The Home Front: How America Heard the War

The War's Voices

Broadcast and Commercial Recordings of Speeches and Interviews of World War II-era Personalities.

Winning the Home Front

War-related Entertainment, Propaganda, and Ads Targeting World War II-era Radio Listeners.

G.I. Jive

Popular and Topical Songs of World War II.

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys

USO Shows, Armed Forces Radio, V-Discs, and Other Morale Efforts Targeting the Military.

We Interrupt This Program

War Reports, News Flashes, and Informational Programs Regarding World War II.

Now Hear This

World War II-era Broadcast and Recording Technology.

---

Search This Site

Topic Index

Visitor Guest Book

Winning the Home Front

Though many Americans were spared combat during World War II, they still fought the battle of the home front. And while most GIs would have gladly traded their frontline rations for meat rationing back home, civilian life was not without its difficulties. For those who remained stateside, the radio became their weapon of survival, their lifeline of entertainment, and their source of information, with radio achieving a status beyond that of any previous medium.

The six radio broadcasts presented here come from original studio transcription disc recordings in the Arthur B. Church - KMBC Radio Collection and the J. David Goldin Collection in the Marr Sound Archives.

Broadcast #1
"Do your part" was a maxim for all Americans during World War II. Whether one's enemy was the Axis or the family budget, everyone had a role to play in contributing to the nation's war effort. Even the most mundane domestic chore, as this 1944 KMBC promo demonstrates, was vital to victory.

Broadcast #2
Hoping to boost morale and preserve a semblance of normalcy during the war, President Roosevelt urged baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis to maintain a major league schedule for the duration. However, with money, leisure time, and players in short supply, wartime baseball was anything but normal. Air raid blackouts were also a hindrance: In this broadcast of the 1942 All Star game, played July 6 at New York's Polo Grounds, the final out in the bottom of the ninth just beats the East-Coast curfew.

Broadcast #3
World War II spawned numerous advances, not the least of which was a vastly expanded vocabulary. From "blitz" to "jeep" to "kamikaze" to "snafu," the war years introduced a colorful new language, which the popular media eased into the national lexicon. Some terms were horrific, some comical, and others were simply an existing idiom transformed, such as "bazooka," the Army's shoulder-fired rocket launcher. "Bazooka" was originally the name popular radio comedian Bob Burns gave to his large homemade kazoos and slide whistles. When the Army introduced its new anti-tank weapon in North Africa, GIs, noting the resemblance to Burns' musical contraptions, dubbed it "the bazooka." The nickname stuck and achieved instant notoriety, as shown by this 1944 General Electric ad touting the new weapon.

Broadcast #4
On October 20, 1930, Chicago's WGN debuted "Painted Dreams," a daily radio drama aimed at radio's main daytime audience: women and housewives who worked at home. Scripted, produced, and performed by ex-school teacher Irna Philips, the program was the first radio soap opera. Through the '30s and '40s, the genre was a broadcast sensation, with as many as 80 local and network soap operas (named for the soap manufacturers who sponsored many of these programs) broadcast daily, and one radio soap airing through 1960. During World War II, many of their storylines reflected the separations, losses, and victories of their listeners, with some plots even developed in collaboration with the Office of War Information. This popularity influenced radio's prime time programming, as shown by this episode of "Blue Playhouse" from NBC's Blue Network. The story, "Daybreak for Our Carrier," based on the book by Max Miller (who also wrote "I Cover the Waterfront"), chronicles a day in the life of an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Though not a soap opera per se, this September 2, 1944 episode, with the carrier's poetic female "voice" that narrates the action and the rolling organ fills linking each vignette, show obvious similarities.

Broadcast #5
Holidays held extra meaning during the war. Both more celebratory and extra poignant, these days were often marked by pageants, proclamations, and all-star productions, with radio capturing it all for home-front listeners. For Thanksgiving Day 1943, the Elgin National Watch Company staged the "Elgin Thanksgiving Day Greeting to America," a star-studded extravaganza broadcast over CBS on the evening of November 25, 1943. In this segment, the quiet Thanksgiving dinner of George Burns and Gracie Allen, one of radio's favorite couples, has some unexpected guests.

Broadcast #6
From travel restrictions to gas rationing to food shortages, Americans fighting the battle of the home front during World War II faced countless hardships. But these recipe alternatives from the February 11, 1943, edition of "The World Today" may represent the ultimate home-front sacrifice.
Read a Transcription of This Broadcast

Text by Scott O'Kelley, Marr Sound Archives
Digital Audio by Scott Middleton, Marr Sound Archives

---

| 1939-1941 | Pearl Harbor | Europe and D-Day | Pacific Theater | Post War World | Further Study |

Return to "Voices of World War II" Home Page