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60 Jahre AFN in Frankfurt - M�rz 2003
This coming July in 2008
the American Forces Network will celebrate its 65th anniversary.
Anticipating this occasion, AFN-expert Ingo Paternoster sent me some
photographs to remember. The photos, accompanying this article, were
taken on March 27th 2003, during the opening of the exhibition �60
Jahre AFN in Frankfurt� in the "Historisches Museum" in Frankfurt,
Germany.
When did my involvement with radio start? Looking back at my youth and
thinking of radio, the first thing to come into my mind, no doubt, are
the many fine evenings I spent listening to the radio from under the
blankets in my bedroom. At that time, children were not used to
watching television up till the late hours. No, instead, we had to go
to bed quite early. Television in Holland was just in its infancy and
the programs were aired for only a few hours a week. That is to say,
if your parents were lucky enough to own a television set. Our parents
were early starters as they already bought one in 1958, an Erres from
Germany. However, the programs had not much to offer to young
adolescents and so we sought our refuge in listening to the radio.
I shared a big bedroom with my brothers and so in the late 1950s the
three of us had the opportunity to listen to the radio in our own
private quarters. Given our taste for music, our choices were rather
limited. We either could tune into the fading signal of Radio
Luxembourg on 208 meters on the AM band or to that other station that
also was transmitting in English though with a distinct signature.
Here the presenters spoke their phrases with a clear American accent
and they brought us music we never had heard before, including country
music and rock and roll. The station was transmitting on AM and made
itself known as AFN Bremerhavn. Bremen was not too far away from our
hometown Groningen and so the signal came in at a reasonable quality.
Local and global programs. AFN, the "American Forces Network", was a
military station and its programs were aimed at that part of the US
forces in Germany, housed in Bremen. Once you started listening to AFN
Bremerhavn, you were quick to find out that only part of the
programming originated from the local station itself. The other part
consisted of programs that were also aired on sister stations
globally. It took some time before I learned how this construction
worked. Next to AFN Bremerhavn, so I found out, there were many other
AFN stations all over the world to provide the soldiers with news,
information, sports, amusement, culture and music. The joint programs,
being aired by all stations, in those days were put on record in the
US and subsequently sent all over the world. Later the distribution
was taken care of by tapes, cd's and, still later, through satellite
feeds. Of course, during the last years also programming has been done
with the use of the modern techniques, including the use of internet.
My brothers and I, sure, were not the only ones in our hometown that
were attracted by the sound of AFN. During playtime, at school, we
soon learnt that more boys and girls of our age group were tuning in
and we all shared the same reason. We were hearing things, which we
were not allowed to listen to on our Dutch public station, Hilversum 1
and 2. It was music we never heard before. And, we liked it from the
very start. In short, AFN was introducing us to American radio music.
As was to be expected, the station had the same appeal to young people
in many other European countries. It would take more than ten years,
though, up till 1971, before I would be in contact with someone from
abroad who also regularly tuned into AFN. His name was Ingo
Paternoster and he came from Germany. It became clear to me that AFN
was his most favorite station. Next we started to exchange the
material we had recorded throughout the years as well as to send each
other spoken letters in which we conversed our shared love for radio.
Information and amusement for the American forces. In time I met Ingo
Paternoster in the flesh when he made his first visit to Holland. He
came over to see me, and of course, more importantly, to listen to AFN
Shape (Soesterberg) as well for a visit of the studio's of Radio
Veronica in Hilversum. Now, after 37 years, Paternoster and I are
still in contact and we are still exchanging radio material of all
kinds. After that first meeting I really started to learn more about
AFN and AFRTS. The idea of founding the station came about a year
before the invasion of the Allies in Europe and was the brainchild of
General Dwight Eisenhower, also known as Ike, in later years President
of the USA. Eisenhower had the idea that the American soldiers, far
away from home, would feel better if they could be informed on a
regular base by radio and other forms of communications. His first
target were the American soldiers, who were already encamped in �
overcrowded � military camps in the United Kingdom.
With the forthcoming invasion in mind, Eisenhower realized that the
American soldiers had to be informed very properly to keep up the
morale. There were some serious signs that things were not going well
in this respect. In September 1942, a research project brought the
information that more and more soldiers got disheartened by their long
stay in the camps, far away from home, under harsh conditions. The
camps were really overcrowded. And of course, there was a growing fear
to be actively involved in the coming battles. To distract themselves
from these daily concerns, the soldiers could tune in to the BBC
programs. These, however, did not bring a feeling of close contact
with home, as the BBC reserved only thirty minutes a week for American
music and, yes, only five minutes a week for sports information. The
American soldiers, moreover, didn't really like the stiff way of
presenting of the British in those days. Information was sent to
Washington's White House that due to these facts more and more
soldiers started listening to the propaganda radio stations of the
Nazi's.
This disturbing outcome was serious reason enough for Dwight
Eisenhower to contact a few of his best persons within the Ministry of
War: General Everett Hughes and Mr. Brewster Morgan, who got the job
of changing things on short notice. They responded to this task by
proposing the start of a newspaper, a magazine, and also a radio
station. Eisenhower gave them a free hand to start up these
information systems. A newspaper, called "Stars and Stripes", already
had been published during World War 1 and now was reinstituted. By the
way, it still ex ists. The radio station was newly founded. This meant
the birth of AFN, the "American Forces Network" with several low
powered transmitters, nearby or on the several military Camps in Great
Britain. The first program was aired, sixtyfive years ago, on July
4th, Independence Day, 1943.
In due time, all over the world similar stations followed the American
forces during their activities. They bring them information about the
local situation they're in, but also news and information from home.
Next to stations with a more permanent status, a lot of mobile
stations were � and still are � used all around the world. After World
War II, to mention only one out of many, the Blue Danube Network was
grounded. The main station was in Vienna (Austria) while two sister
stations were erected in the cities of Linz and Salzburg. As said,
this is just an example. During the Cold War, countries such as Spain
and Italy, and of course Germany, also got their own AFN stations.
There even was an offshore AFN station as the Americans used a radio
ship, the MV Courier, to transmit programs off the coast of Rhodes in
the Mediterranean. And, for us, be it AFN Vietnam, AFN Bosnia, AFN
Shape, AFN Berlin, AFN Heidelberg, AFN Balkans or AFN Iraq, all these
stations were interesting enough to listen to. Of course for Ingo
Paternoster and I and all those other AFN lovers, we mostly listened
to them by the recordings we did trade with each other.
Since our very first meeting in 1971, I stayed in contact with Ingo
Paternoster and, next to our tapes, we shared our love for radio � AFN
and Offshore Radio being our most important interests. Up till March
1993 I could tune in and listen to AFN Bremerhavn , after which the
local station was closed down. From that moment on, I had to rely on
tapes being sent by friends like Ingo Paternoster, to enjoy the AFN
programs. Paternoster, meanwhile, had moved from Northern Germany to
Bavaria, and there he could listen to stations like AFN Frankfurt and
AFN Munich, which, of course, he taped for me. His top favorite
deejays, so I could deduce from these recordings, were Rick Damerest
and Bill Switcher.
Now in 2008 we don�t send each other tapes, as we�re in the digital
modern world we can bring archive recordings by internet within
minutes to each other by uploading and downloading them, but listening
to these recordings is still as much exiting as under the blanket in
the early sixties of last century.
Hans Knot |
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