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Features

Ten-hut!

Hair shorn, run ragged, and treated with no respect, ordinary Joes became war-winning GI Joes at boot camp. Photo essay by Jim Kushlan

Gallery

Welcome to the Service, son

New recuits got an occasional fatherly pat on the back, but being indoctrinated into the military was hardly a family picnic at the park. There was exercise and long marches and drilling. And more exercise.

From the America in WWII Articles Archive

YOUR NUMBER’S UP!

The time for depending on volunteers had passed. The world war had come to America, and men had to be forced into uniform right away. Boot camp, here they come. By Carl Zebrowski

Fighting Blind in HÜrtgen Forest

US troops fought and bled for six months in Germany’s tangled Hürtgenwald. Only halfway through did their generals realize why. By Edward G. Miller

Son of a Bull Moose

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., looked like his famous dad. He even shouted "Bully!" And like his dad, he was brave, as he proved to the world on D-Day. By Tom Huntington

Fats

Jazz ivory-tickler Fats Waller lived large and played hard. But when Hitler and tojo messed with America, Fats went on the warpath. By John E. Stanchak

Departments

Kilroy Was Here

A note from our editor: "Hello, GI Life"

V-Mail

Letters from our readers

Home Front

A bomber crashes into the Empire State Building

Pinup

Ginger Rogers

Footage

Ginger ROgers from the cutting-room floor

Sixty years before Renée Zellwegger played the starring showgirl in the Oscar-winning 2002 film Chicago, Ginger Rogers played the same character. In this scene that didn’t make the final cut of 1942’s Roxie Hart, Rogers does the Charleston as only she could.

The Funnies

Miss America vs. Miss America

I Was There

GIs write letters to a Hollywood bombshell

Landings

A pirate ship on the Missippi–the USS Kidd

Link

official USS Kidd and Veterans Memorial Website

War Stories

Readers’ memories of the war

Flashbacks

Print ads from the war years

Books and Media

Our take on the latest releases

Theater of War

Von Ryan’s Express

78 RPM

Sir Lancelot

Footage

America’s First calypso king sings in a zombie movie

Sir Lancelot adapted his song "Shame and Scandal in the Family" for 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie, now a certified zombie film classic.

WWII Events

A calendar of present-day happenings

GIs

"Armed with a Mortar and a Camera"