4.1 The V-Disc programme

Figure 9 Example of a V-Disc label on a vinyl record, 1940s. Rudolf Kurz Recording Collection, Wiener Music and Arts Library, Columbia University.

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This is a photograph of a V-Disc label on a vinyl record. The picture shows the centre of the record so the edges cannot be seen. The record’s circular label has the large capitalised title ‘V Disc’ across the centre with the top half of the title in blue against a white background, and the bottom half of the title in white against a red background. The top half of the label, with the white background, has the text ‘Army – Navy – Marine Corps – Coast Guard’ capitalised in blue along the circular edge of the label. Beneath this, in the centre of this half of the label, is the text, in blue: ‘No. 7218’, then underneath this ‘Twilight on the Trail’, then ‘Claude Thornhill and his Orchestra’ and beneath this, ‘Dance’ and ‘‘NN’ Release’. The bottom-half of the label with the red background has beneath the ‘V Disc’ title, in white, ‘Produced by the Music Branch Special Services Division War Department’. Around the circular edge of this half of the label is the capitalised text, in white, ‘outside start 78rpm’.

Figure 9 Example of a V-Disc label on a vinyl record, 1940s. Rudolf Kurz Recording Collection, Wiener Music and Arts Library, Columbia ...

Music and entertainment played an important part in maintaining American troops’ morale while they were stationed abroad. Although America did not join the Allies until 1941, a Morale Branch had been created by the American military as early as 1940, which led to the establishment of the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) and the Music Section, from which the V-Disc programme would eventually derive. The AFRS was responsible for the broadcast of educational and information programmes to those overseas and also for the distribution of ‘B’ kits, which consisted of radios, phonographs and 78 rpm records. However, this supply of records encountered a setback in July 1942, which contributed to the establishment of the V-Disc label: a recording ban was introduced by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), owing to recording companies’ refusal to pay royalties to musicians for every record sold, and for their use in jukeboxes and radio broadcasts.

As requests for current recordings continued to arrive from servicemen overseas, the Army set up a programme through which records would be made specifically for the troops. This was enabled by the AFM’s agreement to waive any fees or royalties in exchange for the Army’s promise that the recordings would only be distributed to the military, and destroyed once hostilities ended. The V-Disc label (bearing a distinctive label of red, white and blue) thus began production, at first for the Army alone, and joined by the Navy and Marine Corps in 1944. Every month, V-Disc kits of thirty records, together with questionnaires for soldiers’ music requests, were distributed to those serving in Europe and the Pacific. More than eight million records were sent to troops stationed abroad over the course of the programme, from October 1943 to May 1949, when, owing to less demand, the scheme came to an end (Miller, 2014; Sears, 1980, pp. xxiii–xci).