Reykjavík Redux part two

Jim Rourke found some scans from the base paper which are great!

Your calls are welcome!

Your phonecalls are more than welcome!  612-356-2377

If you leave a name and number I will call you back.

LaRita Shelby

Larita Shelby

Last week, LaRita was invited to a special luncheon at AFRTS-BC to celebrate Black History Month.  She had had a Powerpoint presentation about her years with the network and is sharing that with us.

LaRita Shelby

If you don't have a Powerpoint viewer (or Office installed):

Powerpoint viewer

Be sure to visit her blog:  http://bealadyfirst.wordpress.com/

Hello and welcome! I am LaRita “Jazzy Rita” Shelby, the co-writer of the new song Mr. President’s Girl and the creator of the Lady FIRST campaign. This a good will mission to show love & support for our First Lady Michelle Obama. Kicking this off in Women’s History Month is the perfect time because the song also celebrates this defining moment in history, and promotes comeraderie among women. We seek to empower women to be first in their own lives and to encourage them to continue to be (FIRST) Fascinating, Intelligent, Realistic, Stylish and Tenacious in all that they do.

AFRS Turkey - Ed Autry

SGT Ed Autry 1981, cueing up a record at TUSLOG DET 124, Incirlik (pronounced IN-jur-lick) Air Base, Turkey, European Broadcasting Squadron.

The Big Picture - Story of The American Forces Network 1965

Navy SITE

Here's the lowdown on how the Navy made it happen on the ships, from Jim Harrington

AFN Jack Benny Memorial 1974

Does Radio still do documentaries? PBS televison here was celebrating the life of Jack Benny. We lost Jack in 1974. Herb Glover and AFN had a tribute on the air almost immediately. Great work.

Jack Benny, a Gift of Laughter 12/74

AFN Frankfurt "Country Roads" Summer 1980

Jim Rattan hosts for the vacationing Harry Johnson with your country favorites.

AFN Country Roads - Jim Ratton

105 year old AFRS network vet is still around

Pete Peterson with Lauren Becall

Pete Peterson was the first head of AFRS,

He's 105 years old, and still around.

Read the story at mydesert.com

A radio show with no listeners. Camp Casey 1977

Korea 1977, about six months after Operation Paul Bunyan so the paranoia level was high.  As an excercise they moved the 2nd Infantry Division south of Uijongbu for the day.  Pretty much everything except the DMZ guards.  Except me.  Division demanded that I stay and do a show so the North Koreans wouldn't notice that as being different.  So for 3 hours I'm rocking, and so is the quonet hut because there's a steady stream of Mech vehicles driving by and helicopters flying over.  The station at Camp Casey was on the main road.  When it was over, quiet.  Spooky quiet,  A handful of guards between me and the commies.  I had worked in small markets, closed circuit stations, a high school station.  That was the day I did a show for no audience.

General Robert Foglesong on Paul Bunyan Incident

AFN Bremerhaven 1968

Guenther sent another goodie.  In 1968 he recorded a lot of clips of the Bremerhaven station.  He just put a bunch of it together and it's a fun bit.

AFN Bremerhaven 1968

More from Bremerhaven

Canadian and British Armed Forces Radio

In the early 60s, CFN was the Caribbean Forces Network in the Canal Zone.  In 2012 CFN is the Canadian Forces Network in Europe.  They stream live.

CFN Live Stream

AND the run the classic AT40s on the weekend,

British forces also have a live stream
BFBS live stream

I wish we had a live stream.

GI Jive 1945

Martha Wilkerson was GI Jill, the first really big homegrown star on the network. 

GI Jive #721

Where does all of this come from?

Fortunately many people saved a little history from AFRTS.  We welcome anything you'd care to share.  Pictures, tapes, records taking up space at the house an most importantly, your memories.  Contact me if you'd like to help.  afrts@live.com

AFN's Bill Boyd with the "1605 to Nashville"

Happy Birthday AFRTS

Finally it's done!  Thanks to all.  It's quite a story.  Happy 70th Birthday AFRTS!

