1943.10.31 “Roll On Good Chariot”
by Wallace Heard Goldsmith (1873-1945)
13 x 14 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author_talk:Wallace_Heard_Goldsmith

Goldsmith was a Boston institution, working over his long career at the Herald, the Post, and the Globe. This editorial cartoon is from his 25-year period at the Post.

At the turn of the century, the Boston Herald just couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted to run a syndicate. Their homegrown comic section was born and died at least four different times. The Adventures of Little Allright came in the third version of their Sunday section and ran from March 6 to June 26, 1904. There really wasn’t much to set the strip apart from any other kid strip — the starring kid saying “all right” a lot seems an almost ridiculously weak hook. Goldsmith took the dubious credit for this stinker. The strip was rebooted as Little Alright (the second ‘L’ was dropped), and ran from November 11 1906 to April 14 1907. He was well known for illustrating Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost.”

Eden (UK), Hull (US), and Molotov (SU) met 12 times during October 18 to November 11, 1943, at the Kremlin, in what are known as the Moscow Meetings. Riding in a Chariot of amity with Stalin, and welcoming Chiang to the club, points directly to the Four Powers Declaration.

The Four Power Declaration was drafted by State Department advisers such as Cordell Hull and

Sumner Welles, who presented it to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 10. Roosevelt revealed the proposal to Churchill and Anthony Eden when they met at Quebec. Churchill and Roosevelt reached a consensus that the Four Power Declaration should be given high priority at the Moscow Conference, whereas Stalin wanted the conference to focus on the ongoing war against Germany. The Russians also objected to the inclusion of the Republic of China as the fourth Great Power of the declaration; officially on the grounds that the Moscow Conference was planned as a meeting between three Great Powers (the US, UK, and the Soviet Union). Roosevelt suspected that Stalin’s true motivations were to avoid antagonizing the Japanese, with whom they had signed a nonaggression pact in 1941.

During the Moscow Conference, the Soviet Union finally came to agreement with the United States and its allies to create a world organization, the European Advisory Commission. The Ambassador of Republic of China in the Soviet Union, Foo Ping-sheung, was invited to sign the

Declaration of the Four Nations.

In a November 22-26, 1943 meeting at Cairo in Egypt with Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to a preeminent role for China in post-war Asia.

1943.09.12 “Buy a Bond and Hit the Bull’s Eye”
by Al (Abraham Roth) Ross (1911-2012)
9 x 10 in., ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

One of a family of four cartoonists bothers (Ben Roth, Salo, and Irving Roir), trained at the Art Students League of NY, served on the Committee of War Cartoons, formed by the Society of Magazine Cartoonists and the Office of War Information. Contributed to the Saturday Evening Post, Look, Saturday Review, Collier’s, and The New Yorker (from 1937).

The US did not have an overwhelming presence in the European war until they joined the British for the defeat of Rommel’s forces in North Africa in early 1943. The invasion of Sicily, in July, launched from Africa, the marks the start of the hard-core US efforts on the continent.

This cartoon comes from the third bond drive, which ran from September 9 to October 1, 1943, and was the first to specifically target the build-up in Europe.

Addressing the nation during one of his fireside chats, President Franklin Roosevelt called Americans to “contribute your share and more than your share.”  The President continued, “It is not sufficient to simply put into War Bonds money which we would normally save.  We must put into War Bonds money which we would not normally save.  Only then have we done everything that good conscience demands.”

From the kick-off address, on September 8, he said:

“Today, it is announced that an armistice with Italy has been concluded.

“This was a great victory for the United Nations — but it was also a great victory for the Italian people. After years of war and suffering and degradation, the Italian people are at last coming to the day of liberation from their real enemies, the Nazis.

“But let us not delude ourselves that this armistice means the end of the war in the Mediterranean. We still have to (must) drive the Germans out of Italy as we have driven them out of Tunisia and Sicily; we must drive them out of France and all other captive countries; and we must strike them on their own soil from all directions.

“Our ultimate objectives in this war continue to be Berlin and Tokyo.”

With a fundraising goal of $15 billion, individual sales of $100 denomination series E bonds would need to double.  The public’s effort surpassed the goal outlined by Roosevelt, reaching almost $19 billion (1943 dollars) by the drive’s close.

The bonds matured and represented an investment at a time when unemployment and inflation were problems. It’s interesting to think how this bond strategy does not even ping the radar in 2020. Imagine raising $283 billion (2020 dollars), from the country, in a month, towards the local needs of the coronavirus problem, that would return on the investment later.

1943.09.09 “Barbarians who Destroy Culture”
by Jacob Glushakow (1914-2000)
8.5 x 11 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Glushakow

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.

1943.08.10  “Benito’s Lesson”
by Jacob Glushakow (1914-2000)
11.5 x 15 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Glushakow

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 pretty clearly to be the summer/fall of 1943. After the successful Allied campaign in North Africa, the threats to invade Italy began in May. The Allies followed through, taking Sicily in an assault that began on July 10. And on September 3, the invasion of the Italian peninsula began. The surrender had been pre-arranged, and was formally announced on September 8.

