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The Capture of General Hideko Tojo (Yank Magazine, 1945)

War correspondent George Burns reported on the momentous day when the American Army came to arrest the former Prime Minister of Imperial Japan, General Hideko Tojo (1884 - 1948). Tojo served as Japan's Prime Minister between 1941 and 1944 and is remembered for having ordered the attack on the American naval installation at Pearl Harbor, as well as the invasions of many other Western outposts in the Pacific. Judged as incompetent by the Emperor, he was removed from office in the summer of 1944.

This article describes the efforts of Lt. Jack Wilpers who is credited for prolonging the life of Tojo after his amateur suicide attempt and seeing to it that the man kept his date with the hangman. Nominated for the Bronze Star, he was decorated in 2010: read THE WASHINGTON POST article.


Krazy Kat: Low Art Meets High Art (Vanity Fair, 1922)

At the very peak of bourgeois respectability, one of the high priests of art and culture, Gilbert Seldes (1893 - 1970), sat comfortably on his woolsack atop Mount Parnasus and piled the praises high and deep for one of the lowest of the commercial arts. The beneficiary was the cartoonist George Herriman (1880 – 1944), creator of Ignatz Mouse and all other absurd creations that appeared in his syndicated comic strip, "Krazy Kat" (1913-1944):

"His strange unnerving distorted trees, his totally unlivable houses, his magic carpets, his faery foam, are items in a composition which is incredibly with unreality. Through them wanders Krazy, the most tender and the most foolish of creatures, a gentle monster of our new mythology."


World War II in the Jungles of Burma (Yank Magazine, 1944)

Written by correspondent Dave Richardson (1916 - 2005) "behind Japanese lines in Northern Burma", this article was characterized as "odds and ends from a battered diary of a footsore YANK correspondent after his first 500 miles of marching and Jap-hunting with Merrill's Marauders."

One of the most highly decorated war correspondents of World War II, Richardson is remembered as the fearless reporter who tramped across 1,000 miles of Asian jungle in order to document the U.S. Army's four-month campaign against entrenched Japanese forces - armed only with a camera, a typewriter and an M-1 carbine.


Levittown: The Birth of the Modern Suburb (Pageant Magazine, 1952)

When the Second World War ended in 1945 the Europeans began shoveling themselves out of the rubble while simultaneously erecting their respective nanny-states. By contrast, the Americans set out on a shopping-spree that has yet to be matched in history. Never before had so many people been able to purchase so many affordable consumer products, and never before had there ever been such a variety; aided by the G.I. Bill, housing was a big part of this binge - and binge they did! The apple of their collective eyes involved a style of prefabricated housing that was called "Ranch House", "Cape Cod" and "Early American". Millions of them were built all across the country - and the financial model for these real estate developers came from a Long Island, New York man named William J. Levitt.

Attached is an article titled "15 Minutes with Levitt of Levittown".


Leopard and Zebra Prints Become the Thing, Again (Quick Magazine, 1954)

Two years before this article went to press, some Delphian at QUICK MAGAZINE scribbled these words:

"Expect fashion designers to jump on the African trend in literature and entertainment. Examples: four new African films (Cry the Beloved Country, The Magic Garden, "Latuko" and The African Queen) to be followed by a Walt Disney African wildlife film."

- next thing you know, down fashion's runways sashay the teen waifs - all clad as if they were the striped and spotted beasts who prance upon the Serengeti Plain.


Helmets Along the Western Front (Literary Digest, 1915)

The tremendous advances in artillery that took place during the years leading up to the war helped to reintroduce an old, time-tested element to the uniforms of the 20th Century soldier: the helmet.

So numerous were head injuries from high-explosive shells during the first year of the war that it compelled the doctors on both sides to beg their respective generals to issue some measure of cranium protection in order to reduce the casualty figures. As you will read in the attached article, the French began to wear helmets in the fall of 1915; the British and Germans a year later.


Lillian Gish Recalls ''The Birth of a Nation'' (Stage Magazine, 1937)

Twenty-two years after wrap was called on the set of "The Birth of a Nation", leading lady Lillian Gish (1893 - 1993), put pen to paper and wrote this reminiscence about her days on the set with D.W. Griffith:

"In 'Birth of a Nation' we used as many as six hundred people, and the complete cost of the picture was ninety-one thousand dollars. It was the first motion picture to run for two hours, and to be shown in a legitimate theater twice a day at theater prices... D.W. Griffith had his reward however, when President Wilson saw it at the White House and said, 'It is like writing history with lightening, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.'"

The GIs Hear About the Death of President Roosevelt (Yank Magazine, 1945)

Gathered from all the various battlefronts around the globe, the attached article serves as a archive of spontaneous reactions uttered by a smattering of stunned GIs when they heard that President Roosevelt had died:

"Pvt. Howard McWaters of Nevada City, California, just released from the hospital and waiting to go back to the Americal Division, shook his head slowly. 'Roosevelt made a lot of mistakes,' he said. 'But I think he did the best he could, and when he made mistakes he usually admitted it. Nobody could compare with him as President.'"

Air-Raid Wardens on the Home Front (ClicK Magazine, 1942)

The Congressional Declaration of War was a mere five months old when this photo-essay appeared that documented the earliest days of the American Civil Defense efforts during the Second World War.

At this point in the war, the Marines were still three months away from landing on Guadalcanal and the Army wouldn't be arriving in North Africa for another six months - but the neighborhood volunteers of the Civil Defense seemed to be prepared.