The War of Words
eBook - ePub

The War of Words

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

  1. 250 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The War of Words

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

About this book

From New York Times bestselling author Molly Guptill Manning comes The War of Words, the captivating story of how American troops in World War II wielded pens to tell their own stories as they made history.

At a time when civilian periodicals faced strict censorship, US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall won the support of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create an expansive troop-newspaper program. Both Marshall and FDR recognized that there was a second struggle taking place outside the battlefields of World War II—the war of words. While Hitler inundated the globe with propaganda, morale across the US Army dwindled. As the Axis blurred the lines between truth and fiction, the best defense was for American troops to bring the truth into focus by writing it down and disseminating it themselves.

By war's end, over 4,600 unique GI publications had been printed around the world. In newsprint, troops made sense of their hardships, losses, and reasons for fighting. These newspapers—by and for the troops—became the heart and soul of a unit.

From Normandy to the shores of Japan, American soldiers exercised a level of free speech the military had never known nor would again. It was an extraordinary chapter in American democracy and military history. In the war for "four freedoms," it was remarkably fitting that troops fought not only with guns but with their pens. This stunning volume includes fourteen pages of photographs and illustrations.

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Yes, you can access The War of Words by Molly Guptill Manning in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Military & Maritime History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Blackstone newsletter
  3. Praise for Molly Guptill Manning
  4. Title Page
  5. Books by Molly Guptill Manning
  6. Copyright
  7. Dedication
  8. Contents
  9. Introduction
  10. 1. The Word Factory
  11. 2. The Obscenities in Washington
  12. 3. Comma-Flage
  13. 4. Tear-Stained Pillows
  14. 5. Hello, Suckers!
  15. 6. 45th Giornale Militare
  16. 7. A Monument to Intolerance
  17. 8. Don’t Send Me In
  18. 9. Democracy?
  19. 10. Now—Where Were We?
  20. Afterword
  21. Acknowledgments
  22. Appendix of Troop Newspapers
  23. Notes
  24. Selected Bibliography
  25. Photo insert
  26. Blackstone newsletter