Breaking Walls

Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakers Willam Spier was born on 10/16/1906 in New York City. He began his career as an editor at Musical America Magazine, eventually becoming its chief critic. His radio career began in 1929, when he produced and directed The Atwater-Kent Hour, a Met Opera presentation. He soon became a valuable member of BBD&O’s growing staff of radio writers & directors. In 1931 Spier went to Hollywood to direct one of the first big budget radio programs in southern California. Coming back to New York, he was one of the people responsible for the creation of The March of Time. In 1940 Spier left BBD&O & began working for CBS. He was soon their story editor. Meanwhile, CBS decided to bring Forecast back. Season two premiered on 7/14/1941, with a play from Hollywood called The Arabian Nights. It starred Marlene Dietrich & was directed by Charles Vanda. The following week Kay Thompson starred in 51 East 51 from New York. It was an on-the-scene comedy at a fictitious upscale New York bar. Her director that evening was Bill Spier. The two were soon dating, marrying in 1942. Two weeks later, Spier produced & directed a Forecast episode called Song Without End, starring Burgess Meredith & Margo. It was to be a biopic on musicians and composers. That autumn Vanda & Spier were in New York, pushing for the launch of Suspense as a CBS cost-sustained show. On Sunday 12/71941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor & Manilla, finally thrusting the US into World War II. The next Sunday, as CBS prepared for the Monday multi-network broadcast of Norman Corwin’s We Hold These Truths, Bill Paley finally approved Suspense’s launch as a thirteen-week summer series in 1942. Vanda got Harold Medford to come East to write. Although Bill Spier was head of CBS’s New York Story Department, it was Harold Medford who polished the first seven shows. Vanda also got CBS musician Bernard Herrmann to compose the show’s score. Suspense premiered on Wednesday June 17th, 1942 at 10:30PM eastern time. The first episode, “The Burning Court” was adapted from a story by John Dickson Carr. Seeking a star, Vanda chose Charlie Ruggles. Known for his comedic flair, Ruggles was in New York for the opening of his latest film, Friendly Enemies. Vanda believed that Suspense could cast against type. It came to be a show staple. Charles Vanda wound up only being in charge of the first five shows. He went into the army. The second show was the John Collier mystery “Wet Saturday,” a grim tongue-in-cheek tale of murder. The final three shows by Vanda were a take on the Lizzie Borden case, a murder story aboard a train, & a thrill kill, “Rope” that Alfred Hichcock later shot with James Stewart. With Vanda entering the service Bill Spier took over the production. Spier’s first episode as producer was on 7/22/1942. On 9/2 Suspense broadcast Lucille Fletcher’s “The Hitchhiker.” At the time Fletcher was married to Bernard Herrmann. “The Hitchhiker” starred Orson Welles. Welles & Spier had known each other since The March of Time. Welles just returned from Brazil where he’d been promoting greater Pan-Americanism on behalf of RKO. It was his first appearance on Suspense. When the thirteen-week summer run ended, CBS was set to cancel the series. The last episode was called, “One Hundred In the Dark.” It aired on September 30th, 1942. In the end Suspense was saved by the amount of fan mail & phone calls to CBS. Spier pushed to link the show with a prestigious mystery author. He approached the agent of John Dickson Carr, who’d written “The Burning Court,” & a deal was soon in place for him to write exclusively for the program. CBS picked up Suspense for the fall season and put it on the air Tuesdays at 9:30PM beginning 10/27. John Dietz returned as director and a foreboding narrator, “The Man In Black,” was played by Ted Osborne.

Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakers In July of 1940 CBS’ Lux Radio Theatre was scheduled for its summer hiatus. Lux aired sixty-minute condensations of films Mondays at 9PM. Pulling a rating of 23.7, it was CBS’s highest-rated show and Monday’s most-listened to program. Head of CBS William Paley and Program Director Bill Lewis wanted to use the vacated time slot to attract both audience participation and potential sponsors. At that time, CBS’s story editor was William Spier. They decided to launch a pilot series to workshop new shows. They called it Forecast. It debuted on July 15th, 1940. Each week two thirty minute shows — one from New York and one from Hollywood — aired live. CBS petitioned their audience to write in about the pilots they liked. On July 22nd at 9:30PM, a Forecast took to the air starring Herbert Marshall, Edmund Gwenn, and Noreen Gammill. This particular one was conceived by Charles Vanda. Born in New York on June 6th, 1903, Charles Vanda got into radio and moved to Los Angeles in 1935 to be the CBS West Coast Program Director. Although Los Angeles was still a minor outpost for radio, by decade's end it overtook Chicago and matched New York as a major broadcasting hub. William Paley was keen on pushing programming in Hollywood and Vanda’s boss Bill Lewis was a man who proudly championed shows like The Columbia Workshop. Among the people Lewis helped was Norman Corwin. Vanda conceived the mystery program as a drama with famous stars, a large orchestra, and a well-known host. The man Vanda wanted was Alfred Hitchcock. It was Hitchcock who came up with the show name, Suspense. On July 22nd, the day Suspense was to air, Hitchcock was unexpectedly called to New York and wouldn't be able to appear. Rather than change directions, British actor Edmond Stevens imitated Hitchcock. But, the broadcast flopped. Variety said, “Alfy, old boy, don't ever do that to us again,” referring to the open ending. That, along with Hitchcock’s spotty availability spooked advertisers. No one wanted to sponsor the program. Suspense was mothballed. Of all the pilots that aired during season one of Forecast, only Duffy’s Tavern got picked up, and even that didn’t happen until March of 1941. Charles Vanda was soon called back to New York to produce shows like The Columbia Workshop. There he worked with William Spier. Within two years the duo would finally bring Suspense to the air.

Thank you to those who recently supported the show at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakers. If you support Breaking Walls for as little as $1 a month, you'll get each episode's show early and in one long documentary. Each month's episode takes me somewhere between 30-60 hours of work time to complete and supporting through the Patreon does a LOT to help me keep doing the show and paying for hosting and other costs. I’ve been doing the show since February of 2018 and I’m honestly not sure how much longer I can do the show without being able to support it. At the $5 and up tier I'm posting other goodies and clips of historic radio interest. Right now I’m posting digitized transcriptions of CBS Dimension, CBS’s magazine of the air in vignette form. It was sent to affiliates via records in the early 1960s and in some ways was an answer to NBC’s Monitor. Expect these kinds of posts a couple of times per week. Also, a couple of times per month I'm going to release an old episode of Breaking Walls, which has fallen off the RSS feed, beginning with episode 75 to the Patreon feed. These will be available at the $1 and up tier and episodes 75, 76 and 77 have been uploaded. Anyway, in the next couple of days I’m going to have August’s episode of Breaking Walls, #154: Stars on Suspense in 1944, uploaded to Patreon. Thank you for being listeners of this show, I really appreciate it. By the way, I don’t always get a ton of feedback, so I don’t know who’s listening to Breaking Walls and who isn’t. I just see the numbers. So if you have anything that you’d like to say or ask me about the show, please send me an email at James@TheWallBreakers.com.

Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakers By 1944 Norman Corwin had free rein over his productions. In six years he’d gone from a network rookie to the most-lauded creator on the air. He was now the poet-laureate of radio, a nickname which would stick with him the rest of his life. That March, The Columbia Workshop was rechristened as Columbia Presents Corwin for a twenty-two week run. At 10PM eastern time on Independence Day 1944 Corwin broadcast "Home For the Fourth." In this play, two brothers are away at war. One, played by Dane Clark, gets a two-day pass to see his family and fiance. It’s a slice of American life written and directed in a way that came to define Corwin. He understood that people were a part of, and yet transcended their own time. This play is eighty years old, but sounds like we could have spent time with these people eighty minutes ago.

Words at War was an anthology of war stories “told by the men and women who have seen them happen.” It was produced in cooperation with the Council on Books in Wartime, promising “stories of the battlefronts, of behind-the scenes diplomacy, of underground warfare, of action on the seas, and of the home front.” Each show was to be “a living record of this war and the things for which we fight.” Debuting on June 24th, 1943 from New York, during its first year on the air despite being given a late-night timeslot, it was praised by Variety as “one of the most outstanding programs in radio,” by the New York Times as the “boldest, hardest-hitting program of 1944,” and by Newsweek as “one of the best contributions to serious commercial radio in many a year.” Initially network cost-sustained, it was given stirring music by NBC’s symphony orchestra. The sound patterns had Japanese dive bombers: the growl of heavy machinery, the chatter of machine guns, the steady drone of an airplane as two pilots stood on a runway and spoke what might be their last thoughts. Though sonically important, the success of Words at War could be attributed to the immediacy of its subject matter. There were dramatizations of “the most significant books to thus far come out of this great world conflict,” with the war’s outcome by no means assured. This atmosphere—of a country fighting for its life—gave the stories maximum impact. In the summer of 1944, the show was sponsored by Johnson’s Wax and took over Fibber McGee and Molly’s Tuesday 9:30PM eastern time slot. On Independence Day 1944, the episode was called “War Criminals And Punishment.”

