Back in 1970 I spent an entire Sunday afternoon going through the stacks at the U of FL, reading US News and World Report magazines from 1942 through 1945. Didn't read every word but skimmed through each of them, looking at article headlines and such.
It was about as close to watching the war in real time as you could get. History was being made daily, no one knew the outcome so you'd see it unfold as the folks did at the time, from the tenuous landings on Guadalcanal and North Africa through Sicily, Italy, the southern and central Pacific battles, Normandy, etc., right up to VE and VJ days. Obviously, the stories were cleaned up and full of rah rah jingoism, nothing about having two entire Ranger battalions wiped out trying to cross the Rapido River, the slaughter on Omaha beach or an entire division wiped out of existence at the start of the Bulge ("heavy resistance" or "heavy casualties" was about as bad as they'd describe it) but the mood of grim determination turning to wary optimism and finally one of inevitable victory was pretty neat to read.
