Radio Drama · WWII Era Audio Recordings · News & history

1939 Radio News

Heard
1939
Episodes
94

News from 1939.

More about it

I usually share these via torrent but I don't think all these files are available on archive.org so here's a 1939 news file dump.

Any typo or error is mine.

Episodes, in broadcast order

  1. Harry Roy God Bless You, Mr. Chamberlain

    · 2:51

  2. RRG Wunschkonzert für die Wehrmach

    · 3:19

  3. Arthur Askey We're Going To Hang Out The Washing On The Siegfried Line

    · 2:46

  4. RSH Lord Haw Haw Germany Calling, Sign On

    · 0:15

  5. RSH Lord Haw Haw Sign Off

    · 0:37

  6. 19xx-xx-xx Shinola

    · 0:59

  7. XERA Pickard Family

    · 17 min

  8. BBC Gas Mask Drill

    · 0:20

  9. PTT Reportage De L'intronisation Du Pape PIE XII

    · 0:35

  10. BBC Chamberlain After Czech Invasion

    · 0:30

  11. NBC Marian Anderson Concert

    · 29 min

  12. NBC Bob Hope Betty Grable

    · 27 min

  13. Former British PM Stanley Baldwin Speaks In New York

    · 1:48

  14. WCCO Anoka Tornado

    · 0:48

  15. Herbert Hoover Urges US Neutrality In European Conflicts

    · 3:09

  16. FDR Speech 'There Can Be No Peace'

    · 1:28

  17. Rep Martin Dies on Nazi Bolshevism Soviet Fascism

    · 0:15

  18. BBC Czech Ambassador In London On Poland Situation

    · 1:45

  19. BBC News

    · 16 min

  20. CBS HV Kaltenborn Reports On The Eve Of War

    · 5:02

  21. CBS European News

    · 15 min

  22. CBS London Edward R. Murrow

    · 4:01

  23. MBS Sigrid Schultz In Berlin

    · 7:25

  24. BBC Alvar Liddell Reports On German 16 Point Plan

    · 0:30

  25. BBC Alvar Lidell Polish Question 16 Points

    · 4:39

  26. BBC Alvar Liddell Reports On Evacuation Of Children

    · 0:40

  27. BBC Alvar Liddell Reports The Invasion Of Poland

    · 0:45

  28. BBC Evacuation of London

    · 1:13

  29. BBC Seymour Joly de Lotbinière Evacuees Depart from Waterloo Station

    · 17 min

  30. BBC Ignace Paderewski On The War Looming Before Poland

    · 0:41

  31. BBC Lionel Marson Invasion of Poland

    · 15 min

  32. BBC S J de Lotbiniére Reports Further On Evacuation

    · 0:45

  33. BBC S J de Lotbiniére Reports Train Now Leaving

    · 0:14

  34. CBS Adolf Hitler Announces War With Poland

    · 3:37

  35. FDR Speaks On U.S. Neutrality

    · 1:07

  36. Herbert Hoover Speaks At The Onset Of The War

    · 0:39

  37. PPR Radio Warsaw Reports On German Invasion

    · 2:36

  38. Polish Ambassador To U.S. On War With Germany

    · 1:05

  39. BBC News

    · 52 min

  40. Chamberlain Declares War

    · 3:30

  41. BBC Outbreak of War with Germany

    · 1:51

  42. BBC Britain Declares War On Germany

    · 13 min

  43. BBC Britain Declares War On Germany

    · 3:30

  44. BBC King George VI Addresses The Nation (Excerpts1)

    · 1:54

  45. BBC King George VI Addresses The Nation (Excerpts2)

    · 1:06

  46. BBC King George VI Addresses the Nation

    · 5:44

  47. BBC Neville Chamberlain BBC

    · 0:43

  48. BBC Places Of Entertainment To Be Closed

    · 1:08

  49. BBC Prime Minister Chamberlain Declares War On Germany

    · 2:54

  50. BBC Reports Defense Order Closing Places Of Entertainment

    · 0:35

  51. CBC Canada Declares War On Germany

    · 7:18

  52. CBS AP Bulletin On Peace Efforts

    · 0:41

  53. FDR Speaks About The War Beginning In Europe

    · 1:48

  54. NBC Dorothy Thompson Hitler Invasion of Poland

    · 14 min

  55. BBC News

    · 50 min

  56. CBS Edward R. Murrow British Class System

    · 3:03

  57. BBC Survivors Recall the Sinking of the SS Athenia

    · 4:47

  58. CBS William L. Shirer In Berlin

    · 3:00

  59. CBS William L. Shirer News From Berlin

    · 3:02