The man you just heard was Raymond Edward Johnson. He is best-remembered for being the longtime host on Inner Sanctum Mysteries on CBS. After returning from the War, Johnson left the show to pursue more diversified acting interests. However by then, NBC had launched their own mystery program which Johnson often found himself appearing in. It was called The Molle Mystery Theater. Launched on September 7th, 1943 and sponsored by Molle Brushless Shaving Cream, Mystery Theater was hosted by Bernard Lenrow as Geoffrey Barnes, crime fiction connoisseur. Veteran radio actor Bernard Lenrow routinely read one-hundred mystery novels each year and personally selected the stories to be dramatized on the show. Molle featured ’‘the best in mystery and detective fiction,” with tales running from classics by Poe, to moderns by Raymond Chandler. The trademarks were high tension and shocking endings. In July of 1944 it was pulling a rating of 9.1 Tuesdays at 9PM. Many of New York’s most-famous radio actors appeared, like Richard Widmark, Elspeth Eric, Anne Seymour, and Joseph Julian.

Opposite of A Date With Judy at 8:30PM, CBS broadcast Theater of Romance, hosted by the just-heard Arnold Moss, who was also known for his acting prowess. Romance first took to the air on April 19th, 1943 with host Frank Gallop as “your guide through the pages of the great stories of all-time.” It went off the airwaves June 20th, 1944 before re-debuting on July 4th as Theater of Romance, sponsored by Colgate Tooth Powder. This episode featured Gertrude Warner and Karl Swenson in James Hilton’s Goodbye Mr. Chips. In 1975 Swenson was interviewed with his wife and fellow actress, Joan Tompkins, by Chuck Schaden.

Debuting on June 24th, 1941, A Date With Judy was the teenage girl’s answer to Archie Andrews and The Aldrich Family. Billed as the adventures of the “lovable teenage girl who’s close to all our hearts,” it initially starred Ann Gillis in a summer replacement for Bob Hope. While filming at Paramount, Hope met Gillis and introduced her to his radio sponsors. They cast her in the adolescent comedy being prepared by writer Aleen Leslie. Leslie had come up through the Hollywood ranks working for Columbia Pictures, and writing for Deanna Durbin, Mickey Rooney, and Henry Aldrich films. Leslie wrote the lead with her friend Helen Mack in mind, but Mack was pregnant and declined. After the birth of her child. Mack came in as producer-director, the only woman to do so in a prime-time role at the time. In three summertime runs, two for Hope and one for Eddie Cantor, Judy was played by Gillis, Joan Lorring, and finally Louise Erickson. Erickson also played Marjorie on The Great Gildersleeve. In January of 1944, Judy was given a full-time run and Erickson held the role for the next six years. In July of 1944 the show was pulling a rating of 9.1 on NBC. On Independence Day at 8:30PM, an overheard election mixup causes comedic embarrassment for Judy’s father.

Virginia Ellen, “Ginny” Simms was born in San Antonio, Texas on May 25rd, 1913. Her family moved to California, where she attended Fresno High School and Fresno State Teachers College. There she studied piano and began performing. Singing with her sorority sisters, she formed a popular vocal trio. In 1932, Simms became the vocalist for the Tom Gerun band in San Francisco. In 1934, she joined the Kay Kyser Orchestra, receiving her first national exposure on his radio program. Simms appeared in three films with Kyser: That's Right—You're Wrong in 1939, You'll Find Out, in 1940, and Playmates in 1941. On April 6th, 1941, Simms and Kyser co-starred in an original comedy, “Niagara to Reno,” on CBS' Silver Theater. The two nearly married, but upon breaking up, she left his orchestra in September. Just a few days later, on September 19th 1941, Simms was on CBS solo for five minutes on Fridays at 9:55. Then on Tuesday September 8th, 1942 at 8PM, she took to the air with her own show for Philip Morris. Originally called Johnny Presents, it was later changed to The Purple Heart Show, with an emphasis on wounded and decorated servicemen. Edgar “Cookie” Fairchild led the orchestra. She starred in more films, including Here We Go Again in 1942, Hit The Ice, in 1943, and Broadway Rhythm, which premiered in January of 1944. On Independence Day 1944 at 8PM, Ginny Simms took to the air with her Purple Heart Show. Opposite in New York, CBS aired Big Town, and both ABC and Mutual aired news commentary.

