"The Graphic," Volume 1, Number 7 (Saturday, August 4, 1945).

This post is a follow-up to this earlier one, about two regimental newspapers I have from World War II called The Graphic. In that post I published the pages of the first issue, now here's the other. Please hit that link so I don't hafta explain it all again...

I could write quite a lot about each page of these papers, but it's pretty time-consuming and this isn't exactly my nostalgia focus. Plus, as noted in the previous post, no one but me really seems to give a shit about them. The post has gotten a tiny bit of traffic, a trickle more from my Facebook page, I've reached out to other parties that I thought might be interested, and... crickets. No replies, no comments, no likes. Oh well. I thought the article by future director of The Big Red One, Samuel Fuller, would attract some eyeballs, but no. Maybe the fact that this year is the 80th anniversary of the war's end will help garner interest.

For this issue, I went ahead and combined the top and bottom scans I created. I initially feared a loss of quality, but I find they look good on both my phone and my PC, perfectly legible and zoomable. I tried repairing the stain on pages one and two, decided to leave it as is.

I'm not a WWII buff by any means, but I'd love to hear from anyone finding these posts to be interesting or useful in some way...

BONUS!

In the interest of searchability, here is the text of Fuller’s article.

"Die Sixteenth Infantry hat ein haus eingeschlagen!"

By Cpl. Samuel Fuller

Once upon a time I was with the 16th. Am on DS [Detached Service] for several days to help out on the history. The GRAPHIC asked for an article on the third anniversary. I have no article, but I’d like to get something off my chest.

I didn't make Oran with the original 16th. I was a rifleman with K Company, 26th infantry when I was switched to the 16th in Algiers. It would be easy to jump off with the shopworn "Lest we forget,” but it is hard for me to get that sentimental.

In the early part of August, 1942, the 16th Infantry Regiment reached England and the first combat division from the U.S. in World War II prepared for the invasion of North Africa. An expression was born in Africa—“One more hill…” which simply meant there was just one more hill to take before your outfit was relieved. The expression lost its hope for an ending, added a bitter touch to an optimistic doggie.

“Smoky-smoky? Cigarette? Zig-zig?” became part of the doggie's dictionary. An unbelievable fire fight mushroomed into six months of mountain, desert fighting. Doggies resisted and attacked tanks and djebels [hills] became more significant than mere tongue-twisters.

August of 1942 had been forgotten.

It was July now, 1943, and in Sicily there were almonds and Mark VIs [anti-tank mines], pomegranates and 88s [anti-tank artillery guns], watermelons and nebelwerfers [rocket launchers]—and the old favorite “One more hill…”

August of 1942 had been forgotten.

It was November now, 1943, and in England there were maneuvers and rat catchers, hikes and marriages.

Omaha Beach took its toll. Suddenly there was the Siegfried Line and following a dark period, doggies angled for Russian stars in Czechoslovakia.

Nothing maudlin so far and most of you know that writing an article based on memories invites you to be maudlin. I am not going to describe that sax player waving an arm stump on Easy Red or that lieutenant colonel who never touched the Channel alive or that young boy who wanted to be a pilot curled up like a baby in a red blanket but struck down like a doggie on the road to Colleville-sur-Mer.

Names? That's easy. Kay of I Company, Briggs of C Company, Leyton of the I&R, O'Brien of Cannon… but no time for tear-jerking copy now. That would be like urinating against the wind… a bit too late in the game, don't you think?

I've had the opportunity to gather material for the history and for myself. I went sniper hunting, saw A Company take Stolberg, saw I Company attack toward Weilerwist, saw a medic streak through a minefield to patch up three legless doggies and lose his own legs on the way back…

You probably have seen much more than I have… I'm only mentioning these things to bring out that none of the men had the chance to remember August, 1942. Three years is a long time. And in those three years individual exploits were only eclipsed by group exploits. But weeping or editorializing or honoring, to me, is no way to carve an epitaph. Particularly now, when so many of you are new to the 16th. I know it is difficult to get excited about an outfit that means nothing to you. And no one is forcing you to get excited.

But, three years ago this week doggies started on a trip and if you can look around and find many regiments that have accomplished in three years what the 16th scored, then you’re a better Hawkshaw [detective] than the rest of us…

Being with the 99th Division means I'm sweating out going home. I used to write for a living. I hope to write a book one day—just the story of one regiment in combat. I even hope to write a movie of that regiment. I'm not a press agent—I’ll write strictly for money. But somewhere in the background will emerge, whether I can help it or not, the saga of a regiment that raised hell back in 1942, beginning early in August, and stopped raising hell only on May 9, 1945 in Czechoslovakia.

The Germans say “Der Blitz hat in ein Haus eingeschlagen.” That means, “The lightning has struck a house.”

So--if three years ago in August doesn't mean a thing to you, I'm pretty sure that to the Germans it means:

"Die Sixteenth Infantry hat ein Haus

eingeschlagen."