“The New Disorder” (Summer, 1943)
by Jacob Glushakow (1914-2000)
12.5 x 14 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Jacob Glushakow was a famous Jewish artist who lived in Baltimore, MD, who spent most of his life creating numerous drawings of the Baltimore area. He graduated from the Baltimore City College high school in 1933 and went on to the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Art Students League in New York, where he studied from 1933 to 1936. Jacob enlisted in the Air Force (December 17, 1941) and eventually served as a sergeant in England. On his enlistment materials, he is listed as an artist.

Jacob was initially trained and stationed at the Davis-Monthan (D-M) Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ. There are local newspaper reports in the Tucson Daily from June 11, 1942 (a painting of the Air Base selected to appear in the issue of Life Magazine during the first week of July); June 17, 1942 (painting signs for an Benefit Dance); and October 9, 1942 (a portrait of MacArthur unveiled, and working on a mural).

I have four of his cartoons, which I conclude were done for the Davis-Monthan Base newspaper. They say “Davis-Monthan” or “D-M Field” along with his name. One of them has a printing order sticker on the back with Davis-Monthan as the source. And if you look at the inferences you might draw from the topics in the cartoons, they could all reasonably fall in the last half of 1943, although that is speculation. They are not dated and there is no source publication to check. I also speculate that these must have been in his material belongings and released to auction by the family after he died. The Maryland Historical Society and the Jewish Museum of Maryland both have his works featured.

This cartoon looks like the summer of 1943. Threats to invade Italy began in May, following the Allied victory in North Africa. The mainland invasion was in September, following the taking of Sicily in July.

A Russian counter-attack during this period took place during the Kursk incursion. After failing to take Stalingrad, Hitler turned to Kursk to mount the next blitzkrieg offensive. The Nazi army could not penetrate the Soviet defenses, and in July, the Red Army launched a counter-offensive, Operation Kutuzov.

Worried by the Allies’ landing in Sicily on July 10, Hitler made the decision to halt the offensive action with the Soviets, and shifted to holding as much ground as possible in a defensive posture that lasted until August. Kursh would be the last large-scale action undertaken by the Wehrmacht.

“Strafing Run” (Summer, 1943)
by Jacob Glushakow (1914-2000)
8.5 x 9.5 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Jacob Glushakow was a famous Jewish artist who lived in Baltimore, MD, who spent most of his life creating numerous drawings of the Baltimore area. He graduated from the Baltimore City College high school in 1933 and went on to the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Art Students League in New York, where he studied from 1933 to 1936. Jacob enlisted in the Air Force (December 17, 1941) and eventually served as a sergeant in England. On his enlistment materials, he is listed as an artist.

Jacob was initially trained and stationed at the Davis-Monthan (D-M) Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ. There are local newspaper reports in the Tucson Daily from June 11, 1942 (a painting of the Air Base selected to appear in the issue of Life Magazine during the first week of July); June 17, 1942 (painting signs for an Benefit Dance); and October 9, 1942 (a portrait of MacArthur unveiled, and working on a mural).

I have four of his cartoons, which I conclude were done for the Davis-Monthan Base newspaper. They say “Davis-Monthan” or “D-M Field” along with his name. One of them has a printing order sticker on the back with Davis-Monthan as the source. And if you look at the inferences you might draw from the topics in the cartoons, they could all reasonably fall in the last half of 1943, although that is speculation. They are not dated and there is no source publication to check. I also speculate that these must have been in his material belongings and released to auction by the family after he died. The Maryland Historical Society and the Jewish Museum of Maryland both have his works featured.

This cartoon looks like mid-1943. Air raids by the US on Japan did not begin until April 1942. The US had no bases to launch from or to run to. The first raid was more of a propaganda victory for the US, in retaliation for Pearl Harbor, with high profile targets such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Nagoya and Kobe. The aircraft were launched from US aircraft carriers and ended up in China and Russia.

Building infrastructure took time, and the second air attack by the US on Japan did not take place until about a year later, in mid-1943, with the bombing and strafing of the Kuril Islands, where Japanese air stations were located. This event was not carried out by the big bombers, but by the smaller B-52 aircraft, which could also fly closer to the ground and strafe. Attacks took place July 10, July 18, August 15, and September 11.

