Navy through the blue waters of the Caribbean. They've gotten a number of subs, this Army and Navy maritime team, but how many we don't know yet.

Being able as Americans to take these things in stride, Washington admits our losses but lets the axis guess how many of their corsairs will ever return to get the Iron Cross. We confess the loss of 242 merchant vessels sunk in the North Atlantic since Pearl Harbor. Including losses in Canadian and South American waters, the total is more than 300.

Inauguration of the convoy system has forced the axis to change its tactics, and they're now on the defensive somewhere on a watery five-yard line, trying to punt for distance.

They're planting minefields, and at least three Allied vessels have been sunk by such explosives. An International News Service reporter aboard a sub chaser with the Atlantic patrol wrote vividly of the rescue of the American crew of a mine-stricken collier. "We picked up eight survivors.

The first man we hauled over the side was John N. Shea, of Baltimore, a quartermaster. Shea, who had been below deck when the mine exploded, was wearing a pair of pink and white striped shorts. From the minute he grasped the line thrown to him to the time he was on deck and had blown the salt water and oil out of his system, he cursed a steady stream—divided equally about the Nazis and the fact he had lost his papers."

Article 3
Reds Say Nazis Lost 10 Million
MOSCOW—Ten million casualties have been suffered by the Nazis since they attacked Soviet Russia a year ago, according to an official Soviet report. The Reds admit they have suffered 4,500,000 casualties. Of the 10,000,000 approximately 3,500,000 were killed, according to the Soviet figures. Russia boasted that 70 per cent of her wounded had returned to active duty while the Germans have returned only 40 per cent. This discrepancy assertedly was caused by the inability of Nazi ambulance facilities to meet transportation demands. Materiel losses of each nation were listed as follows:
Russia Germany
Planes 9,000 20,000
Tanks 15,000 24,000
Guns Not given 30,500

Article 4
GAL OFFICERS READY FOR TRAINING
DES MOINES, la.—This pleasant mid-western city soon will echo to the tread of G.I. feet, feminine gender.

Carpenters are busy brightening up the old brick barracks at Fort Des Moines for the first shipment of girls who will enter officer's training courses at the new Women's Auxiliary Army Corps School.

Maybe there are a few men in the back of the hall who haven't heard about the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps because they've been too busy with K.P. or didn't get the home town paper in the last couple of months. Well, the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps — known as the WAAC'S to save wear and tear on tongue and tonsils — is the new women's army.

It will train women to take over behind-the-line desk, Switchboard and chauffeur jobs, cooking, laundry, air raid duty and the million other soldier tasks that could just as well be handled by bright young ladies.

The War Department appointed Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, smart wife of a former Texas governor, to direct the corps. She planned at first to take about 12,000 hand picked volunteers, beginning at $21 a month, and maybe increase the quota later. The first call was for 375 top notchers to attend this officers' candidate school in Des Moines. More than 40,000 American women tried to get in. It was just like a dress sale at a bargain basement counter.

Many applicants were turned down in a rigid mental test. Then Mrs. Hobby went through the survivors and selected 500 girls that fit her standards. She was beginning to cut that 500 down to 375 for the first officer's class when something drastic changed all her plans.

Grumpy corps area and division commanders, who were expected to snort at the idea of having women in their outfits, flooded the War Department with requests for these girl G.I.'s. The army decided that it could use a woman's touch, after all.

Now Mrs. Hobby and her male superiors in Washington are working late nights on new plans to double or possibly triple the original strength of the WAACS before next winter. Meanwhile, Fort Des Moines gets ready for the 375 embryo officers. Under the new expansion program, the class may be enlarged.

Because these future officers are hand-picked, there won't be a guard house on the premises. And no K.P., either. The girls will be busy enough studying military courtesy and other aspects of army life.

That goes for this class of officer candidates only. In the future, the girls studying to be WAAC leaders will go on K.P., empty the garbage and haul the coal when the Mess Sergeant says so, just like any other G.I.

The barracks at Fort Des Moines, according to one of ihe officers in charge, will be "somewhat on the severe side but comfortable, light and clean." In other words, fancy embroidered spreads on the bunks and chintz draperies on the foot lockers are out.

There will be regular Saturday morning inspections, too. Most women are used to inspections at Saturday afternoon bridge parties and Saturday night dinner dances at the Country Club but this Saturday morning primping up before the mirror will be brand new stuff to them.

The P.X. at Fort Des Moines is ready for rush business. It has installed a complete line of lipstick, powder, uniforms and bobby pins. Imagine things like that being bought with a canteen check.

 

[fubar57]

Interesting that Germany suffered almost 1/7 of its population to casualties by summer of 1942

WW2 Germany Population, Statistics, and Numbers