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Even as the war dragged on, home-front
listeners looked to the future and a return to normalcy. And just what
would the future hold? A lasting peace? United nations? An atomic age?
What were America's concerns as the war crept slowly to its conclusion?
This General Electric ad from the June 26, 1944 edition of "The World
Today," suggests that one concern was "what post-war radio and
television sets will be like."
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Throughout the course of the war,
broadcasters mobilized, technology developed, and journalism matured.
While covering the war was taxing, reporting the peace proved just as
hectic. In a few short years, broadcast journalism had moved away from
the dramatizations and after-the-fact commentaries of the 1930s to the
eyewitness reports, global transmissions, and orchestrated media spectacles
of the war years. This August 14, 1945 broadcast, just minutes after the
official word of the Japanese surrender was released by President Truman,
finds the CBS newsroom abuzz with clattering teletypes, harried staffers,
and Bob Trout directing traffic. Also featured is Washington correspondent
Bill Henry reporting on Truman's response, and the national anthem offered
as a fitting conclusion.
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Now in the midst of a welcome but anxious
peace, radio began its slow return to normalcy, with war news giving way
to singing and dancing, comedy routines, and baseball games. In this Armed
Forces Radio broadcast of September 2, 1945, carried by networks worldwide,
Bing Crosby sums up the nation's post-war hopes and dreams in what he
aptly describes a "Marconi handshake."
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Following the Allied victory, with both
optimism and ingenuity at full bloom, educational programming flourished.
One show, "America's Town Meeting of the Air," offered information
as well as controversy for more than two decades. The program combined
audience participation, a panel of intelligent commentators, and a full
spectrum of opinion in a true test of airwave democracy. In this undated
post-war broadcast, circa-1946, the topic is "What Does the Returning
GI Expect at Home?" The commentator is possibly the most famous and
beloved GI of World War II, Bill Mauldin.
Mauldin joined the Army at 18 and began drawing cartoons for his division
newsletter; by 22 he was a combat veteran, having participated in the
invasions of Sicily and Italy. The next year, Mauldin was drawing full-time
for Stars and Stripes, where his one-panel takes on military
life, often featuring two regular-guy GIs named Willie and Joe, were enjoyed
in every theater of the war. The cartoons' unvarnished truths were as
popular with enlisted men as they were unpopular with military brass,
who considered Mauldin's work a little too accurate, not to mention anti-officer.
One outspoken critic, General George S. Patton, actively tried to censor
Mauldin's work. However, after another frontline favorite, Ernie Pyle,
sang Mauldin's praises, United Features Syndicate began running his cartoons
back home, making him just as popular with home front readers, who had
previously seen his work in dog-eared clippings sent back from the front.
At war's end and still in his early 20s, Mauldin won a Pulitzer Prize,
was on the cover of Time, and had the nation's best-selling book.
Mauldin went on to earn fame, and another Pulitzer, as a widely syndicated
political cartoonist. But he'll forever be known for Willie and Joe, and
for reflecting, as he said, "the humorous situations which come up
even when you don't think life could be any more miserable."
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In 1946, American industry was shifting
back to domestic production, and radio was booming. More sets were in
more homes than ever before, most Americans relied on radio for news,
and radio was now available in six million cars. However, competition
was also booming, with the LP, 45, and transistor all introduced within
the next year; FM radio on the rise; television slowly creeping into more
American homes; and many networks losing their local affiliates. Radio's
days were numbered, and within a decade its dominance would all but disappear.
Along with this brave, new media world, 1946 also officially ushered in
the atomic age. "Operation Crossroads," the first post-war nuclear
tests, were conducted in July 1946, at the Bikini
Atoll in the Pacific.  This
was also the first full-fledged media circus of the post-war era. As much
a public relations stunt as scientific endeavor, 242 ships; 156 planes;
25,000 monitoring devices; and 42,000 men (not to mention 5,400 rats,
pigs, and goats) took part in the joint military exercise that was heard
around the world in one of the most demanding radio broadcasts in the
history of the medium. But radio was only part of the story, and Operation
Crossroads was also reported through newsreels, print journalism, essays,
documentaries, and the new kid on the media block, television. Despite
drama and excitement every bit as thrilling as anything from the glory
days of radio, the sounds of Operation Crossroads were far overshadowed
by its imagery, and this July 1, 1946, broadcast would prove to be one
of radio's finales.
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Hear This
During
World War II, the art of reporting changed from announcing what had happened
to describing what was happening, changing listeners' expectations along with
it. From Hitler's early invasion threats to the final surrender ceremonies,
news became sudden, current, and concise. Although the pace of news slowed
at war's end, America's appetite for information intensified. In addition
to expecting more news more often, there were (for many Americans anyway)
more leisure-time options, more gadgets with which to enjoy it all, and the
post-war prosperity to make it possible.