Happy Birthday AFRTS

If you'd like a 441k uncompressed wav of this let me know.  Rebroadcast is encouraged, if you do then please let me know. afrts@live.com

If you're not already on the mailing list, let me know.  Weekly I send out updates,
afrts@live.com

Happy Birthday AFRTS

Next year the network turns 70 years old.  Can you believe it?  I'm putting together an audio tribute to the network and I'd really appreciate your help.  Could you please cut a drop with what AFRTS meant to you?  It doesn't have to be anything tricky, you don't have to be 'talent'.  Board operators, supply clerks, 71Limas.  Civilians in the host countries.  Several have already sent theirs in.  Thank you.  Just something along the lines of:

Hi I'm Thom Whetston, I was on AFRTS radio twice, in Korea in the 70s and Panama in the 80s.  Happy birthday AFRTS. 

Feel free to add to it.  The more of us that participate, the better it'll be.  Questions?  just click here.

Jack Brown 15 Nov. 1923 - 19 Oct. 2011

October 2011,  we lost former director of AFRTS programming Jack Brown. 

Jack Brown
 

Awarded US Secretary of Defense Meritorious Service Medal.

Professor Radio, TV, Film CSUN.

General Manager KCSN - Retired

Actor, Television, Radio and Motion Pictures

Former president and charter member, Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters. Former owner of the Don Martin School of Broadcasting.  Jack was a Ham radio operator and former Volunteer at Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. He was also a volunteer reader at his church, St. Mary the Virgin, Chatsworth.

Jack Brown Obituary

In the early 1960s, Jack was the host of "Rocketing Rhythms", the countdown show.

Rocketing Rhythms

Veterans Day

Thank you for serving.

Blue Danube Network

Something new in the collecction, a QSL card from BDN.  US Forces left Austria in 1955

Welcome newbies

This page has been around for few years.  I really hope that you enjoy it.  I value your stories and we're all interested.  Did you save any airchecks/pictures/disks/memories?  Please share.  Do you have any requests?  Let me know and I'll see what I can do.  There is a mailing list.  Every week or two I send an email with what's been added to the site.  Right now there are several hundred on that list.  If there's someone you're looking for I may be able to let them know.  I never give out addresses but I would forward an email.

If you enjoy it here, please tell a friend.

Click here to contact Thom

Top Pops again

Side two:

Dr Hook and the Medicine Show - Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Sammy Johns - Early Morning Love
Marion Jarves - Hell Of A Fix
Billy Swan - I Can Help
Lou Rawls - She's Gone
Fancy - Touch Me

Your comments are welcome

Thanks for leaving your comments. Please leave your name. We're all a part of this.

If you're new here, I have a mailing list where I send out updates when things change. Let me know if you'd like to be a part of it. Click here

If you saved material or actively collect, I'd like to be able to make some of it available.  I never sell anything but I'm always open to trades.

If you enjoy it here, please tell a friend.

Goodnight Freedom Radio - AFN Iraq

AFN Nightside - Craig Miller Features 1974

Just received a crate of master reels, mostly of Craig Miller's work at AFN. (Thanks Garry!!!) I'll be posting a lot of these, features, interviews and such. They don't make radio like this anymore.

1. The Eagles Nest
2. Redback Dollar
3. Great Canyon Caper
4. Invasion Of The Ants
5. Alligator Tongue Oil
6. John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert
7. Midnight Ride of Harvey Schudlapp

Craig Miller AFN Features 1974

AFN 1954 Stickbuddy Jamboree

"I was with AFN 1954-1956 (Berlin and Frankfurt) and did a variety of shows....Hillbilly Gastehaus, Duffle Bag, etc. About the only tape I have left is a cassette of one show that went full-network. Great times at AFN those years. After discharge in 56, I went back to Texas radio where I had taken that "leave of absence" and worked briefly in Austin before joining KILT in 56.  On air PD till 62.  Then on air PD at WQXI Atlanta till 75. 75-85 owned part of a station in Valdosta, Ga.  Came to Carrollton, Ga. in 85 with WBTR.  Spent my last 10 years with 50,000 watt WKNG Carrollton before retiring in June of this year.  Total of 63 years in the business and with birthday #80 coming,  I figured that was enough.”  Red's a member of The Georgia Radio Hall of Fame.

