FORT MEADE, Md. -- The Army News Service was established 75 years ago in 1943 as U.S. Soldiers were fighting in North Africa and the Solomon Islands.
"Wherever Americans are stationed, they must know what's going on," said Brig. Gen. Fred Osborn, chief of the Information and Education Division, U.S. Army Special Services. He stood up the news service with the objective "to bring the greatest number of overseas United States Soldiers the best conceivable coverage of undoctored news."
ANS was first established in the Pentagon and staffed by a handful of officers and noncommissioned officers who had newspaper experience before the war. News from the Associated Press and other commercial wire services was summarized, rewritten, updated and then carried up five floors to the Signal Corps Center to be transmitted every night to points overseas.
On June 15, 1943, the Army News Service moved to New York City where offices at 205 East 42nd Street were co-located with Yank magazine and the American Forces Radio Service.
SEASONED STAFF
The Army News Service staff included:
-- Capt. William B. Murphy, a veteran of the New York Daily News.
-- Capt. Royce B. Howes, who wrote for the Detroit Free Press before and after the war, earning a Pulitzer Prize in 1955. He was also author of eight "Crime Club" novels popular in the 1930s.
-- 1st Lt. Norman S. Wesier, author of the Writer's Radio Theater, which earned Outstanding Play of the Year in 1941.
-- Pfc. Alvin McGraw, who worked for United Press before he was drafted and went on to spend 40 years after the war with UPI, covering such stories as President Kennedy's assassination and the Little Rock School integration.
-- William R. Murray, one of the staffers of the ANS San Francisco Bureau that opened in September 1943, went on to become a columnist for New Yorker magazine. He also wrote a series of mystery novels involving horse racing, the last titled 'Dead Heat' in 2005.
The ANS San Francisco Bureau began sending wire news to the Pacific theater Oct. 1, 1943 while the New York office continued serving the European theater.
ANS copy was also used in American Forces Radio Service newscasts around the world, especially in the program recorded in its New York headquarters, "The Voice of Information and Education."
CAMP NEWSPAPER SERVICE
The New York office additionally provided what was called the Camp Newspaper Service, or CNS, which sent original feature articles, news and art to what began as 400 Army newspapers. By VJ day, Sept. 2, 1945, CNS had grown to about 4,000 military papers.
The four-man CNS staff was headed up by Master Sgt. Walter Farley, author of the Black Stallion book series.
The most popular CNS service was a weekly "clip sheet" that included comic strips, maps, photos, cartoons and news feature stories. Among the first stories was a feature about the Army's glider service, which was training for D-Day and landings in Normandy.
The most popular part of the clip sheet was a cartoon by Milt Caniff titled "Male Call." A readership survey indicated more than 10 million military readers followed the cartoon at one time or another, and this didn't include family members who viewed it in the states.
The survey indicated that news service material in camp and unit papers overseas especially helped to battle isolation, boredom and loneliness and brought a bit of home to GIs overseas.
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