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.

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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.

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World War II-era Broadcast and Recording Technology.

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We Interrupt This Program

For Americans waging the battle of the home front during World War II, information was a powerful weapon. And thanks to the growth of radio reporting during the war years, listeners became a well informed, well armed, citizenry. Mirroring the advances in equipment and technology, listeners' interests and awareness grew along with broadcast journalism's significance. As a result, radio news moved from the sidelines to broadcasting's forefront.

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
Throughout the war, regular programming was constantly interrupted by world news, battle updates, and special bulletins. Whether in the last inning of a ballgame or the climax of a soap opera, the phrase "We interrupt this program" was as common as "a word from our sponsor," with the information ranging from the essential to the mundane. Imagine, for example, a relaxing Sunday morning in June of 1944, sipping your coffee and listening to the soothing sounds of "Wings Over Jordan," when your reverie is broken with the words "We have interrupted this program to bring you a special broadcast…"

Broadcast #2
Even before the nation officially entered the conflict, Americans were eagerly devouring each scrap of war news. This unprecedented level of interest led broadcasters to add programs, expand foreign bureaus, and augment news teams. Despite the increased competition, the constraints of combat, geography, and bureaucracy required rival news teams to cooperate on "pool broadcasts," in which a single journalist filed a report made available to all networks. When the Allies invaded France on June 6, 1944, hundreds of reporters, correspondents, and photographers were on hand to scoop the story of the century. This pool report filed by Larry Meyer on June 7, 1944, was among the first eyewitness accounts to be broadcast.

Broadcast #3
Frontline reporting during World War II was spotty, but this had more to do with the era's technical and logistical limitations than with correspondents' timidity. Home-front listeners craved news, especially firsthand accounts, and the chroniclers of World War II eagerly obliged. Journalists, writers, photographers, filmmakers, even painters and cartoonists stormed the beaches, sailed the seas, and took to the air on every front. Their weapons were cameras and bulky recording equipment, but they faced the same dangers as their better-armed counterparts. Many never made it back to file their reports. In this pool report, recorded the evening of June 7, 1944, and broadcast two days later, George Hicks, London bureau chief for the Blue Network, was calmly recording an eyewitness account of life aboard an American destroyer when it was attacked by German fighters.

Broadcast #4
During the golden era of radio, broadcast news was often a juggling act of reporting, bold commentary, and audacious characters. From the acerbic tone of Winchell to the noble theater of Murrow, personality carried as much weight then as it does today, with true journalism sometimes lost in the shuffle. One commentator able to maintain both his persona and his journalistic integrity was Joseph C. Harsch. Harsch began his career with the Christian Science Monitor in 1929, an association that would last nearly 70 years, with stints in radio, television, and publishing along the way. Harsch reported from London when war was declared, from Berlin as the war took shape, from Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, and from Australia during the early days of the Pacific campaign. Somehow he also found time to do a regular program for Columbia, "The Meaning of the News." In this June 16, 1944 edition, Harsch comments on Germany's new secret weapon, and that it is not a sign of Nazism's strength, but rather a testament to its weakness.

Broadcast #5
Despite being in the thick of the action, GIs on the frontlines often joked that the folks back home knew more about the war than they did. In many cases they were right. Due to broadcasting's exceptional growth, a literally global supply of alternative sources, and the military's need for secrecy (not to mention its generally confounding communication style), war-era listeners enjoyed a parade of information unavailable overseas. In this May 7, 1945 broadcast, Howard K. Smith reports on Germany's not-yet-total surrender. Possibly the biggest story of the war, it was news back home before it was official on the battlefield.

Broadcast #6
With a sea of information flooding newsrooms daily, war-era broadcasters struggled to separate fact from fiction. News directors received reports from wire services, official sources, foreign broadcasts, amateur short wave operators, and journalists from other media, as well as from their own reporters, and these dispatches were often a mix of news, opinion, speculation, and innuendo. Sometimes a single source could be a study in contradiction, as illustrated by this story on two Japanese broadcasts on August 14, 1945. With Japan's surrender all but certain, two different reports were coming out of Tokyo, one proclaiming that the fight goes on, another that the war is over.

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

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