The War of Words: How America’s GI Journalists Battled Censorship and Propaganda to Help Win World War II

In this eye-opening account, historian Manning (When Books Went to War) delves into the pivotal role amateur U.S. troop newspapers played in WWII. In 1942, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall revitalized the Army’s tradition of unit-based newspapers with the distribution of field kits “brimming with printing gear,” including mimeograph machines, on which the mostly novice journalists cranked out their newssheets. At a time when the press around the world was censored (even American newspapers were corralled by the U.S. government into a voluntary program of “self-regulation”), troop journalists on the Western front counterpunched against Nazi propaganda and kept soldiers well-informed. (In the Pacific theater, on the other hand, unit newspapers under the domineering Gen. Douglas MacArthur bristled with “the rancor, depression, and resentment” of censorship.) Army soldier-journalists in the field, “dazed by the horror of combat and the prospect of death,” documented critical moments in history: for example, the May 11, 1945, issue of the 42nd Rainbow Division’s Rainbow Reveille was absent its “usual swagger and humor” because it focused its coverage on the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. Based on letters and newspaper extracts, Manning’s vital study draws liberally and poignantly on soldiers’ own words. It’s an essential contribution to the history of WWII. (Sept.)