In early 1942 Norman Corwin began a unique show over all four major radio networks. It was a thirteen episode, non-commercial broadcast called This is War, bringing together the best talent and resources of the broadcast and entertainment industry, like actor Joe Julian. That summer, Corwin went to England to produce a series helping to improve relations between the English and Americans, which were, surprisingly, strained. People like aviation legend Charles Lindbergh were anticommunism, but pro-isolationism and pro-eugenics. All three views were supported by the Nazi party. President Roosevelt was deeply angry at Lindbergh's opposition to his administration's interventionist policies. He told Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau in 1941, "If I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this, I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi." Linbergh publicly denounced anti-semitism in 1941, but many people remained anti-anglo throughout the country, with some even citing the American Revolution and the War of 1812 as reasons. Called An American In England, it was a joint effort from BBC and U.S. broadcasters. Edward R. Murrow would produce. The entire available London Philharmonic Orchestra would be used. The series would be sent back to the states by short-wave. Because it was to be heard live at 10PM for Eastern War time, that meant it was broadcast overnight in England. The result was a limited-release series considered to be among the most important works Corwin ever produced.

At 5:30PM eastern time over Mutual Broadcasting on Independence Day, 1944, The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters took to the air. Originally airing from NBC in Chicago in 1933, it featured the just-heard Hal Peary, and the ever-present Willard Waterman. Tom Mix was created as an advertising vehicle for the Ralston Purina Company. Its format was devised by Charles Claggett, a St. Louis adman and based on the life of a real cowboy, Tom Mix. Born in Pennsylvania in 1880, he became a soldier and champion roper, winning a national title in 1909. Mix began appearing in movies, and much like Buffalo Bill Cody, his legend soon outgrew his actual exploits thanks to natural showmanship. By the time radio got him, he was seldom mentioned in print without a platoon of fantastic adjectives. Perhaps the most famous actor to play Tom Mix was Russell Thorson, who held the role for the Blue Network in the early 1940s, until it was canceled on March 27th, 1942. Tom Mix was revived and moved to Mutual beginning June 5th, 1944 in a fifteen minute serial. By then, Mix joined others like Jack Armstrong, Captain Midnight, and even Superman in the war against the axis. The show became known as “radio’s biggest western-detective program.” Joe “Curley” Bradley played Mix throughout the later run. Bradley was a former Oklahoma cowboy and Hollywood stuntman who had learned to sing around bonfires. As for the real Tom Mix, he had nothing to do with the serial. He died in a car accident near Florence, Arizona on October 12th, 1940. At 6:15PM it was Hop Harrigan’s turn to sign on, over The Blue Network’s WJZ. It starred Chester Stratton as Hop Harrigan, young aviator known as “America’s ace of the airways,” with Jackson Beck as Tank Tinker. Beck was all over radio. Hop Harrigan first took to the air on August 31st, 1942, running on The Blue Network and later ABC until August 2nd, 1946. It was revived from October 2nd, 1946 through February 6th, 1948 over Mutual Broadcasting. Hop went on missions in dangerous territory behind enemy lines. He had dogfights, went underground in war-torn Berlin, and saw heavy service in the Pacific during the battle for Okinawa.

