April 4, 1944 – Alka-Seltzer News Of The World – NBC – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
April 4, 1944 – News for this day was sweeping and fast moving. From the Pacific came word raids over several Japanese-held islands and major damage to shipping and installations. Also word that American forces had come ashore at Bougainville and that a full-on assault was underway.
Over to the Atlantic where it was reported an assembly of “considerable strength” of B-17’s and B-25’s based in Italy staged a major raid on Bucharest in Romania. It was estimated the Romanian capital suffered a high rate of casualties and had received some 1,000 tons of explosives and incendiaries over what was once referred to as “Paris of The Balkans”. This coupled with the Russian assault pushing towards Romania was described as a valuable assist to Soviet forces pushing quickly westward as well as an adjunct to the raid over Budapest, Hungary the day before – it was described as the newly opened “Balkan Front”. The only slowdown was at Odessa, which the German Army was staunchly holding on to and which was also a much needed escape route for the Germans.
And Algiers announced that two Communist deputies received cabinet posts in the French government and that General De Gaulle was appointed commander-in-chief of all the French armed forces. It was generally agreed that control of the newly liberated areas of France be given to De Gaulle and a French committee rather than be given to General Eisenhower to control. It was felt there was no other option than to give complete control of those areas to De Gaulle from a practical as well as political standpoint.
And that’s just a small slice of news as it happened on this April 4, 1944 as reported by Alka-Seltzer’s News Of The World from NBC.
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