YANK's AFN Radio Guide

I have a few issues of Yank magazine from 1943 and 1944. The official name was "Yank, the Army Weekly." It was published from June 17, 1942 through December of 1945. At it's peak, there were 21 different versions being printed in 17 countries with a circulation of over 2 million copies. There were different editions for Britain, India, Philippines, Pacific, Continental, Far East and others. Because of that wide distribution and popularity, you can find most issues on eBay today for between $5 and $10.  All of the 1944 issues contain an AFN radio guide, and all of those guides list a mix of highlighted programs . But all of them list either Yank's Radio Weekly, or Yank Radio Edition. But there is little information available about that program. I found the answer in the British Edition of the March 12, 1944 issue.

"We are indebted to the American Forces Network for making possible a new half-hour radio program sponsored by Yank, and called Yank's Radio Weekly. It's to be strictly an ETO feature, and will be broadcast this, and every other Saturday from 11:30 until 12. The announcer, assuming he can keep the London fog combed out of his larynx, will be Pvt. George W. Monaghan of the American Forces Network. You can tune in on this new venture by dialing 1375kc, 1402kc, 1411kc, 1420kc, 1447kc, 218.1m, 213.9m, 212.6m, 211.3m, and 207.3m"

AFN produced other programs as well, Duffle Bag, and On the Record which also appear in the Guide. George Monaghan wasn't British. He was an American from Connecticut. He had been broadcasting since 1938, and had previously been an announcer on 1200 WTHT-AM in Hartford. More here.  The book This is the American Forces Network by Patrick Morley goes into more detail about Monaghan, and the relevance of other AFN DJs like Johnny Kerr. Their style was a big departure from the BBC style of the era. It's worth the read.


But back to the guides. Let's be clear, the guide was not a radio schedule. It was just a list of highlighted programs, times and frequencies.  Some of my copies are British editions and you can see they give different frequencies. I am sure that not all 17 countries editions had radio  guides. Both of my 1943 issues lack the guide but that may be specific to the edition. I scanned and included a selection below:


A115 - NOVEMBER 12 1944 (National Barn Dance, Amos & Andy, Mildred Baily Show, American Band of the AEF, Music Hall, Command Performance, Yank's Radio Weekly, Football)

A122 - MAY 14 1944 (Jack Benny Show, Command Performance, Fred Allen Show, Bob Hope Show, Charlie McCarthy Show, Yank Radio Edition, Take The Air)

A123 - JULY 09 1944 (National Barn Dance, Hit Parade, Duffle Bag, Gay Nineties Revue, Bing Crosby, Kay Kyser, Yank's Radio Edition, Amos & Andy)

A124 - JULY 16 1944 (Bob Crosby, Combined Orchestrations, Burns & Allen, Bob Hope, GI Supper Club,  Fred Allen, Yank's Radio Edition, Conducted by Faith)

A125 - SEPT 17 1944 (Andre Kostelanetz, Village Store, GI Journal, Fred Allen, The American Band of the AEF, Bob Crosby, Yank's Radio Weekly, Eddie Condon's Jazz Session)

A126 - SEPT 24 1944 (Comedy Caravan, Amos & Andy, GI Journal, Music by Freddie Martin, Conducted by Faith, Duffy's Tavern, Yank's Radio Weekly, Saturday Night Serenade)

Henry Busse and Henry Busse Jr.

Henry Busse and his Rhythm Shuffle Orchestra was probably the pinnacle of Busse's career in the 1930s. He was a jazz trumpeter, born near Magdeburg in Germany in 1894. He was forced to play trumpet for his uncle's Oompah Band, and ran away from home. By 1916 he was playing in a movie theater pit band in Hollywood. A year later he was in a band with Bing Crosby in a band named Busse's Buzzards. He later ran the house band at the Chez Paree, a night club owned by none other than mob boss Al Capone. Busse had a lot of lucky breaks.

But he had some critics. Downbeat magazine despised him and denigrated his music (even the hits) as "sweet" or "Mickey Mouse." Even 50 years later the Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio refers to his band as a "novelty orchestra." But he made a good living. He even played with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. In 1928 he founded his Rhythm Shuffle Orchestra and got married. His only son was born in 1931, and 3 years later he got divorced. But Henry Busse Sr. and his Orchestra continued to record and perform up until his death in 1955 at an undertakers convention in Memphis. (No kidding)

Busse Junior grew up in Milwaukee initially with dad then relocated with mom to Anoka, MN.  He grew up in the North Star State attended St. Cloud State University, then dropped out and went to Beck School of Broadcasting.  To avoid the Korean War, he enrolled in the National Guard and was stationed in Alabama. When he got out of the Guard he studied broadcasting at Brown Institute in Minneapolis, MN and after graduating he got a radio job in Aberdeen, SD... and was fired. The Brown Institute, found him another spot, this time in Mankato,MN at KYSM-AM. He would return to that station half a dozen times over his career.