1943.07.30 “Run”
by Jacob Glushakow (1914-2000)
8.5 x 9.5 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Glushakow

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.

1943.07.27 “The Beginning of the End”
by William (Bill) Crawford (1913-1982)
19 x 22 in., ink and crayon on heavy paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Crawford_(cartoonist)

Crawford worked as a sports cartoonist and for the Washington Daily News and the Washington Post from 1936-38. He joined the Newark News as an editorial cartoonist and his cartoons were distributed to more than 700 daily newspapers by the Newspaper Enterprise Association. He was an active member of the National Cartoonists Society, serving as its president and vice-president. In 1956, 1957, 1958, and 1963 he was awarded “Best Editorial Cartoon” by the National Cartoonist Society, and in 1973 he received their Silver T-Square Award. Crawford retired in 1977.

Mussolini, the father of fascism, partnered with Hitler in 1936. Allied forces landed in Sicily starting on July 10, 1943 and moved northward. Support for the war and for Mussolini had dropped substantially, and he was ousted on July 25, 1943. On September 3, an armistice was reached between the new government of Italy and the Allies. Hitler was already in the north of Italy, and the Italian peninsula became a contested war zone.

On October 13, 1943, one month after Italy surrendered to the Allies, it declared war on its one-time Axis partner, Nazi Germany. “Operation Achse” was the German plan to support the remaining Italian fascists.

The notation on this says “hold for the invasion of Italy” so that likely places it is early July 1943, as the power of the allies begins to put the squeeze on Mussolini.

1943.07.17 “Last Chance Crossroads”
by Ralph Lee (1906-1947)
14 x 22 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Ralph Lee was an editorial cartoonist for the Portland Oregonian. He died suddenly, at 41, in January 1947. His cousin, Art Bimrose, was the editorial cartoonist for the Oregonian for more than three decades. In 1937, the Oregonian hired him part-time to work on printing plates. Following Lee’s death, Bimrose was hired as the Sunday editorial cartoonist.

This cartoon, from July 17, 1943, has auspicious timing. Let me explain.

The Allies won the North African Campaign on May 13, 1943, with a quarter-million German and Italian troops surrendering at Tunisia. With its massed army and navy in the southern Mediterranean and free for new action, British and American strategists faced two options: transfer these forces north for the impending invasion of Europe from the English Channel, or remain to strike at southern Italy, which Churchill called “the soft underbelly of Europe.” At this crossroads, the Allies, after some dissension, decided to press north into Italy.

The invasion was assisted by some subterfuge (see the 1957 film “The Man Who Never Was”). In April 1943, a month before the Allied victory in North Africa, German agents recovered the body of a British Royal Marine pilot from the waters off a Spanish beach. Documents in an attaché case handcuffed to the officer’s wrist provided a goldmine of intelligence about the Allies’ secret plans, and German agents quickly sent the documents up the chain of command where they soon reached Hitler. Der Fuehrer studied the captured plans carefully, and, taking full advantage of their top-secret details, directed his troops and ships to reinforce the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, west of Italy, against an impending Allied invasion. There was only one problem: The recovered body–which was not a Royal Marine but actually a homeless man from Wales who had committed suicide–and its documents, were an elaborate British diversion called Operation Mincemeat.

The invasion of Sicily began early on July 10, 1943. By the afternoon, supported by shattering naval and aerial bombardments of enemy positions, 150,000 Allied troops reached the Sicilian shores. General Patton commanded the American ground forces and General Montgomery led the British. Hitler had been so deceived by “Mincemeat” that he had left only two German divisions in Sicily to battle Allied soldiers. Even several days into the attack he was convinced that it was a diversionary maneuver and continued to warn his officers to expect the main landings at Sardinia or Corsica.

This cartoon appeared a week later. And over the next two weeks, the Italian people made their choice: the fascist regime fell rapidly into disrepute. On July 24, 1943, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini was deposed and arrested.

1943.07.15 “The New Disorder”
by Jacob Glushakow (1914-2000)
12.5 x 14 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Glushakow

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.

Hitler as a paper hanger. The term was used pejoratively during his rise to power and during World War II to suggest he was merely a common laborer who performed a task that required little intellect, rather than the intellectual leader he claimed to be. A widely reported instance occurred in May 1937, when Cardinal George Mundelein, the Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, referred to Hitler as “an Austrian paper hanger, and a poor one at that.” This statement caused a diplomatic stir and angered the Nazi regime. The insult stuck.

A Russian counterattack 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.

