(Bonus PDF Transcript) Edward R. Murrow - Eyewitness account to WWII bombing raid over Berlin

During his career for CBS radio, Edward R Murrow was appointed as director of CBS’s European operations during the 1930s and 1940s. While he was based in London, he traveled throughout Europe and reported on the beginning of German and Italian aggression against neighboring countries. Through his broadcasts before the U.S. was attacked at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Murrow brought World War Two to the American public who were still isolationist regarding their lack of interest in the aggression of Japan against China and that of Germany and Italy against our European allies.

This transcript of a radio report by Murrow of him riding with an allied airplane crew that bombed Berlin. As the narrator points out, more than forty of the bombers would not return how. Three of the five news reporters that accompanied the bombers did not come back home as their bombers were shot down. Each word of Murrow’s report was carefully chosen and almost reached the level of poetry with his word choice and delivery. It is no wonder that his reports from London were a powerful influence on public opinion in the U.S.