At 4:45PM on Independence Day 1944, The Raymond Scott Orchestra took to the air for fifteen minutes of music on CBS’ WABC in New York. Born Harry Warnow on September 10th, 1908 in Brooklyn to Ukrainian Jewish parents, his older brother Mark, also a musician, encouraged Harry’s career. He graduated from the Juilliard School of Music in 1931 where he studied piano, theory, and composition. He began his professional career as a pianist for the CBS Radio house band under his birth name. Mark, older by eight years, conducted the orchestra. Harry adopted the pseudonym "Raymond Scott" to spare his brother charges of nepotism when the orchestra began performing the pianist's unique compositions. In late 1936, Scott assembled a band from among his CBS colleagues. Although it was a six-piece group, he called it the Raymond Scott Quintette, joking with a reporter that calling at a sextet might take one’s mind off the music. Scott believed in composing and playing by ear. He composed not on paper, but "on his band"—by humming phrases to his sidemen or by demonstrating riffs and rhythms on the keyboard, instructing players to interpret his cues. Also a sound engineer, he recorded the band's rehearsals, using them as references to develop his compositions. Scott reworked, re-sequenced, and deleted passages, and added themes from other discs to construct finished pieces. While he controlled the band's repertoire and style, he rarely took piano solos, preferring to direct the band from the keyboard and leave solos and leads to his sidemen. He also had a penchant for adapting classical motifs into his work. Independence Day 1944 was celebrated with remembrance, prayer, and War Bond drives. Norman Rockwell’s July 1st Saturday Evening Post cover featured a wounded veteran holding up a $100 war bond. The July 3rd cover of LIFE Magazine featured a G.I with a leg wound being helped by a compatriot. There was a prominent sticker on top that said “buy war bonds.” Meanwhile in Bedford, New Hampshire, an unexpected explosion at the John P. Bedricks powder works sent nearly seventy-miles of New England into a panic as windows as far away as Worchester, Massachusetts were destroyed. Despite this, there were no fatalities. At 4PM, NBC celebrated the Treasury Department’s “Salute To the Navy” from Philadelphia’s Navy Yard. Speakers included Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthaur Jr., and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal. In New York, Edward J. Nathan, Manhattan’s Borough President, addressed a rally of Jewish war veterans at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Riverside Drive, while the Knights of Columbus and sixty-seven affiliated councils, sponsored a parade and band concert in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. That evening, a Special Fifth War Bond Rally was held at Lewisohn Stadium in City College.

On Tuesday July 4th, 1944 at 11:15AM, the homespun Vic and Sade took to the air over NBC’s WEAF in New York. First airing on June 29th, 1932, Vic and Sade was created by Paul Rhymer. Known as “radio’s home folks,” the show was broadcast from The Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Rhymer wrote the script each morning before heading to watch the rehearsal and broadcast. On good days, one rewrite sufficed. On difficult days, the script would be ripped up again and again and poured over. The result was a standalone twelve-minute sketch that, over time, told the life story of Mr. and Mrs Victor Gook and their family and friends at “the small house halfway up in the next block” in a rural town somewhere in Illinois. The town was populated by strange eccentrics with some of the most wonderful names ever heard in fiction. Most of the characters were only spoken about and sound effects were purposely sparse, save for the ever-present telephone. In radio circles, the show was regarded as one of the all-time best. Among its devoted fans were Jean Shepherd, Norman Corwin, Jim and Marion Jordan, Carlton E. Morse, Stan Freberg, Ray Bradbury, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Tuesday, July 4th, 1944. It’s been twenty-nine days since the Allies first stormed the beaches of Normandy. They’ve continued to slowly push inland, but the battle for control of the Caen has raged onward. CBS is there with up-to-the-minute news. On Saturday July 1st, A counterattack by German Panzer Corps failed to dislodge the British Second Army around Caen. When OB West Gerd von Rundstedt phoned Berlin to report the failure, Chief of Staff Wilhelm Keitel asked, “what shall we do?” Rundstedt replied, “Make peace you fools!” He was fired the next day. Meanwhile the U.S. 133rd Infantry Regiment captured Cecina in Tuscany, Italy. They’d enter Siena on Monday the 3rd. At the same time Allies and Japanese forces began battling in New Guinea and The Battle of Imphal in India ended in Allied victory. On the morning of the Fourth, Minsk, the last big German stronghold on Soviet soil, finally fell. This kind of war created a need for fast news relays, so much so that for the first time, news was being recorded on the battlefront. On Independence Day 1944, needing to push further inland from Normandy, the task fell to the 79th and 90th Divisions as well as the 82nd Airborne, all of whom had to assault uphill and around a large marsh in the low ground, while twelve Nazi divisions lay in wait, including several Panzer units. The troops fought yard by yard, making slow but steady progress at a high cost. The 90th Division alone lost over 500 men that day. This same day, General Omar Bradley had artillery units in the US First Army open fire on the German lines precisely at noon. Some units fired red, white, and blue smoke shells at the Germans. The message was clear: The Americans were in Western Europe and they wouldn’t be leaving until victory was achieved. ____________ The man you just heard was Norman Lewis Corwin. He was born on May 3rd, 1910 in Boston, Massachusetts. The third of four children, his mother Rose was a homemaker, and his father, Samuel, a printer. Norman graduated from Winthrop High School, but unlike his brothers, he did not attend college. Instead, he got a job at the Greenfield Reporter as a Cub newsman at seventeen. Corwin was later hired by the Springfield Republican where he worked as an editor. He became known for his column "Radiosyncracies." His first exposure to professional Radio broadcasting came with an opportunity to air an interview regarding one of the human interest stories he'd written. Station WBZA soon needed a newsreader and sought to have the position filled with someone from the local paper. Corwin got the job. By 1929 Corwin fashioned his own broadcast over WBZA, a combination of piano interludes interwoven with Corwin's original poetry readings. He called the program Rhymes and Cadences. In 1931, Corwin traveled to Europe with his older brother, witnessing the growing fascism, social and religious unrest, and political turmoil. It helped shape his broadcasting career. In June 1935, he went to Cincinnati to work at WLW. He soon learned that any on-air reportage of collective bargaining efforts were grounds for immediate dismissal. Objecting, he was fired. Eventually he got the ACLU’s backing and got the policy changed. Corwin came to New York, finding work as a publicist for 20th Century-Fox. He soon proposed a poetry and music program for WQXR. The program was called Poetic License, and it wasn’t long before both NBC and CBS took notice. A few days shy of his twenty-eighth birthday in 1938, CBS hired Corwin as a director for One-Hundred-Twenty-Five-Dollars per-week. Within a few months he directed his first Columbia Workshop experimental drama, “The Red Badge of Courage,” airing July 9th, 1938. On the night of Sunday October 30th, 1938, Corwin was rehearsing the pilot for a new program, Words Without Music. Downstairs, Orson Welles was broadcasting his infamous Mercury Theater “War of The Worlds.”

