Gregory Galloway

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, claiming that Poland had attacked them first in a series of sabotage operations. In fact, German soldiers dressed in Polish uniforms undertook these operations (called “Operation Himmler”) to give them cover. Adolf Hitler cited these events as rationale for the invasion, but privately told his generals, “credibility doesn’t matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth.”

The editorial headline in the paper, “We MUST Stay Out” was the prevailing opinion in the US for the next 2 years, with total isolationism giving way to limited to support to the Allies, until entry into the war after Pearl Harbor.

32-year-old James Stewart was inducted into the US Army on 22 March 1941. He was the first major movie star to wear a uniform in WWII, and for Stewart, it should have come even earlier.

Stewart was drafted in October 1940, but was rejected because he was 5 lbs below the weight requirement. Stewart put on the necessary weight and re-enlisted.

A skilled pilot, Stewart feared that he would be used for recruitment and public relations purposes instead of flying combat missions. Stewart’s fears were realized until August 1943, when he was assigned to the 445th Bomb Group. Stewart flew his first combat mission on 13 December 1943, bombing a German U-Boat facility in Kiel. Stewart would go on to fly 20 official bombing missions during the war (he flew a number of “uncredited” missions) and earned a number of medals and accommodations, included the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with oak leaf clusters, and the French Croix de guerre.

On the night of 9 March 1945, more than 300 U.S. B-29 bombers launched one of the most devastating air raids in history, named Operation Meetinghouse. By dawn, more than 100,000 people were dead, a million were homeless, 267,000 buildings were destroyed and 16 square miles of Tokyo were reduced to ash. Tokyo was the most densely populated city in the world at the time. There were no military targets on the mission and casualties were all civilians, women, children and the elderly.

Following the attack on Tokyo, the Japanese government ordered the evacuation of all schoolchildren (totaling more than 400,000) in the third to sixth grades from the main cities.

More people were killed in the Tokyo firebombing of March 9-10 than in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later. By the end of the war, 67 Japanese cities were firebombed, Tokyo 65 times.

Asked later about the morality of the firebombings, General Curtis LeMay replied: “I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal…. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”

Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, most Americans were adamantly against US involvement in the war in Europe, and many were pro-Germany.

In 1936, the Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, or German American Bund, was formed as “an organization of patriotic Americans of German stock,” operating about 20 youth and training camps, and eventually growing to a membership in the tens of thousands among 70 regional divisions across the country.

On 20 February 1939, the Bund held a “Pro-America Rally” at Madison Square Garden in New York City that had more than 20,000 people in attendance.

While speakers ranted against President “Frank D. Rosenfeld” and his “Jew Deal,” the Garden was surrounded by more than 80,000 counter protesters who denounced the rhetoric inside.

Once the US entered World War II, the German American Bund fell apart, many of its assets were seized, and its leader arrested for embezzlement, and later deported to Germany.

28-year-old Joe DiMaggio was enlisted in the Army on 17 February 1943.

DiMaggio had considered joining earlier, but stayed playing baseball after President Roosevelt urged the Major Leagues to continue during wartime. “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going,” the President stated. “Everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.”

DiMaggio made his decision to join without consulting the New York Yankees. He was denied combat duty, and was instead assigned to “Special Services,” where he mostly played baseball with other soldiers on bases in California, Hawaii, and New Jersey in order to improve morale.

DiMaggio was discharged from the Army on 14 Sept. 1945.

According to one biography of DiMaggio, “he went into the Army, a 28-year-old superstar, still at the height of his athletic powers. By the time he was discharged from the service, he was nearly 31, divorced, underweight, malnourished and bitter. Those three years, 1943-1945, would carve a gaping hole in DiMaggio’s career totals, creating an absence that would be felt like a missing limb.”

While Joe DiMaggio served in the military his parents, Giuseppe and Rosalia, were classified as “enemy aliens” by the US Government since they had been born in Italy. They had to carry ID with them at all times and could not leave a 5 mile radius of their San Francisco home without written permission. Giuseppe, who earned his living as a fisherman, could not enter San Francisco Bay, and his fishing boat was confiscated by the government.

Mussolini rescued by German troops from his prison in Campo Imperatore on 12 September 1943

By July 1943, it had become clear that Italy would fall to the Allies. They had landed in Sicily on 10 July and had begun bombing Rome on the 19th.

Mussolini was forced to call a meeting of the Grand Council on 24 July (the first time it had met since the start of the war), which voted to give power back to King Victor Emmanuel (by a 19-8 vote).

Mussolini was arrested the following day and General Pietro Badoglio was named Prime Minister, effectively ending fascist rule in Italy. When Mussolini’s arrest was announced on Italian radio, people cheered and celebrated, thinking the war would soon end.

Badoglio entered into an Armistice with Allied forces on 3 September, which caused Germany to mount a counteroffensive to regain control of Italian land, and disarm as many Italian troops as possible.

Mussolini was shuttled secretly from one prison to another, but on 12 September, German commandos rescued him and brought him to meet Hitler, who urged Mussolini to establish a new government. The Italian Social Republic was never more than a failed puppet government under Hitler’s control, with Mussolini effectively living under house arrest (Mussolini was noted as saying he’d prefer a concentration camp life under the SS).

Mussolini spent much of his time writing his memoirs. “I await the end of the tragedy and—strangely detached from everything—I do not feel any more an actor. I feel I am the last of spectators.”