Storz Broadcasting hired him to 660 KOWH-AM in Omaha,NE. He worked there from 1957 to late 1959 when Storz sold it.  He moved to WOKY-AM in Milwaukee, then to KTLN in Denver, CO and then back to KSYM.He tried to go straight and open a liquor store, but he was wooed back to the mic and was on air at KTOE in Mankato by 1979. Then like his dad he struck it lucky. He was hired to run KMSU-FM, the college station at Minnesota State University in Mankato. He remained there until 1994.

Then Busse Jr. went back to KSYM-AM again. But that time he got lucky too This time he was playing  playing jazz and big band and sometimes even his dad's records. A producer once brought Busse Jr. a set of fourteen 15-minutes radio shows of Henry Sr. recorded as “Henry Busse and his Meaumont Orchestra.” You see, Busse Sr. spent a bit of time on air as well. The book American Big Bands by William F. Lee noted that during WWII, Henry Busse Sr. and His Orchestra appeared on the weekly radio shows Coca-Cola Spotlight and the Fitch Bandwagon.

Toward the end of WWII he made recordings for AFRS programs in 1944. In 1945 he performed what was probably his lat radio work on the show Cosmo Tune Time on the Mutual Network. But, before that, the Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio also lists a 30-minute NBC program airing in 1936 and 1937 sponsored by Maro-Oil in it's band remotes section. Those were live broadcasts sustained by the NBC network and broadcast without interruption. While that led to some very hot improvised performances by some artists, I'd expect Busse was more subdued. Busse Jr. died in 2013 at the age of 82. More here.

The Pat Sajak Show on AFVN

Thom tipped me off to the existence of this. You probably know the name Pat Sajak as the host of the TV game show Wheel of Fortune. But before that he was a longtime radioman even briefly at AFVN. You can read more here.

Transcription Mystery Disc #175

This 8 inch metal core Recordisc has an outer edge start and spins at 78 rpm. It's one of the unusual cases that is not only labeled, but the edge start box is even correctly checked. It's dated for 10-6-46, with the title "Five Minutes More" and the recorder is marked in cursive capitals... might be RAC, RAG, R+G... can't tell. I really hate cursive. But it's probably just the engineers initials.
 
The recording is of a popular orchestra playing the tune "Five Minutes More."  I thought it might be Tex Beneke. They cut the song as a hit single in 1946, but so did Glen Miller, Bob Crosby, The Three Suns, Frank Sinatra, and even Skitch Henderson. This is none of those bands.

At the 2:30 mark I figured out why. It's not a dub of a record. It's a live radio recording. The Host breaks in amid light applause and says "There goes that band again" as string music fades up. That phrase was the closing theme of the Dick Jurgens Orchestra. The audio is too good for this to be a live recording, it had to be a recording of a radio performance. Dick Jurgens was playing the Hotel Claremont in June of 1946, and Yank Bandstand for ARFS that fall. He didn't have his own CBS program until 1948. I deduce that somehow this is a recording from one of those "Yank Bandstand" programs. More here.

Down Beat Shows

I found a few more Downbeat AFRS Programs so I thought I'd post them. It was an excellent program. I really hope they're all available some day.

AFRS Downbeat Show (pt 2)

Thom, keeper of the AFRS Archive Blog (LINK) was kind enough to send me pictures of a couple more Downbeat discs. I cannot over state how hard these are to come by.  Take a gander. You'll probably never see any in person.

AFRS Downbeat Show

I had trouble imagining that these two brands might collude, or even collide.  The Radiogold index here has a list of sixty-two, 16-inch, 30-minute AFRS 33 rpm transcriptions from a WWII jazz radio program called "Downbeat." It ran from at least 1943 to 1948. Despite the fact that a jazz program and a jazz magazine of the same name operated concurrently and even featured many of the same artists they seem to have had no connection. I find this inexpiable.

Downbeat the jazz music magazine began publication in 1934 in Chicago. But Downbeat was no jingoist rag. Starting around October 1942, Down Beat began running a regular column titled  Killed in Action. This was to honor the scores of musicians who died in action. But it also had a certain racial component. Civil rights was an increasingly prominent problem and drafting jazz musicians to fight a war when they lacked many of the basic rights of citizenship posed a very public dilemma. Nonetheless they were not anti-war in any other regard.


