Five weeks before Dday, ABSIE (the American Broadcasting Station in Europe) made its debut to the opening bars of Yankee Doodle. Last week, to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner, it took its leave. ABSIE, operated by OWI and SHAEF's Psychological Warfare Division, had earned an honorable discharge for valiant service, but few Americans had paid it more than passing notice.
Before the project got under way, OWI spent two years planning, hiring a multilingual staff of 250 (about half British), experimenting and entangling itself in red tape. Colonel William Paley, peacetime head of CBS, was called in to set things straight. He negotiated with the BBC for equipment, promised that ABSIE would clear out 90 days after V-E day. Robert Sherwood, then OWI's overseas director, arranged the programs; he said that ABSIE would "join with the BBC in telling the truth of this war to our friends in Europe — and to our enemies."
When it finally got started, ABSIE clicked. Operating over twelve transmitters on two medium-and five short-wave BBC frequencies. ABSIE was run much like the BBC — with similar news programs, propaganda talks and instructions for the underground, all relieved by much good music.
News was the main item on the daily (eight-hour) fare. ABSIE broadcast the news in seven languages, and also presented at dictation speed a special program of news for the use of the underground press. ABSIE puffed up its straight news reports with talks by such exiled leaders as King Haakon and Jan Masaryk.
ABSIE's pride & joy were its musical programs, as American as pie à la mode. According to captured Germans, the favorite Allied program heard in Germany was Music for the Wehrmacht, which featured songs by topnotch performers like Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore. Beaming almost a third of its air time to Germany, ABSIE had solid assurance that its efforts were not wasted. The Nazis tried jamming ABSIE broadcasts, answered ABSIE's news comments on their own stations.
At the peak (last winter), an estimated 80% of Occupied Europe's listeners tuned in on ABSIE. Last week, when the job was finally finished, many rated ABSIE's 14-month career as perhaps the brightest feather in OWI's cap.