I’ve noticed they tried to save characters by using shorter terms where possible. E.G. Foe instead of Enemy, Nazis instead of Germans, and as I will point out tomorrow, Solomons instead of Guadalcanal. They have on occasion used the full spelling of MacArthur in headlines or subheadlines.
More words on the page that way, I guess
You can also cheat a little bit by taking out some of the space between the words. Headline writing is easier if you have multiple columns to work with. Writing single column headlines isn’t fun.