Ray Steele And The News

After covering so many bombings of the city over the previous six years, Edward R. Murrow of CBS Radio was on hand for the celebration that the War was finally over...May 8, 1945.

Just months from disbanding his civilian band, Glenn's band is in Hollywood while they shoot the movie "Orchestra Wives", and your announcer is the quite famous Don Wilson (crossing networks, since he was an NBC guy on the Jack Benny program, and Miller aired on CBS). Glenn kicks this one off with one of his best... String of Pearls.

75 years ago, CBS Radio presented a special edition of its "I Was There" anthology on the death of the best war correspondent there was at the time, Ernie Pyle.

The Shadow Intro by Ray Steele on WIBC

Suite for jazz orchestra (orchestral version) by Ray Steele on WIBC

75 years ago today (May 27, 1944), Glenn Miller's Army Air Force orchestra performed on it's legendary series "I Sustain The Wings" on NBC Radio. Captain Miller was not with the band - they are conducted by Sgt. Jerry Gray, Glenn's top arranger. Miller was on leave, taking care of business interests in California and visiting his mother in Colorado. He was doing so for a reason that wasn't public yet - he and the band were going to Britain to perform for the Allied forces, as the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe was upon us. The Miller band would be the last music many men and women would hear. RIP to those who gave all.

Mae West was one of the biggest stars in the world by the time she appeared on the Chase & Sanborn Hour, hosted by Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy - the top rated radio show in the U.S. at the time. She made two appearances - one as Eve in a creatively written Adam and Eve sketch, and this one - that was too scandalous for young ears, or so the Catholic Church and others said the next day.

Courtesy of the BBC archive - with audio restored (!), the most scandalous story from the Royal Family in the 20th century, IMO. Edward VIII abdicates the British throne so that he can marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Notice the door closing at the beginning after the announcer who introduces Edward leaves, and the clear nervousness of Edward.

Just three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Fred Allen hosts his hour long comedy show on CBS Radio. It's followed by the latest news from the war courtesy of John Daly of CBS News (and later What's My Line fame). Not the announcement at the beginning of the show on how the Texaco siren would not be used due to the Peal Harbor attack.

Larry Meier of Mutual Radio: First Eyewitness Account of D-Day From the Air by Ray Steele on WIBC

What do you hear?

H.V. Kaltenborn was one of the pre-eminent news analysts and commentators of his era, if not the most well known. His regular program that aired from 3:15 until 3:30pm Eastern on Sunday afternoons was, naturally, dedicated to the news of the day. This broadcast is interrupted with breaking news -- long before the term was used -- regarding Japanese attacks, even though the actual attack on Hawaii was ending as this aired.

CBS had a regularly scheduled news program, The World Today, that aired at 2:30pm Eastern on Sunday afternoons. This was minutes after the first word from Washington of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, which had happened just over an hour before. Keep in mind how information moved at that time.

The Mutual Broadcasting System, of which WIBC in Indianapolis was an affiliate, was broadcasting a live remote of Harry James & His Orchestra when the first news reports of the invasion of Normandy arrived.. they were unconfirmed, based on German radio reports the U.S. news services were monitoring.

As service members had been killed and were being killed around him, CBS Radio's Charles Collingwood recording a report sent back to Ed Murrow in London on D-Day. Incredible history.

This BBC correspondent put his life on the line by recording this from a glider - no engine, as it landed with a wave during DDay. A lot of men lost their lives in the gliders, crashes, shot down, etc.

In the overnight hours of June 6, 1944, Americans who were awake and listening to their radios got the first word that the D-Day invasion that turned the tide of World War II and took so many American, Canadian, British and other Allied lives, had begun. Note how the great newsman Bob Trout on CBS Radio was careful to say these were unsubstantiated reports from German radio - The U.S. had not yet confirmed the invasion. A different time for news, indeed.

May 7, 1937, 80 years ago, was the first time we heard this iconic Herb Morrison broadcast of the Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, New Jersey. It was the day after the disaster, though. It was all recorded by Morrison and his engineer on May 6.

Gene Cernan has died at the age of 82. "The Last Man On The Moon", as he currently remains, is also the name of his book and a wonderful documentary on his life you can still find on Netflix. This is my interview with Mr. Cernan that aired on WIBC in Indianapolis in April 2014, just ahead of his appearance at an astronaut's reunion at his alma mater, Purdue University.

The two men who were among many instrumental in the peaceful march and rally last weekend in Indianapolis talk about the movement, what Black Lives Matter means and doesn't mean, the relationship with police in Indianapolis and how to move forward.