Hey everybody James Scully here, host of Breaking Walls. If you've been listening to this show for years on this RSS feed, I want you to know that you can also subscribe to the show on Youtube — www.youtube.com/@thewallbreakersllc. I'm asking people who listen here on the RSS feed to subscribe on Youtube because Youtube offers the easiest path to monetizing this show. I'm going to be fully transparent right now: There have been times in the history of this podcast that via RSS feed, Breaking Walls has had as many as 27000 - 30000 monthly downloads, but even with that, it's very hard to monetize the show via traditional podcast channels. However, I've been able to clear the monetization hurdles on Youtube, so please subscribe there. If you happen to listen on a computer or on a phone, I would appreciate if you listened via Youtube. I'm also going into Youtube and slowly uploading all shows from Breaking Walls' archive in individual podcast playlists on Youtube. This way, everything that for years now has fallen off the RSS feed here doesn't matter. You can get all those archived shows FREE OF CHARGE on Youtube. Your listening for free will enable me to earn money, and I'd appreciate that very much. So once again — www.youtube.com/@thewallbreakersllc Keep getting out there, keep breaking those walls, and I'll catch you on the flip side.

Here we are, back at Bill Pogue’s. It’s after 11PM. What do we know? Well, there are less people drinking here than last night, most would rather stay in and listen for updates. On the air over CBS right now is Joan Brooks. Me? I’m just trying to have that nightcap I started yesterday. There are still news bulletins coming out of Europe. It’s almost dawn there. The men will be continuing their missions with D-Day: Plus 1 So far, we know that at least four-thousand Allied soldiers have been killed in the initial attack, but the German forces on the Normandy peninsula have either been killed, captured or forced to withdraw to Caen. I’m sure as we speak troops and equipment are being ferried across the Channel. I know the hope is that by the end of June we’ll have nearly a million men in western Europe as we advance north from Italy simultaneously. With the Russians pushing Germany west it’s only a matter of time, but the Germans won’t go down without a fight. But, I know American resolve. We’ll be up for the task, no matter how long it takes. It’s why next month on Breaking Walls we’ll move just a few weeks into the future and focus on Independence Day, 1944. —————————— The reading material used in today’s episode was: • Radio Speakers--A Biographical Dictionary — By Jim Cox • On The Air — By John Dunning • Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg As well as articles from • Broadcasting Magazine • CBSNews.com • GlobalNews.ca • LIFE Magazine • Military-History.org • The New York Times • The New York Daily News • Presidency.UCSB.edu • RadioArchives.com • Radio Daily —————————— On the interview front: • André Baruch, Mel Blanc, Ken Carpenter, Norman Corwin, Alice Frost, Barbara Luddy, Bret Morrison, Ken Roberts, Kate Smith, and Olan Soule spoke with Chuck Schaden. Hear these full chats at Speakingofradio.com. • Himan Brown, Staats Cotsworth, Jim Jordan, Mandel Kramer, and Jan Miner, spoke to Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these interviews at Goldenage-WTIC.org • Joan Banks spoke to SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com • Fran Carlon, John Daly, and Ben Grauer spoke for Westinghouse’s 50th anniversary. • Ned Calmer, Doug Edwards, Lowell Thomas, Charles Osgood, and Bob Trout spoke to CBS for their 50th anniversary. • HV Kaltenborn spoke to NBC for their 50th anniversary • Charles Collingwood and Bob Trout spoke to the makers of Please Stand By • Bob Trout also spoke to the Television Academy • George Burns spoke with Barbara Walters • Red Skelton spoke with Dini Petty —————————— Selected music featured in today’s episode was: • Romanian Folk Dances #3 — By Béla Bartók, played by Avi Avital • Wilderness Trail — By Walter Scharf for National Geographic —————————— A massive special thank you to Walden Hughes for supplying so many master quality recordings used in this D-Day episode. Listen to Walden’s shows on the Yesterday USA radio network.