“Barbarians Who Destroy Culture” (Fall, 1943)
by Jacob Glushakow (1914-2000)
8.5 x 11 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Jacob Glushakow was a famous Jewish artist who lived in Baltimore, MD, who spent most of his life creating numerous drawings of the Baltimore area. He graduated from the Baltimore City College high school in 1933 and went on to the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Art Students League in New York, where he studied from 1933 to 1936. Jacob enlisted in the Air Force (December 17, 1941) and eventually served as a sergeant in England. On his enlistment materials, he is listed as an artist.

Jacob was initially trained and stationed at the Davis-Monthan (D-M) Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ. There are local newspaper reports in the Tucson Daily from June 11, 1942 (a painting of the Air Base selected to appear in the issue of Life Magazine during the first week of July); June 17, 1942 (painting signs for an Benefit Dance); and October 9, 1942 (a portrait of MacArthur unveiled, and working on a mural).

I have four of his cartoons, which I conclude were done for the Davis-Monthan Base newspaper. They say “Davis-Monthan” or “D-M Field” along with his name. One of them has a printing order sticker on the back with Davis-Monthan as the source. And if you look at the inferences you might draw from the topics in the cartoons, they could all reasonably fall in the last half of 1943, although that is speculation. They are not dated and there is no source publication to check. I also speculate that these must have been in his material belongings and released to auction by the family after he died. The Maryland Historical Society and the Jewish Museum of Maryland both have his works featured.

This cartoon would be hard to place any earlier than January 1943 because that was the first time the USAF sent bombers into Germany. On January 27, the US did significant damage to the infrastructure at Wilhemshaven.

At different points, the U.S. would bomb German industrial targets during the day while the British continued the onslaught at night, known as the Pointblank directive of 1943.

The second US mission in Germany was on April 13, when the bombers destroyed half of the Focke-Wulf factory buildings in Bremen.

And on August 17, 1943, the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission was the third US bombing mission, done in cooperation with the British RAF.

After the war, a common complaint from German citizens was that the Nazis never gave accurate accounts of casualties from the raids: “The press never gave the correct number of casualties, and never pictured the true state of mind here. Rather they sought to veil the truth, which was the people had broken down completely and believed that the war could never be brought to a successful end.”

Resentment also mounted that Goebbels, the master of propaganda, tended to emphasize the destruction of Germany’s cultural heritage, rather than casualties. “He could afford to talk that way, for he was sitting quite safely in his bunker and did not have to suffer and worry for his life.”

Even with the bombing of Dresden (February, 1945), The campaign to turn the city into a symbol (“the German Hiroshima”) began within days of the bombing: Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, told reporters in neutral countries that Dresden had no war industries, and that the raid was an act of cultural desecration and wanton mass murder. Dresden became Goebbels’s last successful act of media manipulation.

“Every Defeat A Victory” (January 8, 1940)
by Charles (Chuck) Werner (1909-1997)
14 x 18 in., ink and crayon on textured paper
Coppola Collection

Charles (Chuck) Werner won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1939 for a cartoon he did for the Daily Oklahoman titled “Nomination for 1938” which allowed for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Hitler’s Germany (October 6, 1938). At age 29, Werner was the youngest person to win the Pulitzer. Werner left the Daily Oklahoman to be the Chief Editorial Cartoonist at the Chicago Sun in 1941 before leaving for the Indianapolis Star in 1947. Throughout his nearly sixty-year career, many U.S. Presidents expressed interest in Werner’s cartoons, including Lyndon B. Johnson and Harry Truman requesting cartoons for their presidential libraries.

At the outbreak of WW2 on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and they carved up the spoils based on their secret agreement with Stalin. Three months later, in late November, the Soviets went after Finland in what is called The Winter War. The terms for carving up Europe were all, as we would learn much later, spelled out in that agreement with Germany, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Finland repelled Soviet attacks for more than two months and inflicted substantial losses on the invaders while temperatures ranged as low as −43 °C.

The Battle of Raate Road was a battle fought during the Winter War, January 1-7, 1940.

During January 6, heavy fighting occurred all along the Raate Road as the Finns continued to break up the enemy forces into smaller pieces. The Soviets attempted to overrun Finnish roadblocks with armor, losing numerous tanks in frontal attacks, but were unsuccessful.

