By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Since the horrors and victories of World War II, every war and military conflict has suffered the inevitable comparisons. From the political front, to the front lines, every battle cry is measured against the boldness and rightness of the war no one ever questions. The proof of that justification came largely from one heroic band of first hand witnesses.
Edward R. Murrow, and his now infamous Murrow Boys, brought World War II, unblemished and unapologetically, home for the nation and the world. A new book and audio collection, "World War on the Air," chronicles more than 50 of the Murrow Boys most famous broadcasts.
Written accounts can not do justice to the haunting and unforgettable sounds of a time that nearly strangled history. They are there, archived in the Smithsonian, more than 35 hundred broadcasts by Murrow's Band of brave reporters. They captured history on primitive tape recorders on rooftops, battlefields and ditches. First hand accounts of a war without them would have been too far away to imagine.
The best known among them were Edward R. Murrow, Howard K. Smith, Charles Collingwood, William Shire, Erik Sevareid, and the lone woman reporter, Mary Marvin Breckenridge. Author Mark Bernstein says they were an intellectual group. But he says they were novices in this new world of broadcasting.
Click the "listen" icon above to hear Joyce Kryszak's interview with Mr. Bernstein.