1943.07.12 “Return on a Bad Investment”
William (Bill) Crawford (1913-1982)
19 x 22 in., ink and crayon on heavy paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Crawford_(cartoonist)

Crawford worked as a sports cartoonist and for the Washington Daily News and the Washington Post from 1936-38. He joined the Newark News as an editorial cartoonist and his cartoons were distributed to more than 700 daily newspapers by the Newspaper Enterprise Association. He was an active member of the National Cartoonists Society, serving as its president and vice-president. In 1956, 1957, 1958, and 1963 he was awarded “Best Editorial Cartoon” by the National Cartoonist Society, and in 1973 he received their Silver T-Square Award. Crawford retired in 1977.

Mussolini, the father of fascism, partnered with Hitler in 1936. Allied forces landed in Sicily starting on July 10, 1943 and moved northward. Support for the war and for Mussolini had dropped substantially, and he was ousted on July 25, 1943. On September 3, an armistice was reached between the new government of Italy and the Allies. Hitler was already in the north of Italy, and the Italian peninsula became a contested war zone.

On October 13, 1943, one month after Italy surrendered to the Allies, it declared war on its one-time Axis partner, Nazi Germany. “Operation Achse” was the German plan to support the remaining Italian fascists.

The notation on this says “hold for the invasion of Italy” so that likely places it is early July 1943. The large American military bayonet stakes its spot, and the stab-in-the-back comes from Hitler’s movement to invade and take control.

1943.07.08 “The Way Things Stand”
by Bill Crawford (1913-1982)
16.5 x 20.5 in., ink and crayon on Glarco Illustration Board
Coppola Collection

Crawford worked as a sports cartoonist and for the Washington Daily News and the Washington Post from 1936 until 1938. Crawford then joined the Newark News as its editorial cartoonist. He was a highly syndicated cartoonist, noted for his WWII commentary.

One of the most provocative questions about WWII is “what did the German people know and when did they know it?” This cartoon gives a poignant and contemporary commentary on this question, as the broken, stumbling state of Germany is propped up by the German people.

In his 2015 book (The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945), Nicholas Stargardt draws on first-person accounts (diaries, court records, and military correspondence) and asserts that awareness was widespread. What drove the Germans to fight for a lost cause…a strong propaganda campaign of false equivalents that justified actions as retaliation and self-defense. Steve Forbes’ review of Stargardt: “an extremely interesting yet disheartening tale of a civilized people’s descent into barbarism.”

Two years into the war, in September 1941, German arms were winning. Western Europe had been decisively conquered, and there were few signs of any serious resistance to German rule. The failure of the Italians to establish Mussolini’s much-vaunted new Roman empire in the Mediterranean had been made good by German intervention. German forces had overrun Greece, and subjugated Yugoslavia. In north Africa, Rommel’s brilliant generalship was pushing the British and allied forces eastwards towards Egypt and threatening the Suez canal. And the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 had reaped stunning rewards, with Leningrad (the present-day St Petersburg) besieged by German and Finnish troops, Smolensk and Kiev taken, and millions of Red Army troops killed or captured in a series of vast encircling operations that brought the German armed forces within reach of Moscow.

This proved to be the high point of German success. The fundamental problem facing Hitler was that Germany simply did not have the resources to fight on so many different fronts at the same time.

The winter campaign around Moscow failed. In late 1942, Stalingrad became the object of a titanic struggle between the Germans and the Soviets, less because of its strategic importance than because of its name. When the Germans moved their best troops into the city, leaving the rear to be guarded by weaker Romanian and Italian forces, the Soviet generals saw their chance, broke through the rearguard and surrounded the besieging forces. Short of fuel and ammunition, the Germans under General Paulus were unable to break out.

As one airfield after another was captured by the Red Army, supplies ran out and the German troops began to starve to death. On January 31, 1943, refusing the invitation to commit suicide that came with Hitler’s gift of a field marshal’s baton, Paulus surrendered. It was a turning point of the war.

The German armies were now more or less continuously in retreat on the eastern front. On July 4, 1943, the last great German counter-attack began at Kursk.

After a month, the Germans were forced to retreat. German tanks were pulled out by Hitler to deal with a rapidly deteriorating situation in Italy. Following their victory in north Africa, the allies had landed in Sicily on July 10, 1943 to be greeted in Palermo by Italian citizens waving white flags. On 3 September an armistice was signed, and allied forces landed on the Italian mainland. German troops had already invaded from the north, taking over the entire peninsula.

These events had a devastating effect on German morale at home. In particular the catastrophe of Stalingrad began to convince many Germans that the war could not be won. In late July and early August 1943, the center of Hamburg was almost completely destroyed in a firestorm created by intensive incendiary bombing. Refugees from the devastated city spread a sense of shock and foreboding all across Germany. In Hamburg itself, anger at the Nazis’ failure to defend the city led to crowds tearing party badges off officials’ coats amid cries of “murderer!” The chief of staff of the German airforce committed suicide.

By the end of 1943, German forces were retreating all along the line in the east and in Italy. The Reich had lost command of the skies and the seas. Devastating bombing raids on a growing range of towns and cities were making people’s lives unbearable. Ordinary Germans knew that the war was lost.