Radio in World War II

In the 1930s and 1940s, before the advent of television, radio was by far the most important mass medium, providing drama, comedy, and variety entertainment as well as news and commentary to immense audiences. Radio personalities such as Jack Benny and Walter Winchell drew weekly audiences that have rarely been equaled by any television show. [Page 701]During World War II, radio played a pivotal role in providing news and information, in maintaining the morale of civilians and soldiers, and in psychological warfare.

Even before the United States entered the war, radio affected perception of events in Europe and Asia and of the nations that were to be allies and enemies. Germany beamed short-wave radio propaganda to German Americans; later German broadcasters would produce an English-language program of swing music, Charlie and His Orchestra. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) countered with its North American Service, featuring crisply delivered news and speakers such as the playwright J. B. Priestley.

More important, though, were American radio reporters stationed in Europe, including William Shirer and Edward R. Murrow. Shirer's reports from Berlin in the 1930s, and from France as he followed the German invasion in 1940, helped Americans understand the danger of the Nazi regime. Murrow's reports during the Blitz, the German bombing of London from 1940 to 1941, were even more influential. Millions of Americans heard his signature line, “This … is London,” delivered as he stood on the roofs of buildings during bombing raids, describing what he saw and sometimes holding out his microphone to catch the crash of bombs and the rattle of antiaircraft fire. As the poet Archibald MacLeish said to Murrow, “You burned the city of London in our houses, and we felt the flames that burned it. You laid the dead of London at our doors and we knew the dead were our dead—were all men's dead—were mankind's dead—and ours” (Barnouw, 151). Murrow's reports created sympathy for Britain and made it easier for the U.S. Congress to pass measures, such as the 1941 Lend-Lease Act, to send military aid.

Nearly all Americans owned or had access to a radio during World War II, and it was the most trusted and commonly used source for news. From the bombing of Pearl Harbor, announced in a dramatic bulletin at 2:26 P.M. Eastern time on December 7, 1941, to the end of the war, coverage of war-related events was lavish. It was also popular: a 1945 survey showed that 76 percent of listeners had a preference for evening news programs, 61 percent got most of their news from the radio, and 81 percent thought radio news was fair, while only 39 percent thought newspapers were fair.

Radio news did have its problems. Broadcasts from war zones by on-the-spot reporters were censored by the military; even at home, stories considered to involve national security—such as the sinking of ships or development of new weapons—could be blocked or delayed by the civilian Office of Censorship (OC), meaning that Americans did not get the full story. Rumors, on the other hand, were sometimes reported as facts. And, by postwar standards, the language used on radio may seem racist and jingoistic—the Japanese were often referred to as “Japs” or “Nips,” and Walter Winchell called Germans “Ratzis.”

...