In the Army he led a pack artillery mule at Ft. Bragg for a year, and then was shifted to public relations. He wrote "Caught in the Draft" for the Post and became friendly with Private Marion Hargrove, who was assigned to Yank as soon as it was organized last spring. Then for weeks on end Hargrove annoyed Major Spence to call up McCarthy as sports editor for the new weekly.
Spence finally weakened and McCarthy came to New York. He wrote a sports column, predicting at one point that the Dodgers would win the pennant, but was soon made assistant managing editor under 23-year old Sg.t Bill Richardson of Raleigh, N. C., who now heads the London bureau, When Richardson was shipped over in September, McCarthy stepped into his hopes.
Under McCarthy, Yank has grown--especially out of his belief that Yank should be edited solely for the enlisted men, disregarding the taste and know-all of its editors. He scraped off the polish and made it, as he frankly admits, "realistic and corny."
Pin-Up Girls Still In
During the summer the full 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.
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 own, 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.