Gary Owens does silly things...
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Sports Forum 1952
Fred Hessler was with an AFRS station during WWII. After the war did a lot of sports in Los Angeles, eventually ending up the voice of UCLA football. Here's an early 50s interview show.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
AFVN Tet Offensive - January 30, 1968
The Tet Offensive was launched on January 30, 1968 by the North Vietnamese forces against the forces of South Vietnam, the United States and their allies. The purpose of the offensive was to utilize the element of surprise and strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam, during a period when no attacks were supposed to take place.
Six men assigned to AFVN were taken prisoner during the Vietnam war, five spending about five years in captivity before being released. The sixth, Steven Stroub, was executed shortly after capture. Three AFVN’ers were killed, others taken as prisoners, to spend the rest of the Vietnam war as captives. Today, only one of those men, SFC Harry Ettmuller (USA, Ret) remains alive to recall those days. Today is also a day to honor all those men and the memory of their sacrifice. -- following a fierce fire fight during the Tet holiday -- on Feb 5, 1968.
Two other men also died that day at AFVN. SGT Thomas Franklin Young, USMC was Killed in Action in that fight. Also killed that day was Courtney Niles, a civilian with NBC International, who died defending the station. One AFVN'er escaped.
Duke Miller made the following memo available. It had been posted on the bulletin board at AFVN.
AFVN Tet Offensive memo 1968
SFC Harry Ettmueller (Ret.) describes the fighting at AFVN Detachment 5 [Hue] Tet 1968
SFC Harry Ettmueller (Ret.) describes the fighting at AFVN Detachment 5 [Hue] Tet 1968
Friday, May 26, 2023
Charlie Tuna 1980
In Korea we had a wall of 8x10s of the AFRTS-LA talent, sort of a reminder. Vicente was recording the Torrejon AFB station and saved the tapes. Here's a 1980 look at Charlie Tuna "coming back at ya for another hour in the radio."
Chris Noel 1970
By 1970 the music was rocking and Chris Noel made it happen. You have a "Date With Chris"
Monday, May 22, 2023
Joe Allison 1965
Joe Allison is back, starting a new week with a Monday show from 1965. Take your shoes (boots?) off and get ready for the Country Corner!
Friday, May 19, 2023
Roger Carroll 1974
Roger with Petula Clark and Johnny Magnus.
Roger Carroll had come up with a great idea. The services had been doing recruiting radio shows since WWII. The majority of them not as slick as they could be. Roger assembled some top talent.
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Wolfman Jack 1974
It howls! Been quite a winter so far. Play this really loud. It's late 1974 and the Wolf Rocks!!
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Early AFN part one
In the hustle and bustle of getting something on the air, sometimes it's hard to realize how we touched our listeners.
Karoline gives a perspective:
I was born in 1947 in Berlin, Germany and from the fifth year in school we learned English. And from that year on it was not far away to AFN.
Me, my brother and our friends liked the fresh and cool presentation and of course the music, from the rock 'n roll to the beat period.
I remember especially our ultimate DJ Army Sergeant George Hudak. He made the afternoon show "Frolic at Five" very very well. Later on in the mid sixties Jan Wood made the show, also very well.
We also heard the country-and western music show "Stickbuddy Jamboree" with Bob Burns, that aired from AFN-Kaiserslautern and later from AFN-Stuttgart. I also remember the Saturday afternoon show "Weekend World" from Frankfurt, the "Fitch Bandwagon" and the Music-Show in the evening "Sounds of the Sixties" and "Music in the Air".
Joe Ferguson 1983
I ran these shows on SCN. The network had jocks all over the country record shows. It was the nicest surprise a few years ago when Joe found a box of them and asked if we would would like to hear them. That was an easy question. Thank you Joe!
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Johnny Bond 1961
Johnny Bond was a star on Gene Autry's Melody Ranch and sung with fellow AFRTS host Jimmy Wakely (and Scotty Harrell) as the Jimmy Wakely trio. 1965 brought Johnny his biggest hit record "Ten Little Bottles" which still gets me to laugh. Pull out the gramophone Johnny...
Roland Bynum 1973
1973 was an amazing year for Soul music. Was the music great or did Roland make it that much better? I think it was a bit of both. We just received several "Soul In Motion", the Air Force recruiting show Roland did for Roger Carroll's company. These are great listening:
Click that link and hear some Good Bynum...
Monday, May 15, 2023
Benny Brown AFN 1995
Benny is still wowing the continent after over 15 years. It started at AFN. Here's another hour of the weekend show from the network..
Benny Brown remained until 15 July 2015 the “last man standing” from 2-0-8, the fabled English Service of Radio Luxembourg, with his Benny Brown Show that captivated RTL Radio Lëtzebuerg listeners. Now he presents Time Out on Radio 100,7.
Friday, May 12, 2023
Charlie Tuna 1987
Charlie Tuna now
70s, 80s and 90s that's a lot of shows. Charlie started our days in 1971 and continued until 1996. All that time waking Southern California, doing voiceover, TV and film. Busy guy.
Monday, May 8, 2023
Saturday, May 6, 2023
Harry Newman 1982
Today we bring to Archive AFTRS another golden piece of radio history. It´s a Harry Newman aircheck from the American base radio in Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain, in 1982.
Emmylou Harris is a country music legend and member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. By that time, 1982, Harry Newman was one of the best dj´s of country music along with Gene Price. And both of them worked for the American Forces Radio. On its program he played the best country music and interviewed the best country music acts like Emmylou Harris or Crystal Gayle. He knew his country music.
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Melody Roundup - Hollywood Barndance
Andy Parker and the Plainsmen
Melody Roundup was a catch-all. Stations all over the country would send recordings of their local "hillbilly" shows, they'd be repackaged into a 15 minute program.
The "Hollywood Barn Dance" was KNX, Los Angeles version of the Opry..
