Dec. 7. 1936 is the third issue of LIFE and the magazine is taking note of a new sport in America, skiing. Europe is 20 years ahead of the U.S., and the pictures in this edition are mostly taken at the half-a-dozen resorts in the high Alps like St. Moritz and Davos. Photographers discover that [...]
Here we see the first pictures of London in September, 1940 as the Germans begin their ‘Blitz” of Britain which lasted until May, 1941. More than one million London homes were damaged or destroyed while 20,000+ civilians lost their lives in the largest city on earth at this time. LIFE reports that German “reserves of [...]
The bittersweet taste of war and victory is in the air as America transitions into peace on Nov. 19, 1945. Vivacious Rita Daigle is on the LIFE cover displaying wide belts on her 21 inch waist. Just 18 years old, Rita graduated from convent school the prior year and soon became a GI Pin-Up girl [...]
Japan’s Army is flexing it’s muscles on Jan. 11, 1937 and is actually running the government. The Army’s strength now is 250,000 men and 13,000 officers. According to LIFE, “No soldier in the world takes so readily to discipline. He can march 50 miles a day on a diet of fish and rice. He will [...]
Japan’s Army is flexing it’s muscles on Jan. 11, 1937 and is actually running the government. The Army’s strength now is 250,000 men and 13,000 officers. According to LIFE, “No soldier in the world takes so readily to discipline. He can march 50 miles a day on a diet of fish and rice. He will commit suicide in action.” In just a few short years Allied forces would be on the receiving end of these personal qualities. LIFE concludes that the Japanese “are gluttons for exercise and clean-living.”
Miners in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania had been experiencing hard times since the mid 1920′s when coal companies introduced new machinery that displaced many men. And when the depression arrived people and towns were becoming more desperate every day. Miners used the skills acquired on the job to secretly mine coal on company land to heat their homes. Then they used it as barter for food and other services. As the depression continued these illegal operations expanded to the point where thousands of tons were being mined each day. The coal companies had been attempting to cartelize the industry for decades and were strongly opposed to this competing production. By 1936 400,000 tons of stolen coal was being sold to New York City alone, LIFE states. Local juries would not convict the bootleggers, and local, state and federal officials would not pursue the issue. Government officials knew that unemployment was up to 75% in some PA towns and but for bootleg coal many faced starvation. Mining coal illegally was also very dangerous work. Timbers are required for support and miners used whatever timber was available nearby which was often inadequate. Many collapsed and children were at risk of falling in them. As a consequence of years of illegal mining, fires like those in the Centralia, PA mines…started in 1962…continue to burn today. Bootleg mining declined during WWII as men were sent to war. Alternate fuel sources like oil and gas greatly expanded after WWII and bought an end to this activity.
In the early days of LIFE pictures of pretty women in baths or bathing suits were often featured. In this issues we learn that a wax bath to remove two pounds of excess weight cost $10, and it involved 50 pounds of hot wax being applied on each female patron. In London a Thames River mud bath was popular with the fashionable set. A 15 cent bottle of powdered milk was all that was necessary for American women at home to enjoy a milk bath cherished by the Romans since 100 BC.
Dec. 28, 1936 presents LIFE in it’s sixth week of existence. Already LIFE is selling 600,000 copies a week and squeezing the existing presses dry trying to meet demand. This high-caliber printing job is done on heavily enameled paper almost at newspaper speed by R.R. Donnelley & Sons in Chicago. LIFE is clearly a “picture magazine” at this point and doesn’t delve into the subject matter with much narrative. It will take another year or so for the magazine to find it’s “voice.”
Dancing was the rage in 1936 and “…people of all ages and sizes are dancing as never before.” And Arthur Murray’s dancing school was booming. The Murray building in New York City had 128 studios occupying eight floors. A loudspeaker phonograph system offered a constant choice of four kinds of dance melodies. Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. had two Murray instructors come to their home three times a week for two hour sessions. It was an ambition of every amateur to some day dance like Fred Astaire, whose amusing, wry expression is as familiar as his flying feet to millions of movie goers. The Lindy Hop was Harlem’s favorite dance which is sort of a strut plus fox-trotting and several improvisations thrown in.
LIFE Publisher Henry Luce’s parents were missionaries in China where he was raised before being sent to boarding school in England and then America. He introduces Chiang Kai-Shek to America in this issue and declares him “Hero of the week.” Luce stuck with this corrupt and ruthless politician and military leader until the bitter end in 1949. In 1927 Chiang split with the Communist wing of the Nationalist party and set up the Nationalist Government in Nanking. As the above pictures illustrate, captured Communists were executed on the spot by the Nationalists. “Strangest paradox in Chinese character is its mixture of tenderness and cruelty,” rationalizes Luce. In addition to the Chinese Civil War in 1936, China was also resisting the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Note the above picture of Japan’s gigantic electric trumpets to serve as ears for detecting enemy planes.
LIFE February 2, 1942 was a grim time for Allied Forces on all fronts. The Japanese and Germans were inflicting stunning losses. America’s planes were mostly untested in combat theaters and some U.S. senators were saying, “…that only one out of four U.S. planes can match enemy planes.” In the case of the B-19 pictured above they were correct. The biggest plane ever built, this 80 ton bomber had a cruising speed of 186 mph, was too vulnerable if hit by enemy fire, and never went into production. The B-17 Flying Fortress turned out to be the decisive plane, especially in Europe. It had a maximum speed of 285 mph and it was rugged. Widely circulated photos showed heavily damaged B-17′s returning safely. It is estimated that close to half the bombs dropped on Germany during the war were from this plane. Almost 12,000 of these were produced by the end of the war. Made famous by the documentary film, Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress, and piloted by Robert Morgan, the Memphis Belle was the first B-17 heavy bomber to complete 25 missions with her crew intact.
There was no time for extensive testing of these American planes and improvements were often made during production or at the forward bases in order to integrate feedback from the crews. Inside these planes were American young men and boys whose bravery and achievements electrified Americans on the Home Front and raised faltering morale. Butch O’Hare flew the chunky F4F Wildcat and earned The Medal of Honor (MOH) for single-handedly saving the aircraft carrier USS Lexington from serious damage or loss. Pappy Boyington piloted the F4U Corsair and shot down 26 Japanese aircraft and also won the MOH. The P-38, named “fork-tailed devil” by the Luftwaffe and “two planes, one pilot” by the Japanese, was used in a number of different roles and especially as a long range fighter. It was the plane used by America’s top aces, Richard Bong (40 victories) and Thomas McGuire (38 victories).
The B-24 went into mass production in 1943 at Ford’s Willow Run facility where peak production reached 650 per month by 1944. More than 18,400 were eventually built. B-24′s flew higher, faster, had greater range and carried a heavier bomb load than the B-17. However, it was more difficult to fly, with heavy control forces, and more vulnerable to battle damage. Aircrews tended to favor the B-17′s stout qualities above all other considerations.
As Americans read this issue of LIFE in early 1942 all they had was hope that these instruments of war would stem the tide of defeat. The planes and their crews had yet to achieve notoriety in any battles and the planes themselves were not large in number. Eight of America’s battleships had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor. By showcasing these planes, LIFE was sending our enemies a message that America had teeth and that, “They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind.”
~John W.Poynton @JWPoynton