AFN - Red Jones 1954

For the love of carts

Thank you Jose for finding this.



Visit Arcane Radio Trivia

I Wish We Had This

The British Forces have a very active website, with live streaming, that anyone can access.

http://www.bfbs.com/radio

Bob Moke 1983

Thanks Bob for making these and making them available.  It's time for Program 5 of the series that Bob Moke did for the network.

Bob Moke #5 1983

Swingtime 1945 with Bob Crosby

Bing Crosby's brother Bob was a big supporter of the troops and always made himself available to AFRS.  His Swingtime DJ show presented some great bands, sometimes live sometimes from radio transcriptions and sometimes from commercial 78s.  Bob presents trumpeter Erskine Hawkins.

Swingtime 1945

New Book By Chris Noel

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


West Palm Beach, Florida, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) July 3, 2011 --

Pin-up girl Chris Noel appeared in films with Steve McQueen, Richard Chamberlain, Elvis Presley, and Dennis Hopper. She had torrid affairs with some of Hollywood’s hottest hunks, and even dated Frank Sinatra! Then, as a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio, she turned her daily program, “A Date With Chris,” into a smash hit around the world. Chris had our boys in Vietnam listening to her every day, and dreaming of her as their favorite pin-up girl every night. These are her intimate true confessions, packed with juicy behind-the-scenes gossip and illustrated with rare, beautiful photos!

"Chris Noel helped create '60s pop culture." -- From the introduction by Nancy Sinatra

Reading "Confessions of a Pin-Up Girl" is like opening a beautiful time capsule from the Sixties. From her role as a rotating regular on Gene Roddenberry's "The Lieutenant" to her first film, "Soldier in the Rain," starring Steve McQueen and Jackie Gleason, Chris had a habit of being where groovy things were happening. When Elvis Presley was rocking America, Chris appeared with the King in "Girl Happy." When Richard Chamberlain was the hottest thing on TV as "Dr. Kildare," Chris appeared with him in the film "Joy In The Morning." When beach movies were capturing the teens of America, Chris starred in "Beach Ball" with Edd Kookie Byrnes of "77 Sunset Strip." As the Swingin' Sixties got wilder and wilder, Chris co-starred in a biker gang movie with Dennis Hopper, and appeared partially nude in "For Singles Only." Chris has captured all the craziness of Hollywood the first half of this gossipy photo-biographical memoir, a story told mainly through hundreds of rare, unpublished pictures.

The second half of the book deals with an event that dominated the Sixties: the Vietnam War. Blessed with a voice sweet as home-made sugar, Chris was hired by the Pentagon to do a daily, hour-long radio show that was broadcast to our troops in Vietnam and around the world. Every day, the storm clouds of war were temporarily lifted by a ray of sunshine -- a radio show called "A Date With Chris." But our fighting forces couldn't SEE Chris. What did the sultry-voiced vixen LOOK like? The debate raged until "Stars and Stripes" ran a pin-up of Chris on the beach in a bikini. That picture became THE classic Vietnam pin-up, and it appears (in close-up) on the cover of "Confessions of a Pin-Up Girl." Now our soldiers knew -- the vixen was no vixen at all -- she was a blonde bombshell! An angel who had fallen from heaven down to earth. A stand-in for every guy's girl back home. Our men in Vietnam made Chris their favorite pin-up girl. Chris visited Vietnam during the war -- not once but EIGHT separate times. Once she performed with legendary comedian Bob Hope. And, many years later, Chris opened Vetsville Cease Fire House, a shelter for homeless Vietnam veterans, which has since been expanded to welcome all military veterans.

"Confessions of a Pin-Up Girl" is 180 pages of glorious color, featuring dozens of sexy pin-ups of Chris, most never published before. They're awesome! If you love the Sixties, if you love Hollywood gossip, if you've been touched by the Vietnam War, and (especially) if you love pretty girls -- this is the book you have been waiting for!