World Radio Day

23 March : In France, all private radio stations are nationalized by decree and the  state broadcasting monopoly is strengthened.  11 April : The Sarajevo (Yugoslavia) radio station starts broadcasting.  19 May : The Berlin Rundfunk starts broadcasting.  9 June : Radio broadcasting in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany comes under the control of the Soviet military administration.  15 August : The Emperor of Japan makes his first radio broadcast , announcing his country's capitulation.  10 September : A memorandum on " Freedom ofexpression and freedom of thepress " in Japan abolishes all restrictive laws promulgated under the previous regime.  11 December : A memorandum reorganizes NHK. Government control is abolished and private radio is banned. A committee of representatives of the Japanese people is formed.

  Chinese communist stations in the Shaanxi-Yanan region start broadcasting .  1-5 June : Coded messages broadcast on the BBC announce the imminence of the Allied landings (which take place in Normandy, France, on 6 June) and alert resistance fighters for action.

18 June : " Radio-Brazzaville Voix de la France Combattante " is inaugurated in the Congo.  Radio Kudu is set up at Hargeisa (Somalia) for the British army.  The BBC starts broadcasting English language lessons and halts its Russian language broadcasts at the request of the Soviet government.  4 July : The American Forces Network (AFN) is set up.

24 February : The Voice of America (VOA) starts short-wave broadcasts in English, French, Italian and German.  14 July : Following an appeal launched on the BBC , tens of thousands of French people gather around war memorials  and then parade through the main streets of French towns.  The Office of War Information ( OWI ) is set up in the United States.

Radio Douala (Cameroon), broadcasts programmes in support of the Free French.  Negus Haile Selassie I sets up a radio station broadcasting 4 hours a day in Amharic, Arabic and English, independent of colonial control.  Radio Nairobi (Kenya) broadcasts in Hindustani, Urdu and Gujarati. The Geneva Studio (Switzerland) begins broadcasts in support of humanitarian action by the International Red Cross.  August : A commission led by Colonel W. Donovan is set up in the United States to combat Axis radio propaganda worldwide.  The Yugoslav radio network is destroyed. A transmitter is built at Skopje.  A clandestine transmitter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia is established at Zagreb.  Radio starts up in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

German radio broadcasts a single national programme.  24 April : The first Iranian radio station, supervised by the Ministry of Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones, is inaugurated.  15 May : Belgian radio destroys its facilities in Brussels and moves to France, where broadcasts from Lille and later from Montpellier.  18 June : Broadcasting from London on the BBC , General de Gaulle calls on the French people to resist.  27 July : In occupied Belgium, a decree makes listening to British radio broadcasts an offence punishable by forced labour. 1 August: General de Gaulle launches an appeal to French Canadians from London.  28 September : Radio-Belgique is established in London.  24 October : Regular news broadcasts begin in Ewe, Fanti, Hausa, Ga, Tiv and French in the Gold Coast (now Ghana).  Radio Omdurman is created in Sudan to serve the Allied cause.