The selection of artists on the Down Beat radio program mostly ranged from vanilla to wholesome: Glen Miller, Harry James, Gene Krupa, Woody Herman, and Xavier Cugat but there are also some more daring picks. Fats Waller, Charlie Barnet, Spike Jones and Duke Ellington appeared on several shows.


The Downbeat program was cancelled in 1948. According to a note in Billboard it was replaced by DJ Gene Norman's jazz concerts. Gene Norman has been an announcer on some Down Beat programs as early as 1945, but so had Elliott Lewis. How Norman floated to the top I can't guess.

It is also notable that in the late 1940s-1950s there was a record label named "Down Beat." More here.  They put out sides by Lowell Fulson, Ray Charles, Pete Johnson and others. But very little information is available otherwise. Currently I have assumed it is not connected to either the show or the magazine. In the 1960s the CRC (Caribbean Recording Company) also put out some discs under the name "Down Beat" that also of no relation to any of the above.

The Prudential Family Hour

The Prudential Family Hour was a music and variety program that ran from 1941 to 1948 on CBS and also re-broadcast on AFRS. It starred Gladys Swarthout, a soprano from the Metropolitan Opera and the Al Goodman Orchestra. The 45 minute light classical music program aired on Sundays at 5:00 PM. It had a big budget and production was top notch for the era.

As you might imagine, the variety part of the program wasn't slapstick and redneck jokes. They aired carefully scripted sketches on the lives of composers like Beethoven and Schubert. Prudential Insurance hadn't done much in radio prior to the Family Hour. It sponsored the short-lived Jack Berch Show, and possibly a soap opera in the 1930s. I've not confirmed that yet.

You probably have never heard of Gladys Swarthout. Born in 1900, she studied at the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago and started out at the Chicago Civic Opera Company.  She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1929. In the 1930s she began appearing in films. She guested on many radio programs including "What's My Line?," "The Railroad Hour,""Firestone Theater," "Palmolive Beauty Box Theater," "Camel Caravan", "Ford Symphony" and many others. More here.

After eight years the audience had diminished significantly. Wholesome programming like these music programs were on the wane and both FM radio and TV were on the rise. In 1948 they tried to revive the  program with a reboot as The Prudential Family Hour of Stars, mixing in appearances by Hollywood celebrities and more dramatic segments. Swarthout was not included. The new show had appearances by Humphrey Bogart, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck among others. It wasn't enough. The program was cancelled in 1949. Swarthout later retired to Italy, and died in 1969. More here.

American Expeditionary Radio

This post comes to you courtesy of Brian Carusella, a researcher specializing in Foxhole radio. While researching the the 5th Army Mobile Station he acquired the above poster advertising the American Expeditionary Radio Station from WWII. He was kind enough to scan and share this rare piece of radio ephemera.

Admittedly I am not a specialist in WWI I military radio (still doing my reading) but I can tell from this scan that it was posted originally in Italy. Also interesting that the city of Livorno is rendered in English as "Leghorn" while the rest is unaltered. The 5th army area is probably Salerno. According to this site, the Fifth Army was composed of  active Army, National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers. They were the first American army to initiate combat on the European mainland in World War II. They landed  at Salerno, Italy on September 9th, 1943. Fifth Army was inactivated (in the scope of WWII) in October 1945. So this poster proabbly dates to between 1943 and 1945. While broadcasting continued to the present day, the presence of the 5th did not.  More here.

Vincent Voice Library

In 1912, a 14-year old George Robert Vincent brought a wax cylinder recorder to the home of former President Theodore Roosevelt, in Oyster Bay N.Y. and convinced Roosevelt to speak into it. This cylinder was the first in the private collection of voice recordings by Mr. Vincent. The collection, thankfully is not all cylinders.  It's stored primarily on reels of magnetic tape.  It contains the voices of over 100,000 people. Some of them are less notable than President Roosevelt of course, but the overall quality of the library is astounding. Unsurprisingly G. Robert Vincent spent a little time in radio.

Vincent was born in 1900 in Boston, MA (thought some sourced say July 17, 1898.) As was almost inescapable in that era, he enlisted in World War I. he tried out for the British and was rejected. Then he tried the French military and became a dispatch courier in the French Army. When they found out he was 15 they shipped him home.  In 1918 he enlisted in the U.S. Army and went to officers school. He got his stripes at 17 years old. He eventually was stationed as an embassy Officer in Paris.