At 10:50PM on D-Day, The Red Skelton Show took to the air with a final abbreviated episode before Skelton left for World War II. When his show debuted on October 7th, 1941 critics were skeptical. Skelton was a pantomimist. How could he succeed on radio? But he was soon getting laughs every eleven seconds and for three seasons more than twenty-five million people were tuning in as he pulled ratings in the 30s. His supporting cast of Lurene Tuttle, Ozzie, and Harriet Nelson were heavily featured. But then Skelton got divorced and lost his marriage deferment. The army drafted him in 1944. MGM and radio sponsor Raleigh Cigarettes tried to help with no avail. The Draft Board also turned down his request to join the Special Services branch for entertainers. This was questioned by some critics, who noted that he had worked tirelessly to entertain servicemen. Skelton’s last radio program was on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. The next day the thirty-year-old Skelton was formally inducted as a private. Without its star, the program was discontinued until he could come back from the war. Skelton lost eighteen months of his career, eventually suffering a nervous breakdown in Italy, and having to be hospitalized for three months. He would be discharged in September of 1945.

At 10PM, across all networks, the President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, took to the air with a special prayer for the invading troops. Thirty-Five million Americans tuned in. It was the most-listened to broadcast of any kind which aired in 1944. At 10:15 Bob Hope took to the air with a special D-Day Broadcast. For more information on this year of Bob’s life, tune into Breaking Walls episode 148. This is FDR's D-Day Prayer below: My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far. And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer: Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas - whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them - help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. Give us strength, too - strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces. And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be. And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.

D-Day, June 6th, 1944 was a Tuesday. Ordinarily on Tuesday evenings NBC had a comedy lineup that rivaled the greatest in history. A main part of it was the man you just heard, Jim Jordan, who starred on Fibber McGee and Molly. The normal Fibber McGee and Molly show was canceled on D-Day. Instead, they presented a special musical program at 9:30PM featuring Billy Mills and the King’s Men, leaving room for late-breaking news bulletins. Opposite, CBS presented the first in a new series, The Doctor Fights, starring Raymond Massey in a new portrait each week of a doctor on some far-flung battlefield. The purpose of The Doctor Fights was two-fold: to honor the nation’s one-hundred eighty-thousand doctors, one-third of whom were in the theaters of battle, and to acquaint the public with penicillin. The sponsor, Schenley Laboratories, was one of twenty-two companies making penicillin, and often the stories described wondrous cures resulting from its use by doctors in distant and primitive outposts. Many listeners at that time had never heard of the drug.

Opposite of The Burns and Allen Show at 9PM, NBC ran a special “Cross Country D-Day tour”, hosted by the just-heard Ben Grauer. It was a program from every part of the nation to show what everyone was thinking and doing on this historic and momentous day. The theme was the same: Work, Pray, Fight. The stations included remotes from WTIC in Hartford, WSYR in Syracuse, WTAR in Norfolk, WSPD in Toledo, WLW in Cincinnati, WMC in Memphis, KTSP in St. Paul, and WKY in Oklahoma City.