  60. BBC Evacuee Message To Parents

    · 0:34

  61. BBC We Have Been Evacuated

    · 15 min

  62. NBC Reports On Adolph Hitler's Danzig Address

    · 1:24

  63. CBS French Premier Daladier Message To France

    · 16 min

  64. FDR Addresses Extraordinary Session Of Congress

    · 35 min

  65. CBS Adolf Hitler On Poland (H. V. Kaltenborn Commentary)

    · 1:49

  66. CBS H. V. Kaltenborn Commentary

    · 15 min

  67. BBC Winston Churchill The First Month of the War

    · 4:41

  68. CBS Elmer Davis With The News

    · 4:39

  69. BBC Children's Hour Broadcast By Princess Elizabeth

    · 0:37

  70. BBC Richard Dimbleby By A French Road

    · 1:08

  71. Elsie & Doris Waters Gert, Daisy & the Blackout

    · 3:45

  72. CBS Elmer Davis Reports 'City Of Flint' Still Missing

    · 4:23

  73. NBC Story Behind The Headlines The Outbreak Of The European War

    · 14 min

  74. CBS Elmer Davis Reports On Neutrality Bill

    · 4:36

  75. CBS Elmer Davis Reports On Molotov's Speech

    · 4:34

  76. BBC Viscount Halifax Our War Aims Now and After

    · 17 min

  77. BBC HM Queen Elizabeth Calls On Women

    · 8:22

  78. BBC Queen Elizabeth Fortitude Of Women

    · 0:47

  79. BBC Winston Churchill Ten Weeks Of War

    · 9:26

  80. CBS Edward R. Murrow Underground Air Raid

    · 2:13

  81. BBC War Comes to London Voluntary Hospitals

    · 8:16

  82. CBS Elmer Davis With George Fielding Elliot

    · 14 min

  83. CBS Elmer Davis Reports Russian Air Raids On Helsinki

    · 4:40

  84. BBC Tommy Handley Very Little Nazi

    · 1:06

  85. CBS Elmer Davis Reports The Defense Of Finland Continues

    · 4:33

  86. CBS Elmer Davis Reports Germany Accuses Sweden

    · 4:41

  87. RSH Lord Haw Haw NY Times Reports Cruiser Exeter Damaged

    · 0:33

  88. From Montevideo, Uruguay The End Of Graf Spee

    · 0:22

  89. News Bulletin On Graf Spee

    · 0:14

  90. BBC Sinking

    · 0:43

  91. BBC Winston Churchill The Sinking Of The Graf Spee

    · 5:01

  92. CBS Elmer Davis Reports On Russo-Finnish Front

    · 4:40

  93. CBS Elmer Davis Reports German Liner 'Columbus' Scuttled

    · 4:40

  94. CBS Elmer Davis Reports Swedish Volunteer Units For Finland

    · 4:45

Where it comes from 1

The archive items its episodes are played from, best first, with each one’s rights as its archive states them. An episode two sets both hold is played from the first.

  1. 1939 Radio News

    WWII Era Audio Recordings · WA4CZD · 94 episodes here · archive.org

    the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.

From WWII Era Audio Recordings at the Internet Archive.

More News & history

Radio drama, old-time radio and historic broadcasts from the Internet Archive (its Old Time Radio collection with the Old Time Radio Researchers' sets, WWII Era Audio Recordings, the Pacifica Radio Archives, the Radio Haiti Archive, German radio plays and listeners' uploads), Wikimedia Commons (with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision's broadcasts) and the Library of Congress. Every episode plays from its archive, which this site does not copy; rights are as each archive states them. Nothing here is called public domain on this site's say-so. In the United States, sound recordings first fixed before 15 February 1972 have federal protection under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, for most until 2067 at the latest, so most American radio of the 1930s to the 1950s is not in the public domain there. Each set shows the licence, mark or statement its archive gives, and says whose it is. Horror, crime, war and westerns are for teenage and adult profiles, racist caricature for adults only, and children’s profiles hear what was made for children. More about these archives.