A moment-by-moment, first-hand account of The Battle of the Bulge, complete with diagrams, is chronicled in the January 8th issue from 1945.
Instead of 24-hour news coverage, families read about battles well after they happened.
War-time issues of LIFE Magazine offer a unique look into domestic life in America during WWII. Even the advertisements went to war, with handsome men in uniform selling soap and encouraging the purchase of war bonds by the dozen. Cover photos, with few exceptions, feature strapping soldiers, American flags, or beautiful women. Then came Decem– “a date which will live in infamy.”īeginning with the first issue of LIFE Magazine after the Pearl Harbor attack, you can see a shift in American culture. For years, Americans read of the conflict in the pages of LIFE Magazine as outsiders. Sections like “LIFE on the Newsfronts of the World” chronicled the weekly development of the war in Europe, and LIFE Magazine editors devoted ever greater numbers of pages to events leading up to America’s entrance into World War II. Flipping through the pages of LIFE Magazines from 1940 to 1949 is like watching the world change before your eyes. By the end of the 1940s, nothing would be the same. By the end of the 1930s, America was still in the throes of the Great Depression and the rest of the world was going to war.
