NBC transmitter (Oct-Dec 1944)

October 1944 5 NBG Book, “The Fourth Chime,” Honors Newsmen Behind Network’s News Scoops Show Folk Now in Uniform Take Part in WAC Series BOSTON.— Several GIs, who prior to entering service were well known in radio and stage circles, are now actively identified with the WAC’s half-hour “Everything for the Girls” series over WBZ and WBZA on Saturday afternoons. Leading the various service dance bands which have been featured in the series have been: Staff Sergeant Ralph Wingert, former arranger for Horace Heidt and Sammy Kaye; Staff Sergeant Kelly Camarotta, brother of Bandleader Carmen Camarotta; and Sergeant Lyn Lucas, brother of Bandleader Clyde Lucas. Others who have faced the WBZ-WBZA microphone in the WAC programs include: Lieutenant Jackie Searle, former Hollywood screen star; Corporal Bob Neller, once ventriloquist at the Rainbow Room; Sergeant Bob Kaplan, who worked with Lyn Murray, and Frankie Fontaine, erstwhile of the night club circuits. “Everything for the Girls” has been fortunate in obtaining personal appearances by many celebrities, among them being: Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Walter O’Keefe and Victor Borge. TONGUE-TWISTER NASHVILLE, TENN. Louie Buck, veteran WSM newscaster, came out of the studio the other dav with his tongue hanging out. Reason: News Editor Howard Eskridge slipped the following item off the Associated Press wire into his copy and Buck stumbled into it before he realized what a hot potato he had: “WASHINGTON. Edward Keliiahonui. son of Kapiolani Kawananokoa and grandson of Princess Abigail and the late Prince David Kawananokoa. was today appointed to West Point by Delegate Farrington of Hawaii. “Kawananokoa is the great grandnephew of King Kalakaua and Queen Kapiolani of Hawaii and the grandnephew of Prince Kalanianaole, delegate to Congress from Hawaii for 20 years. He is now in the Army Air Forces.” Try this out on your new announcers! NEW YORK.— Radio’s impressive role in collecting and distributing news reports from world capitals and war theatres as the stream of bulletins passed through NBC’s news room from 1931 to the invasion of the Normandy coast on June 6. 1944. is the theme of “The Fourth Chime,’ a bound volume of 176 pages published in a limited edition by the NBC promotion department under the supervision of Charles P. Hammond, director of advertising and promotion. The book takes its title from the confidential “alert,” a fourth note added to the familiar threechime NBC signature, which NBC sounds on the air to summon to their posts all news, operating and executive personnel responsible for broadcasting news. Sounded only in time of great emergency, or when news is of such import as to demand extra-intensive coverage, the fourth chime was first heard in 1937, the afternoon the giant dirigible Hindenburg came to disaster at Lakehurst. Most recently it sounded during the early morning hours of D-Day. In all probability it will be heard next when it heralds the report of German capitulation. Although told in terms of the service of this one radio newfs room, “The Fourth Chime” is as well the story of all free American radio operating in the public interest. Pitched against the background of the breathtaking events of the past 14 years, it recounts in dramatic pictures and terse explanatory text, radio’s outstanding role in the collection and distribution of global news during the past 13 years. “The Fourth Chime” opens with an explanation of the operations of the NBC news room, the room in Radio City whose “door is never locked, not even closed.” From that point on to the final chapter, the pages present a fast moving pictorial record of the kaleidoscopic events that brought this country into the war and drew its trained men into the legions that swarmed ashore on the coast of France in early June, 1944. The chapter on “Prelude to War, 193 1 1937,” covers the political maneuvering that led up to the showdown in 1938 when Hitler sent his troops blitzing into Austria as Allied statesmen mumbled their “peace at any price” pleas. It was at Munich in 1938, as “The Fourth Chime” emphasizes, that radio realized its great objective in getting the news whenever and wherever it happens. During the last three weeks of September of that year, for example, NBC broadcast 468 programs from foreign capitals, thereby setting a record in intensive broadcast coverage. Beginning with scenes taken when the Nazis overran Czechoslovakia in 1938. the combined text and illustrations relate the quickening tempo of political and military moves which led first to Pearl Harbor. then to America’s overnight transition from a nation at peace to one determined to give all-out aid toward restoring world amity and finally to the training of millions of men backed up bv an industry converted with amazing speed to wartime production. A section on “Prelude to Victory, January 1-May 31. 1944.” covers the turn of the tide, the invasion of Italy bv the Allies, the first Yankee landings on the Marshall Islands and the push on to Rome. The long awaited news (lash which heralded “D-Day” and kept the entire nation at radio loud speakers until the success of the invasion was assured, provides the fitting climax to the historical record. “The Fourth Chime’ concludes with deserved tributes to each of the NBC news room staff in New York and the two score of reporters who had been carefullv trained and spotted throughout both hemispheres to observe developments and report them for network listeners. In collecting material for “The Fourth Chime,” NBC’s promotion staff culled the photographic files of domestic and foreign news photo services, the Army. Signal Corps. Navy, and OWL Charles P. Hammond