Mussolini was arrested and shot while trying to escape to Switzerland in April 1945.

The rationing of meat, butter, and cheese began during World War II on March 29, 1943. 

via the National Archives at Kansas City on Twitter

On the night of 9 March 1945, more than 300 U.S. B-29 bombers launched one of the most devastating air raids in history, named Operation Meetinghouse. By dawn, more than 100,000 people were dead, a million were homeless, 267,000 buildings were destroyed and 16 square miles of Tokyo were reduced to ash. Tokyo was the most densely populated city in the world at the time. There were no military targets on the mission and casualties were all civilians, women, children and the elderly.

Following the attack on Tokyo, the Japanese government ordered the evacuation of all schoolchildren (totaling more than 400,000) in the third to sixth grades from the main cities.

More people were killed in the Tokyo firebombing of March 9-10 than in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later. By the end of the war, 67 Japanese cities were firebombed, Tokyo 65 times.

Asked later about the morality of the firebombings, General Curtis LeMay replied: “I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal…. Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.”

28-year-old Joe DiMaggio was enlisted in the Army on 17 February 1943.

DiMaggio had considered joining earlier, but stayed playing baseball after President Roosevelt urged the Major Leagues to continue during wartime. “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going,” the President stated. “Everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.”

DiMaggio made his decision to join without consulting the New York Yankees. He was denied combat duty, and was instead assigned to “Special Services,” where he mostly played baseball with other soldiers on bases in California, Hawaii, and New Jersey in order to improve morale.

DiMaggio was discharged from the Army on 14 Sept. 1945.

According to one biography of DiMaggio, “he went into the Army, a 28-year-old superstar, still at the height of his athletic powers. By the time he was discharged from the service, he was nearly 31, divorced, underweight, malnourished and bitter. Those three years, 1943-1945, would carve a gaping hole in DiMaggio’s career totals, creating an absence that would be felt like a missing limb.”

While Joe DiMaggio served in the military his parents, Giuseppe and Rosalia, were classified as “enemy aliens” by the US Government since they had been born in Italy. They had to carry ID with them at all times and could not leave a 5 mile radius of their San Francisco home without written permission. Giuseppe, who earned his living as a fisherman, could not enter San Francisco Bay, and his fishing boat was confiscated by the government.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to travel on official state business by airplane on January 14, 1943. Far from the luxury of the modern Air Force One, Roosevelt took a 17,000-mile round trip in a Boeing 314 Flying Boat nicknamed the ‘Dixie Clipper’ across the Atlantic to a meeting with Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle in Morocco. 

The journey to Casablanca took four days to complete with frequent stops for refueling and a chance for Roosevelt to rest. Upon his arrival in North Africa, the leaders set about formulating the Casablanca Declaration, which announced that the Allies would accept nothing but an unconditional surrender from the Axis powers. 

After enduring his first long and uncomfortable flight, President Roosevelt soon became accustomed to flying and being the very first jet-setting president! He is pictured here on a plane later that year.

Image: “President Franklin D. Roosevelt with Dwight D. Eisenhower aboard an Airplane Enroute from North Africa to Sicily, 12/8/1943”

35-year-old Lee Miller receives her credentials from the US War Dept. on 30 December 1942 in order to become the official war photographer for Vogue magazine.

Attached to the 83rd Infantry Division of the US Army, Miller documented the bombing of London, the first use of napalm (by US planes in Saint-Malo, France in 1944), the liberation of Paris, the Nazi concentration camps of Buchenwald and Dachau, and was photographed by her colleague David E. Scherman bathing in HItler’s bathtub (taken the day before Hitler committed suicide).

CHRISTMAS DAY 1944 – Army Sgt. Edward F. Good feeds a turkey leg to a fellow wounded soldier, Pfc. Lloyd Deming, during the Christmas dinner, 2nd Field Hospital, San Jose, Mindoro, Philippine Islands, 25 December 1944.

(WW2DB)

In 1942, at the peak of his career, Glenn Miller wanted to join the war effort.  At 38 he was too old to be drafted and wrote the Army, asking to be placed in charge of a band in order to entertain the troops.  Glenn Miller played his last show as a civilian on 27 Sept. 1942.

Miller and his 50-piece Army Air Force band traveled to England in 1944, and on 15 Dec. 1944, he flew to play for the troops in France.  The plane disappeared over the English Channel.  No trace of the plane, passengers or crew has ever been found.

“Marlene Dietrich, motion picture actress, autographs the cast on the leg of Tec 4 Earl E. McFarland of Cavider, Texas, at a United States hospital in Belgium, where she has been entertaining the GIs,” 11/24/1944

Ernest Hemingway’s press credentials, issued 23 November 1943.

According to James M. Hutchisson‘s biography of Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn (Hemingway’s wife at the time and a noted war correspondent) grew tired of Hemingway’s bragging about his war expertise and told him that if he wanted to make himself useful, he should go to Europe and cover the war.

Gellhorn received her own credentials in November 1943 and immediately left for London. Hemingway remained behind.

Hemingway did not make his way to London until May 1944 and immediately began an affair (Gellhorn wrote to a friend on 17 May, “it is all over.”). A week later Hemingway was seriously injured in a car crash after partying with photographer Robert Capa (some newspapers reported that Hemingway was dead). Hemingway needed 50 stitches on his scalp, but when Gellhorn arrived at the hospital, her husband was surrounded with champagne bottles. Gellhorn told Hemingway that she never wanted to see him again.