Round The World In Wartime

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 353, 29 March 1946, Page 15

Round The World In Wartime

at 2ZB in 1938, Michael Miles has managed to have himself transported over a good deal of the world in the course of radio work in various countries. When he had completed two years’ broadcasting in New Zealand, Miles went to Australia and was employed by some of the leading stations in Sydney and Melbourne. Early in 1941 he went to Singapore to the staff of the Malayan Broadcasting Corporation. He worked at the Singapore station till 10 days before the surrender, and was sent to Java with a skeleton staff to continue broadcasting until the fall of the island was imminent. Then, with his wife (whom he married in Singapore), he was among the lucky ones who were evacuated to Australia, and he described the hazards of the trip to safety in The Listener when he returned to Wellington in April, 1942. He was marking time in New Zealand, when he received an appointment to the South African Broadcastitmg Corporation in Johannesburg. There he began writing and producing his own shows for soldiers in hospital, and the Fox Film Corporation engaged him for a personal appearance tour of their theatres in the Union. _ Miles next decided to make for the United States, for New York at that time was one of the focal points from which the war in the Pacific was being covered by radio. With his wife he went he was a junior announcer ats

through Central Africa, and down the Congo by paddle-steamer, ending up in the West African port of Matadi, from which they went to New York. Mr. and Mrs. Miles arrived a few days before VE Day and Miles was employed by the New York branch of the BBC to make several broadcasts, including one of the city reaction to the news. On VJ Day, Miles broadcast the VJ Day celebrations from Times Square and a little later took a three months’ engagement with the British ENSA. When he last wrote home he was in Europe with a touring party; he gave no information about his future plans.