This is the British Forces network

About This Book

In December 1944, with the war still raging in NW Europe and the Germans about to launch their ill-fated counter-offensive in the Ardennes, four Mobile Broadcasting Units left Tilbury docks for Ostend. Their role was to relay the Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme to the advancing British and Canadian armies. But with the end of the war in Europe five months later came the need to find a permanent home for these roving broadcasting units. 'This is the British Forces Network ... ' traces the story of the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), as these units became, from a harem in Algiers in 1944 to the Musikhalle in Hamburg, and on to the new headquarters of forces radio and television in Herford for Service Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC) in the 1990s. In 'This is the British Forces Network ... ', Alan Grace, who spent thirty-six years with BFBS, traces the history of forces broadcasting in Germany, drawing on interviews with past and present members of BFBS, archive photographs, scripts and many previously unpublished documents. For example, he mixes stories of LAC Geraint Evans of the BFN Music Department with Barry Davies' introduction to sports broadcasting, bringing out the humorous side of forces broadcasting. For thousands of British servicemen and women and their families, 'This is the British Forces Network ... ' will evoke memories of their postings to BAOR and RAF Germany. It will also appeal to successive post-war generations of Germans who tuned in to the sound of BFBS as they toiled to rebuild their country in the chill of the Cold War era.