G.I. Shows

G. I. Shows

The best in radio--and a lot of it--goes to U.S. forces at the fighting fronts. They have received over 1,000 special programs which U.S. radio fans would give plenty to hear. Forty-odd shows a week are heard only by the armed forces. Command Performance gives the boys a variety show of anything they ask for (from Bing Crosby to Ann Sheridan frying a steak). G.I. (Government Issue) Jive is a steaming session of hot music. There are religious programs (Music For Sunday), adaptations of novels, plays (Front Line Theatre), classical music, sports reviews.

The outfit responsible is the Radio Section of the War Department's Special Service Division, Services of Supply. Headquartered in Hollywood's old Fox studios, the Section is staffed by 20 officers, 25 enlisted men (all onetime radio producers, writers, executives) scattered from Alaska to North Africa.

They also edit versions of 24 commercial radio shows for the troops. They cut out all advertising ballyhoo, delete painful absurdities, like Eddie Cantor's "Mad Russian," which might be fine fodder for Axis propagandists.

To make their programs available to troops all over the globe, the Radio Section had to develop many special facilities. The U.S. Army network now includes 29 short-wave stations; 138 standard-wave stations on United Nations soil and in the theaters of action; 37 U.S. expeditionary-force stations, 6,500 phonograph-radio kits issued to troops at embarkation ports.

The work of the Radio Section has been acknowledged by a torrent of military fan mail. Comedian Bob Hope closed one Command Performance broadcast with the remark that if the boys wanted Songstress Ginny Simms to purr another number, "just tear off the top of a Zero and send it in." The boys sent a big hunk of wing with the Rising Sun on it.

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