Stars and Stripes: U.S. Military Newspapers in
the Library of Congress
Introduction
This guide focuses on the Library of Congress holdings of Stars
and Stripes, as well as books in the Library's collection
that discuss the journalists who accompanied U.S. forces into battle.
In November 1861, Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant defeated
Confederate forces in Bloomfield, Missouri. On November 9, 1861,
the first known edition of a newspaper for the troops was published
by soldiers from the 18th and 29th Illinois Volunteers on presses
owned by the Bloomfield Daily Herald. The name given
to this newspaper was Stars and Stripes. Although this
Bloomfield edition was a one-issue phenomenon, it started a tradition
of soldiers publishing news for the troops.
Sixteen years later, in October 1877, the Grand Army of the Republic
(G.A.R.) initiated a new publication, the National Tribune,
a newspaper for Civil War Union veterans; later, the banner Stars
and Stripes was added to its masthead. When the G.A.R. ceased
publication prior to World War I, a private corporation continued
to publish the newspaper for veterans of U.S. armed forces under
the same composite name: National Tribune Stars and Stripes
(Washington, D.C.).
The first official military publication called Stars and
Stripes was published in Paris during World War I for the
American Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.). According to A.E.F. Commander
General John J. Pershing, it was intended to provide uncensored
news from soldiers and for soldiers. The first weekly edition was
published on February 18, 1918 by a staff of eight, and limited
to 30,000 copies. Due to its popularity the circulation increased
to over half a million and the staff grew to 300. The final edition
was published on June 13, 1919.
On June 14, 1919, immediately following suspension of the U.S.
military's Stars and Stripes, some of its staff members
organized a new Washington-based publishing house known as the Stars
and Stripes Corporation. It too, published a newspaper called Stars
and Stripes that competed with the National Tribune
for the veteran market. This new group, however, was unable to sustain
steady subscriptions, and in 1926 it merged with the National
Tribune.
During World War II, Stars and Stripes was again
chosen as the name of the official U.S. military newspaper for Armed
Forces personnel stationed overseas. First published in London,
it was administered by the Office of War Information in the newly
established Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. Between
1942 and 1945 official editions were published in all European and
African theaters of operation, including Italy, Sicily, France,
Germany, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia. In the Pacific theater, the
first edition of Stars and Stripes was published on
May 14, 1945 in Honolulu by the Headquarters of the Pacific. Distribution
was dependent on the availability of air transports, the only effective
means of reaching troops located on hundreds of Pacific islands
and in several Asian countries until the end of the war in September
1945.
Since then this same Stars and Stripes has published
European editions as well as Pacific editions for the U.S. Armed
Forces. These have included editions for U.S. forces in Korea, both
during and after the Korean War (1950-1953), and the Vietnamese
Conflict (1963-1975), and the Persian Gulf War (1991). Currently,
it is distributed by the Department of Defense on U.S. military
bases both in the United States and overseas. The National
Tribune, on the other hand, is still privately published
by the Stars and Stripes Omnimedia Corporation and is sold primarily
to thousands of U.S. veterans and their extended families throughout
the United States.
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