The year 1945 saw a number of significant happenings in
radio broadcasting history.
Events
30 January –
Adolf Hitler makes his last public speech to be delivered personally, on broadcast radio, expressing the belief that Germany will triumph in
World War II.
12 April – The death of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt interrupts programming on radio networks in the United States. On CBS,
John Charles Daly interrupts his narration of Wilderness Road to read the wire message.
15 April –
BBC correspondent
Richard Dimbleby accompanies the
British 11th Armoured Division to the liberation of
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, making one of the first reports from there.[1] His description of what he sees ("the world of a nightmare") is so graphic, the BBC declines to broadcast his dispatch for 4 days, relenting only when he threatens to resign.
6 May –
Mildred Gillars ("Axis Sally") delivers her last
propaganda broadcast to
Allied troops (the first was on 11 December 1941).
7 May – The last German communication to be decoded at
Bletchley Park is from a military radio station at
Cuxhaven closing down.[5]Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Leading Minister in the rump
Flensburg Government, makes a broadcast announcing the German surrender. This evening the
BBC in the United Kingdom announces that the following day will be a holiday, Victory in Europe Day.
28 May – U.S.-born Irish-raised
William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") is captured by British forces on the German border two days after recording his final (rambling and audibly drunk) propaganda broadcast. He is later charged with high treason in London for his English-language wartime broadcasts on German radio, convicted, and then hanged in January 1946.
15 August –
Hirohito surrender broadcast: Emperor
Hirohito's recorded announcement of the unconditional
surrender of Japan is broadcast on
Radio Tokyo a little after noon (
Japan Standard Time).[8] This is probably the first time an
Emperor of Japan has been heard by the common people. Delivered in formal
classical Japanese, without directly referring to surrender and following official censorship of the country's weak position, the speech is not immediately easily understood by ordinary people.
2 January –
Baxter Black, American cowboy, poet, philosopher, large-animal veterinarian and radio commentator (died
2022).
9 January –
Bill Heine, American-born British radio presenter and cinema owner (died
2019).
12 February –
Luiz Carlos Alborghetti, Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure (died
2009).
8 March –
Micky Dolenz, American actor, musician, television and theatre director and radio personality, best known as drummer/vocalist in the 1960s made-for-television band,
The Monkees.
30 March –
Johnnie Walker, born Peter Dingley, British DJ.
17 June –
Art Bell, American broadcaster, talk show host and author, known primarily as the founder and longtime host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM (died
2018).
22 August –
Pete Atkin, English singer-songwriter and radio producer.
28 October –
Simon Brett, English radio producer and scriptwriter and detective fiction writer.
13 December
Herman Cain, African-American conservative newspaper columnist, businessman, political candidate, radio talk-show host and chairman and CEO of
Godfather's Pizza (died
2020).
Kathy Garver, American actress, author and online radio hostess.
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abcdeCox, Jim (2008). This Day in Network Radio: A Daily Calendar of Births, Debuts, Cancellations and Other Events in Broadcasting History. McFarland & Company, Inc.
ISBN978-0-7864-3848-8.