The Soviet commander, Vinogradov, ordered retreat back to the Soviet border. The despairing Soviet troops began to escape, but many soldiers froze to death without proper clothing or supplies. The Finnish army captured a tremendous amount of materiel in this battle.

Vinogradov and two of his chief officers, Volkov and Pahomov, retreated in the middle of crucial battles. According to reports, this act had a fatal influence on morale. As they reached the Soviet lines four days later they were court-martialed, found guilty and sentenced to death; the executions were carried out immediately.

“What are the odds?” (September 30, 1941)
by Charles (Chuck) Werner (1909-1997)
13.5 x 17.5 in., ink and crayon on textured paper
Coppola Collection

Charles (Chuck) Werner won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1939 for a cartoon he did for the Daily Oklahoman titled “Nomination for 1938” which allowed for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Hitler’s Germany (October 6, 1938). At age 29, Werner was the youngest person to win the Pulitzer. Werner left the Daily Oklahoman to be the Chief Editorial Cartoonist at the Chicago Sun in 1941 before leaving for the Indianapolis Star in 1947. Throughout his nearly sixty-year career, many U.S. Presidents expressed interest in Werner’s cartoons, including Lyndon B. Johnson and Harry Truman requesting cartoons for their presidential libraries.

There is a period of time where there are three players making war, and when the US is not even formally involved. On September 1, 1939, Germany invades Poland and WW2 begins. The Soviets have a pact with the Germans, and take a piece of Poland (September), then Finland (Dec 1939 – March 1940), and the Baltics (June 1940, the same month that Germany takes France). Great Britain was carrying the weight of the Allied resistance.

Hitler turned on Stalin in June 1941, and the Soviets were now third party warriors, not aligned with the Allies but counting on their success.

From September 29 to October 1, 1941, the first Moscow conference was held.

Stalin told British diplomats that he wanted two agreements: (1) a mutual assistance/aid pact and (2) a recognition that, after the war, the Soviet Union would gain the territories in countries that it had taken pursuant to its division of Eastern Europe with Hitler in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The British agreed to assistance but refused to agree to the territorial gains, leading to the rocky view of peace represented in this cartoon.

Two months later, Pearl Harbor was attacked, bringing the US into the fray.

“Surely, Nippon, This Cannot Be Your Answer?” (February 24, 1933)
by Vernon Van Atta Greene (1904-1965)
12 x 16 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Greene started his cartoon career drawing sports cartoons for Oregon’s Portland Telegram (1927–29), the Toledo Blade (1930–32) and the New York Mirror (1934–37). He was a freelancer, and began working for King Features Syndicate in 1935, eventually drawing The Shadow daily strip (1940) for the Ledger Syndicate. After the war, he ghosted on a few strips, and eventually was the one who took over “Bringing Up Father” after George McManus’s death in 1954.

GENEVA, Feb. 24, 1933 (UP) – The Japanese delegation, defying world opinion, withdrew from the League of Nations Assembly today after the assembly had adopted a report blaming Japan for events in Manchuria.

The stunned international conclave, representing almost every nation on earth, sat in silence while the delegation, led by the dapper Yosuke Matsuoka, clad in black, walked from the hall. The crowded galleries broke into mingled hisses and applause.

Japan’s formal resignation from the league is expected to be filed later.

“We are not coming back,” Matsuoka said simply as he left the hall. The assembly’s report, recommending that Japan withdraw her troops occupying Manchuria and restore the country to Chinese sovereignty, was adopted, 52 to 1, Japan voting against it.

The session, which made history, signifying the final break between the league and one of the world’s major powers, was fairly brief and simple.

Matsuoka, usually typifying the placid oriental diplomat, was nervous before he began his speech, and abandoned the text before he finished. He shouted from the rostrum:

“Japan will oppose any attempt at international control of Manchuria. It does not mean that we defy you, because Manchuria belongs to us by right. Read your history. We recovered Manchuria from Russia. We made it what it is today.”

He referred to Russia, as well as China, as a cause for “deep and anxious concern” for Japan.

“We look into the gloom of the future and can see no certain gleam of light before us,” Matsuoka declared. He reiterated that Manchuria was a matter of life and death for Japan, and than no concession or compromise was possible, saying: “Japan has been and will always be the mainstay of peace, order and progress in the Far East.”