Description

PARADE — The Middle East Forces Magazine
British Official / M.E.F. Overseas Edition — No. 209, Vol. 17
August 12, 1944
Publisher: GHQ, M.E.F. — Press Co. Editor: Lt. Col. H.I. Ruston
Pages scanned: 20 | Price: 3 months 7s. (Egypt & Sudan) / equivalent rates listed by territory

Headlines & Contents Summary

Cover Page
Cover photo shows a South African tank entering Florence via the Porta Romana as Italian partisans, the Springboks, joined it in mopping up German snipers, under the headline “RACE INTO FLORENCE” (pages 4–5).
Names: Sergt. Lupson, A.F.P.U. (cover photo credit, per masthead’s “This Week’s Covers”).
Information about cover photo from one of Wartime Press customers:
“He is the one sitting on the left with a mustache his name was

William Rodney Austin
Born 8 October 1914
In Grahamstown
Eastern Cape
South Africa

South African army UDF
4/22 Field Regiment South African Artillery
6th South African armoured division”

Major Headlines & Content
The Week
A news roundup covers the Allied breakout across Brittany toward Paris, the Red Army’s drive on Königsberg and Silesia, Warsaw’s Polish Underground rising, diplomatic moves between Greece’s E.A.M. and the Lebanon government, and the Allied advance into Florence and Burma.
Names: Gen. Bradley, Marshal Koniev, Gen. Von Schörner, Gen. Lindemann, Erwin von Fitzleben, Mr. Eden.

Vanishing Front Line
Correspondent Alan Moorehead describes the fluid, rapidly collapsing German front in France as British and Canadian forces press in the north and Americans race south and east across Brittany.
Names: Alan Moorehead.

Race Into Florence — South African Tanks Lead The Way
South African armor beat New Zealand forces in the race to liberate Florence, fighting through the hill town of Imprunetta with Italian partisans before Guards units followed into the city.

News From Greece
A photo feature reports on Greek guerrilla forces — the E.L.A.S. and Col. Napoleon Zervas’s National Bands — who now control much of the mountainous countryside and are supplied by British air-dropped arms.
Names: Col. Napoleon Zervas, General Stefanos Sarafis.

Forest Offensive
Soviet correspondent Z. Bukovsky recounts how Gen. Rybalko’s tank corps and Gen. Lelyushenko’s armor encircled and destroyed German divisions in the Volhynia hills’ “Koltov Corridor” fighting toward Lwow.
Names: Z. Bukovsky, Gen. Rybalko, Gen. Lelyushenko, Maj.-Gen. Nedwig.

The Breakthrough
Military analyst “Strategicus” argues the Allied breakthrough in Normandy has unhinged the German front, with the Americans exploiting open flanks toward Brittany and Gen. Montgomery’s forces poised to push on Caen and Paris.
Names: Gen. Montgomery, Gen. Bradley.

Revolution In Farming
Michael Mason profiles Essex’s County War Agricultural Executive Committee, one of 62 such British committees that took over neglected farmland during the war to nearly double the country’s cultivated acreage.
Names: Michael Mason, Mr. G. Kemsley, Mr. F.W. Paul, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Partridge.

Public Schools Of The Future
Norman Meares reviews the Fleming Committee’s report proposing that England’s public schools open a quarter of their places to pupils from grant-aided primary schools regardless of parental income.
Names: Norman Meares, Lord Fleming, Sir Maurice Holmes.

Blackpool’s Evacuees
Frank Tilsley reports from Blackpool on the billeting of roughly 5,000 flying-bomb evacuees from London, describing landlords’ complaints, wartime allowances, and mixed experiences among the families housed there.
Names: Frank Tilsley, Mrs Clottu, Councillor Stanley Jenkinson, Mrs Kathleen Senior.

Cable From London
Filling in for Michael Mason, Frank Tilsley’s weekly London cable describes the psychological toll of the flying-bomb (V-1) campaign on Londoners and new Home Office air-raid warning signals.
Names: Michael Mason, Frank Tilsley, Mr Morrison.

Home News
Regional briefs cover post-war planning in Blackpool and Birmingham, Ipswich’s football promotion, Hull’s shipping and telephone milestones, Merseyside and Cardiff civic notes, Scottish sporting and Highland-relic items, and reports from South Africa and India on soil conservation, coinage output, and Victoria Cross awards to Indian Army soldiers.
Names: Alderman Charles McVey, Sir Charles Reilly, Mr J.S. Wedderburn, Sir Harry Fildes, Dr Hugh H. Bennett, Jem Abdul Hafiz, Naik Nand Singh, Kamal Ram.

American Chronicle
A New York roundup notes President Roosevelt’s declining health rumors, a wartime Washington car-service side hustle, Governor Dewey’s barber controversy, and increasing numbers of women taking factory jobs.
Names: President Roosevelt, Marguerite LeHand, Governor Dewey, James Vacaro.

Other Content
Punch cartoon depicting overcrowded London beach-hut-style bathing cubicles, run alongside the “Cable From London” column.
Pin-up photo feature of Hollywood “glamazons” — six-foot-tall chorus beauties from M.G.M.’s technicolor musical “As Thousands Cheer,” shown in costume.
Masthead box “Parade Credits” lists photo and illustration sources for the issue (A.F.P.U., Hellenic Department of Information, British Official, British Council, Blackpool Gazette and Herald, The Sketch, M.G.M., Paramount).
Full-page pin-up portrait of actress Betty Hutton on the back cover, with a subscription order form for service personnel to send the magazine home.