Volume 1, Number 1, dated June 17, 1942, was 24 pages like the 37 later issues, but since then publication has been shifted from Tuesday to Friday. For that first edition, President Roosevelt wrote a letter wishing the men good luck for their paper which he called, "a publication which cannot be understood by your enemies."
As the paper grew, the London bureau and edition were established to solve transportation problems and because soldiers overseas, it was found, resented stories about nightclubs and good times and often wanted articles that men at home would find dull.
Pin-Up Girls Still In
During the summer the full page pin-up girl was cut down to save space, but violent objections flowed in. Yank's India correspondent found the girls decorating all the barracks in that corner of the world. There has been one in every issue since.
These and a sprinkling of smaller photos of movie stars are all there is to the idea that the morals of the paper are weak, if you omit the private collection in the photo room. Even the interview with Gypsy Rose Lee was nothing a family tabloid would refuse to print.
By the time McCarthy took over with the September 30 issue, the weekly was clicking along. In trying to make it more of a magazine, he has dropped the front page headline and stresses features from boys in camp and oversease, news notes from their home towns. Occasional editorials give advice and explain policy, or, like the one a year after "the day the roof fell in," just sound off like editorials.
Stories and headlines are short, easy to read. Most punchy head yet is in the current issue:
There's No Front Line in New Guinea, but most of them read more like:
Navy Picks a Lady Named
Mildred to Rule the Waves.
Cross word puzzles, short wave radio programs, games, notes entitled Strictly G.I., a cartoon strip "Sad Sack," and a column of letters (only opening for officer contributions) are by now popular features. Special editions on the Air Force and the Navy have been printed, and special praise has been extended vigorous officers like Uncle Joe Stilwell and Major General Gerhardt, who is photographed shirtless, riding a horse through a raging stream. Maps, scarce and in great demand overseas, are now printed in every issue; and a service of advice and features like Milt Caniff's "Male Call" is sent to hundreds of camp newspapers.
Sergeant-Editor McCarthy is consciously seeking to develop confidence in and respect for his Army weekly "by the men . . . for the men in the service," in anticipation of another problem yet to be met. When victory is won, McCarthy foresees a morale problem among the men wishing to get home. He hopes to make Yank just as useful then, after the war is over, as it is while his staff and reader are helping win it. Meanwhile he only admits. "None of us can tell just what kind of a job we're doing till it's all over."