Some biographies state that he attended Yale, between WWI and WII, my understanding is that is a fish tale.  He did however work at Edison Laboratories. In 1939 he opened his own recording studio in New York, the National Vocarium (some sources say 1935).  regardless it's listed in the 1943 Broadcasting Yearbook on page 214. It was located at 610 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.  They are listed as a source for transcription, production and scripts. the manager is listed as Robert Vincent of course.

In WWII in April 1942 the now Lieutenant Vincent was assigned to the brand new New York  radio section of the Army Special Services Division. He lobbied the pentagon for an active recording program. He eventually scored one million dollars of funding. He then brought in Steve Shoals from RCA Records to help run the project.  Unsurprisingly he hired V-Discs RCA Victor and Columbia Records to press the 12-inch vinylite V-discs.  By 1942, the AFRS was sending  transcription discs  to the troops from Vincent's pop recording sessions, from live concerts,  radio programs and more.

They sent popular music on unbreakable vinyl LPs to troops in the field. At the time the American Federation of Musicians, (AFM)  were on strike and the four major record companies could not record with union artists. Vincent  convinced the head of the AFM to allow union musicians to record sides for the military, with the caveat that these LPs not be sold stateside. the true beginning of the V-disc was in 1941. Captain Howard Bronson was assigned to the Army's Recreation and Welfare Section and began recording some very stiff marches and pressing discs of radio shows with the commercials edited out. Vincent took V-disc pop with  big stars and a big studio budget. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his contribution to the morale of U.S. troops.

The V-Disc program ended in 1949 and to live up to their deal with the AFM, the original masters and stampers were destroyed. In some cases it is been recorded that the FBI and the Provost Marshal's Office confiscated and destroyed V-Discs that servicemen had tried to smuggle home.  One source claims that an employee at a Los Angeles record company even did some jail time for the illegal possession of over 2,500 V-Discs. More here.

In 1962 he donated more than 8,000 historic recordings to the Michigan State University, forming the basis of what would be the Voice Library. Upon his retirement in 1973, the collection had grown to 30,000 recordings, which was increased to more than 50,000 records for 2005, with the voices of thousands of U.S. national characters. He died in 1985 at the age of 88. More here.

It's 105 Degrees and Rising

There has been much written about the Vietnam War. But we write about radio here so I must narrow my focus to a 3 minute and 6 second moment in the history of the war. It marked the fall of Saigon, it's capture by the North Vietnamese. This was prudently preceded by the evacuation of the American embassy. In some ways it was the last three minutes and six seconds of the war except that by all reports they played the song on repeat to make sure the signal was heard by all.

To prepare for this impending evacuation, the American embassy distributed a 15-page booklet called Standard Instruction and Advice to Civilians in an Emergency. The booklet included a map of Saigon which indicated rally points for helicopter pick up. There was an insert page which read: "Note evacuational signal. Do not disclose to other personnel. When the evacuation is ordered, the code will be read out on Armed Forces Radio (AFVN). The code is: The temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising. This will be followed by the playing of I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." The version they selected was sung by Bing Crosby. After the signal was given buses began to bring evacuees to the pick up points. It was called Operation Frequent Wind.

Radio was everywhere. There were radios in the PX, radios in the barracks radios in the offices for the REMF. It was the fastest and most certain way to convey a message to everyone simultaneously. On April 29th, 1975 At 10:51 AM Henry Kissenger gave the order and the signal was broadcast on AFVN. It's important to note that between 1973 and 1975, the station was operated by civilians at Federal Electric, a subsidiary of ITT. (Thank you N4UF)

Interestingly, Bing Crosby was privately opposed to the Vietnam War. Whether the administrator who made the pick knew that I don't know but I love the irony. In 2002, the Library of Congress selected the 1942 version to add to the National Recording Registry.

************************UPDATE***************************

I was contacted by N4UF, an AFVN staffer with a slightly different version of events. But This version, despite contradicting popular sources comes from the most authoritative source possible: The last DJ: Chuck Neil. I'm quoting:

"We had a big Gates Automatic Programmer. We programmed most of our day on that machine. And I went back in there and took the cartridge with "105 degrees and rising" and "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," and popped it in the slot and punched it up. And that was my final act at the radio station...."

Basically this means that Frank Snepp's account in "Decent Interval"was incorrect. AFVN did not air the Bing Crosby version. In an article by Chuck himself in the Library of Congress he states that he couldn't find Bing Crosby's version in the record library and substituted the Tennessee Ernie Ford version. Every other writer who used Snepp as a source passed on the error into history until in 2002 the National Recording Registry archived the wrong version of the song.