Radio At War

There are few periods in American history when the entire Nation was committed to a common goal such as the weeks, months, and years following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan. This is especially true when we consider that Isolationism was an attitude which was taken seriously by many up until the circumstances of the Attack became known. The effort would be a global conflict with Americans fighting across two oceans.

The leadership of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan were all aware that they had little hope of standing up against the industrial might of the United States in a protracted conflict, but none of the so-called Tripartite Pact nations believed that they would have to. Hitler had sufficiently weakened the Western European nations that their subjugation after Nazi victory on the Eastern was little more than a formality. The Japanese had hoped to deal a crippling blow to the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor while at the same time they were attacking American forces in Guam and the Philippines as well as the British colonies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaya. Although the Pacific Fleet was slow to recover from Pearl Harbor, a number of tactical blunders on the part of the Japanese meant that the attack would not be a crippling blow, but would fill a "sleeping giant" with a "terrible resolve".

Since the dawn of mass communication when Gutenberg printed his first Bible, nations have used propaganda as a weapon of War. The Nazis dedicated entire ministries to the use of radio as a propaganda tool and controlled the state broadcasts both for internal consumption as well as spreading information and disinformation to their enemies. However, American broadcasters were even more effective at bringing their nation together despite, or perhaps because American Radio was commercial and not State controlled. The networks and individual broadcast stations were licensed by the Federal government and "public service" was part of their mandate, but what this meant was largely up to interpretation.

Radio journalism was considered of secondary importance in comparison to newspapers and magazines. Print media could convey more accurate details but was no match for the visceral punch of hearing from a live person under fire. While a newspaper article may have been seen by millions of individual readers, hearing the same report over the radio was a shared experience and therefore that much more powerful. Journalistic reporting was only a small part of radio's war effort, radio drama is what really brought the nation together and unified the War effort.

Although the letters were dramatized, Dear Adolph presented the voice of various sectors of the American people to the enemies of freedom. Well written by Steven Vincent Benet and read by some of the best acting talent in the country, the letters gave voice to the nation's resolve to see the War through to ultimate victory. Edge of the seat drama came with The Man Behind the Gun, tales told from the point of view of the men (and women) on the front lines, the men who had the enemy in their gunsights, and even more often, were in the enemy's sights.

The thought that the War might leave Europe in ruins, resulting in a shift of economic and cultural dominance to Asia was the impetus behind The Pacific Story. Produced by the same staff responsible for NBC University of the Air, the documentary series was originally planned as a 13-week series but grew to 184 episodes and its run extended well past VJ Day. Although the program stopped well short of the Korean War and the rise of the "Asian Tigers" economic boom, Pacific Story remains a great introductory lesson to Asian studies. Another "thinking man's" look at the War was Words at War. The program was based on the many books and scholarly articles written about the War as it was being prosecuted. Initially sponsored by Johnson Wax, Words at War began as the 1943 Summer Replacement for Fibber McGee and Molly, but when the Wax Company went back to lighter fare, NBC continued to sustain the program for a total of 99 episodes.

Although production had to be held up until after the War, Cloak and Dagger told declassified stories of the exploits by members of the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS was created to coordinate espionage efforts behind enemy lines for all the services and governmental agencies. The production was handled by Willis Cooper, the same "whiz-kid" who brought the late-night thriller Lights Out to the air. CBS's thrilling anthology series, Suspense, and Escape also looked to the War for story sources. Most of these broadcasts came after the War, but sufficiently little time had passed that there were plenty of listeners who had "been there, done that".

The Second World War was a radio War, not only in the way it was reported and fought but also in the way it is remembered and perceived by the public. For all its technological merits, radio was a "one-way" media which makes for a contrast with modern crisis and conflicts in the Internet Age where knowledge of the events come through first-hand blog posts and reports and are then available for commentary and contrast via social media.