With the preparations for the invasion of Europe came the question of combined broadcasting for the Allied troops. General Eisenhower was concerned that the Allied forces display and identify with unity. A joint radio format was envisioned as a cooperation between the AFN and the British and Canadian Broadcasting Corporations (BBC & CBC). The proposed “Allied Expeditionary Forces Program” (AEFP) was by no means an easy endeavor and the program idea was met with hostility, for reasons both on the broadcasting side and the military. The opposing voices were so strong and persistent that it required a direct letter from Eisenhower to Churchill, asking his support of the endeavor. With both men on board, AEFP was set up and on the air on D-Day …show more content…
The problems of collaboration in creating AEFP did not affect its on-air content. One program that exemplified the best that this kind of joint venture could provide was Combat Diary -- a daily fifteen-minute program with reports by correspondents in the field. The novel feature was that of one nationality reporting on and to others: An American describing the British rocket-firing typhoons, or a BBC man speaking from Patton’s Third Army. These reports were not only highly anticipated for their immediacy but the fact that the descriptions and praise came from the reporters of your allies versus your own men made them impressive and unifying at least in …show more content…
It, too, had been preparing for D-Day. Mobile broadcast vans were prepared, and their operators briefed and trained to accompany the troops across the Channel. The plan was for AFN to have one mobile station with each of the U.S. armies in the field. The deal struck was that as long as these mobile stations transmitted AEFP’s programming for most of the day, they were allowed to air a couple of hours of their own material whenever possible. When the actual invasion began, AFN programs were beamed to battlefronts via long-wave transmitters from the BBC and re-transmitted by mobile vans that were attached to the various U.S. Army units. They reported on front line activities and fed the news reports back to headquarters in London.

The mobile stations (both BBC and AFN) broadcast from close to the moving front. Bombings were a daily occurrence for most over long periods. The Seventh Army mobile unit was strafed regularly and Sgt. Jim McNally became AFN's first fatality when he was killed while operating it. Shortly thereafter Sgt. Pete Parris, an AFN news correspondent, was killed while accompanying a paratroop unit into France. Producing radio in a war zone came with its own