SCENES FROM THE SOUTH PACIFIC

On June 17, 1942, the very first edition of Yank, the weekly magazine that the U.S. military published during World War II, rolled off the presses. A gaggle of high-ranking Pentagon officials had come from Washington, D.C., for the launch party in the magazine’s New York City offices, but as the inaugural issue of Yank was passed around, their excitement quickly turned to dismay. Its cover featured a photograph of a grinning GI holding a fistful of dollars in celebration of the recent increase in U.S. Army pay, but in the confusion and haste to get the issue finished, the headline had been changed to read “Why We Fight,” the title of a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt that appeared inside. The 50,000 copies that had been printed were hastily removed from circulation.

Despite the early hiccup, would become the most widely read and most popular publication in the history of the U.S. Army. By the end of World War II, some 23 editions had been published (1,614 separate issues in all), and at its height, there were printing presses in the United States, Egypt, Japan, Italy, Trinidad, Saipan, and elsewhere. At its peak , which was staffed entirely had a sports section, “News from Home,” “Mail Call,” letters, cartoons, and, of course, pinups. By the time the last issue of was published in December 1945, the magazine, with a cover price of 5 cents, had generated a profit of $1 million for the War Department. The overall operation was under the command of Colonel Franklin S. Forsberg, who had been a publishing executive before the war; for most of ’s existence, its editor in chief was Sergeant Joe McCarthy, a former sportswriter, who introduced the wildly popular weekly pinup feature.