Hello and happy holidays from the war zone! This edition is mostly about the audio which you can click on above. Subscribers can download it as a podcast.
As we get further away in time from the second World War, we tend to lose track of what life felt like during wartime.
America's entry into World War Two began 17 days before Christmas on Dec 8, 1941. For the next five holiday seasons "peace on earth" went on hiatus.
What you’ll hear is not a history of World War Two, or a sugar plum romp through precarious yuletides. Most of this originated at Christmas time and was constantly by interrupted by breaking bulletins. It is a sound montage that features the newscasters and entertainers of the time communicating with their vast unseen audiences.
It is a dark time. For much of the world, 1941 marks the third year of a war that has seen the German occupation of many European countries. War does not take a holiday.
On the radio, it’s bombs and jingle all the way, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Abbot and Costello, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Judy Garland, Francis Langford, Dinah Shore, Glenn Miller, and the men and women of the greatest generation.
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