Hello and happy holidays from the war zone! This edition is mostly about the audio which you can click on above. Subscribers can download it as a podcast. This show was originally aired in 2023, but it is evergreen to go every December from here on out. If you are a member of the Greatest Generation, or have one as friend or family, you will get a kick out of V for Victory and X for Xmas. Compiled from archival sources, it rolls like a tank into Berlin, blaring radio broadcasts, big bands, commentators, celebrities, and many more memories that bring you home for Christmas.

As we get further away in time from the second World War, we tend to lose track of what life felt like during wartime.

America’s entry into World War Two began 17 days before Christmas on Dec 8, 1941. For the next five holiday seasons “peace on earth” went on hiatus.

What you’ll hear is not a history of World War Two, or a sugar plum romp through precarious yuletides. Most of this originated at Christmas time and was constantly by interrupted by breaking bulletins. It is a sound montage that features the newscasters and entertainers of the time communicating with their vast unseen audiences.

It is a dark time. For much of the world, 1941 marks the third year of a war that has seen the German occupation of many European countries. War does not take a holiday.

On the radio, it’s bombs and jingle all the way, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Abbot and Costello, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Judy Garland, Francis Langford, Dinah Shore, Glenn Miller, and the men and women of the greatest generation.