Apparently Cannon towels were sending tons of towels to the soldiers and wanted to let the little ladies back home know that was why they were seeing possible shortages in the stores.
The art, appearing in Life magazine, they used is, how shall we say, interesting:
Army Day – Crocodiles Keep Out! from Life magazine.
The Tank Corps have got a little bit of Roman Orgy look goin’ on.
I must say a Buna Bathtub is certainly a novel use for a canoe.
While I won’t argue that these ads appear to be homoerotic you have to remember that these ads ran in the states.
I think you could say that the target audience was the loney women shose men were overseas.
Think of it as Chippendales circa 1942.
I agree w/ Rick. Homosexuality just wasn’t the issue, back then, that it is now. Your links brought back a memory of another print ad, that I think appeared in the years after the war. I believe it was also a Cannon ad, it depicted an indian male in loincloth w/ the caption, “A buck well spent on Cannon sheets”. Seems that Cannons advertising found the “beefcake” ads successful.
“…but whatta bath, brother, whatta bath!”
And what’s up with that guy holding and washing a dismembered leg in the “…Alligators Keep Out!” ad? Does this GI have serious battle fatigue? Perhaps he’s lovingly washing his dead buddy’s blown apart body parts?
“Say! it looks like Joe’s gone crackers, fellas! (and how, brother!) Sure does miss his pal a lot!”
(“Joe’s” in the foreground on the left with his back turned.)
Yeah, there couldn’t possibly be any homoeroticism in those ads, what with the advertising industry being notoriously free of homosexuals…
oops… I mean crocodiles.
You can read whatever you want into the ads, but, at the time – no, there was no homoeroticism going on. Granted, homosexuals of the time might read it that way, but they also read that Batman and Robin were gay: mere projection. Indeed, calling these ads homoerotic is more about the person giving them the label than the ads themselves.
Back in the 40s, such things had absolutely no gay implications to all but a handful of the population. Today, of course, people would look at it differently, but not then.
nope, there are absolutely no homosexual crocodiles in the advertising industry…
Sure. Homoeroticism was completely absent before, what, 1969?. And Walt Whitman was celebate and only praising platonic love between men.
Well, considering the results of this poll, I don’t see why they can’t be homoerotic AND aimed at women! 
I wonder how many of the posters calling this “homoerotic” are also the ones who said they were afraid to shower at the gym.
I’m not quite sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that I see homoeroticism here because I find naked men bathing together erotic. Likewise I was afraid to take showers in school because I was afraid I’d find my classmates showering together erotic and would expose myself to ridicule and abuse because of my boner in the shower?
Is that what you’re trying to say? Is it?
Yep, that’s a fair cop. That really is why I didn’t take showers in gym class in junior high. Guilty.
Say what you like, but that guy with the palm frond in the third picture is gayer than Nathan Lane. I think it might actually defy the laws of physics for a straight guy to stand in that pose. 
That’s the one. Thanks for the correction.
Not what I’m saying. I’m saying there was no intentional homoeroticism in these images.
As is often the case, you’re assuming that the people creating the art (including Walt Whitman) lived in 2006. You cannot assume that people in the past thought the same way as we do. That’s always a mistake.
Heh, I don’t fully buy it.
Sure, attitudes have changed with the times - but this image: http://www.commercialcloset.org/cgi-bin/iowa/portrayals.html?record=1003
seems to deliberately flirt with gay themes - the guy with the palm frond is definitely parodying a “striptease” pose while making eyes at the guy beside him, the guy on the right is whistling at him - while in the middle a guy is washing another’s hair.
I dunno. I’m usually all for the general point being made. For example, I’ll argue extensively that there’s no homoerotic subtext in LOTR between Sam and Frodo, and that those who see one are reading their own proclivities into a relationship which is clearly something different. But those pictures? I’m frankly not sure how they could be any more homoerotic short of graphically depicting hot steamy man-sex.
Just for the record, and to answer saoirse, I’ve never found naked men or pictures thereof (including these) arousing in the least. I’m not saying there’s homoeroticism there because I find the pictures erotic. I’m saying it’s there because the men in the picture are clearly enjoying the view.
What makes you so sure? Do you suggest there were no homosexuals then? Do you think that Doris Day’s line to her boss in Lover Come Back concerning his decorating tastes isn’t a sly nod to his being “artistic”? Did you miss the two women dressed more like men than women in 1958’s Auntie Mame? The villans in Rope (1948; Alfred Hitchcock) were just good friends, right?
You’re absolutely wrong. Walt Whitman made no bones about being homosexual. Gore Vidal has said explicity that he and director William Wyler discussed having homosexual undertones to the relationship between Messala and Judah Ben-Hur for the 1959 film. You are fooling yourself if you think the artists involved in these didn’t see the homoeroticism themselves. As your own references to the Springmaid ad show, sexual double entendres were not uncommon then.
I think the pictures are hot.
What?