ABSTRACT
One unforeseen side—effect of the BBC's great wartime use of records was growing public exposure to American popular music; few records were issued in Britain during the war because of the shortage in raw materials, so the BBC came to rely extensively on imported American discs. But American musical influence was most profoundly felt through the presence of U.S. troops in the country … and the programmes of the Armed Forces Network (AFN). Maurice Gorham recalled that when the AFN began in 1943, it was the preordained programme for the bobby-soxers, with its American comedy, American swing, and entire freedom from restrictions… Although Gorham, for one, thought that the popularity and influence of AFN were exaggerated, British popular culture as a whole did undergo an insidious “Americanization” as the war progressed.
