“Army Worm!” (June 25, 1941)
by Charles (Chuck) Werner (1909-1997)
11 x 15 in., ink on 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.

In June 1941, WW2 took a sharp turn. There was war “worming” its way through Europe, through China, and through North Africa… and in 6 months, the US would be brought into it through the attack at Pearl Harbor.

On June 22, though, Hitler turned on Russia and took the gambit, in Operation Barbarossa, that he could take Moscow in a well structured, all out assault to the East.