In honor of Memorial Day weekend, we are highlighting the newspapers in DigitalNC that were created for or by soldiers, the majority of whom were fighting in World War II at the time.

Entertainment at the ORD in May 1944

The “B.T.C. 10-Shun,” later “The ORD News,” was a weekly paper published by and for those at Basic Training Camp No. 10 in Greensboro, North Carolina.  The papers available online* cover the whole time the base was open, 1943 to 1946 and covers lighthearted topics such as film reviews for the free films on base and information about activities happening on base to more serious information such as vaccination advancements for the soldiers and where fighting was happening overseas.  To learn more, read our previous post on the paper.

Comic drawn by a cadet, featured in the June 26, 1943 Cloudbuster

Another paper in the North Carolina Newspapers is “The Cloudbuster,” which was published for and by those at the U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School in Chapel Hill.  Similar to the B.T.C. 10-Shun, the Cloudbuster focused on a mix of topics from sports statistics and articles titled “What to expect with blind dating,” to flights records and aeronautical advances, as well as general war news.  It also featured a number of comics, with focuses on sports and patriotism as the main themes.  See previous posts on this paper here.

Cover of the January 1944 Hot Off the Hoover Rail. The image is of the power company that sponsored the publication.

In addition to many soldiers coming from across the United States to train in North Carolina for World War II, many natives of the state were sent overseas to fight in the war.  Many small towns in the state produced special newspapers to keep “their boys abroad” informed about the news of the town.  Two such papers are included in DigitalNC, one being the Hot off the Hoover Rail, published in Lawndale.  monthly news bulletin published by Cleveland Mill and Power Company during World War II.  Each issue included a “salute of the month,” a letter from a mother and father of the month, church news, columns called “Old Maids Row” and “Lawndale Party Line,” letters from soldiers and a list of soldiers who had been promoted or were home on furlough.  This publication gives much information about individual citizens of Lawndale and the goings-on at the time.  The other is the Homefront News from Tarboro, which we wrote about earlier this year here.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, visit North Carolina Newspapers.

 *[Update, January 2015. This newspaper can be viewed online in the Greensboro Historical Newspapers collection, hosted by UNC-Greensboro.]