In
1944….Radio covered first news of the Allies’ D-Day Invasion…
The Allies had gone to extreme measures to protect the
location of the invasion including planting fake documents, fake troop
placements, and fake announcements. Germany did all it could to try to find out
just where the Allies would land. One tactic was to falsely claim the invasion
had begun hoping to fool the Allies into revealing the real location.
So it was no surprise that the news organizations were shy
to jump on any announcement of a pending invasion. News reports included flash
announcements which were deemed immediate and important information received;
the other were bulletins which were also important but not deemed as immediate.
On June 3rd there had been a flash announcement that the
invasion was under way but within minutes the announcement was withdrawn as the
source, the Associated Press, killed the story as false.
When the first announcements started coming in the early
morning of June 6, there were cautions attached to the bulletins. NBC
reportedly came on the air with announcements around 12:41 AM EST after waiting
at least 3 minutes from the time the AP bulletin was received.
The music of Harry James and his Orchestra was broadcasting
over WOR (Mutual) from the Hotel Astor in New York. Kitty Kallen had just begun
singing ironically "In Times Like These" when her song was interrupted
right after 12:45 AM for bulletin.
Listen Here. Ned Calmer with CBS broadcast the bulletin around 12:48 AM.
CBS waited until a second source, the Independent News Service, also released a
bulletin.
Later repeats of the bulletins appeared over both networks.
Irwin Darlington with CBS broadcast the breaking news. Listen Here. Over at NBC this bulletin was aired. Listen Here.
CBS reporter Darlington was very cautionary in his bulletin
announcement reminding listeners of Winston Churchill's warnings of Allied
feints and the expected invasion story from the Germans. He also carefully
identifies where the information is coming from as well as the actual quotes.
They also provide reports from the German DNB and German radio broadcasts.
NBC's bulletin was very formal and straight-forward with
little warning that the information could be false. Later cautions came from
the summary of news reports they broadcast later. (H/T: Radio Days)
In 1955…Bill Haley & Comets', "Rock Around the
Clock" hit #1 on Radio.
In 1960…Roy Orbison released "Only the Lonely" to
Radio.
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