Gunners Get Glory
Navy armed-guard officer Bob Berry recalls being rushed through wartime training and sent to defend merchant ships against submarine and air attack. His service includes the sinking of a ship,…
Words at War was an NBC anthology of 1943-1945 that adapted contemporary books about World War II into radio drama. Produced with support from the Council on Books in Wartime, the series turned recent journalism, memoir and fiction into dramatic broadcasts. Golden Radio Hour preserves 90 recordings.
NBC wartime anthology dramatizing contemporary books about World War II, produced with Council on Books in Wartime/war-information context.
Names that turn up again and again in the surviving run include Anton M. Leader (director), Jack Costello (host and announcer), William Meeder (organ, performer, and composer), Morris Mamorsky (composer, conductor, and radio adaptor), Joseph Losey (director), Garnet Garrison (director), and Gerald Holland (radio adaptor and writer).
Across its run, the surviving broadcasts are tied to NBC Radio Network and Armed Forces Radio Service.
The stories often return to World War II, fascism and Nazism, wartime home front, military service and combat, occupation and resistance, and war aims and international affairs.
The show also sits in a wider radio history that includes Council on Books in Wartime partnership, Office of War Information wartime context, and World War II contemporary-document adaptation.
If you are following the same actors and creative circles, related programs worth opening next include Columbia Workshop, X Minus One, The Chase, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, and Theater Five.
Search this program or browse in its validated catalog order.
Navy armed-guard officer Bob Berry recalls being rushed through wartime training and sent to defend merchant ships against submarine and air attack. His service includes the sinking of a ship,…
A dramatization of Robert Carse's Lifeline honors the United States Merchant Marine and the dangerous supply routes that sustained Allied forces. An able seaman describes Arctic convoys, sinkings, lifeboat ordeals…
A documentary-style dramatization of Edward Stettinius Jr.'s Lend-Lease: Weapon for Victory explains the program through analogies, historical narration and scenes from Allied fronts. It traces the shift from American hesitation…
The Coast Guard Reserve yacht CGR-3070 begins an ordinary coastal picket patrol searching for enemy submarines, but a severe Atlantic storm turns the mission into a survival ordeal. The small…
A War Bond special reprises dramatized passages from Ernie Pyle's Here's Your War about American infantrymen in North Africa. Pyle describes exhausted soldiers carrying heavy weapons after days of combat,…
A wounded British airman crash-lands in occupied France and is hidden by a French family while recovering from severe injuries that eventually cost him an arm. As German pressure closes…
A policy-driven dramatization of George Creel's War Criminals and Punishment argues that Axis leaders must not escape accountability after the war. Using historical examples from the aftermath of World War…
A humorous autobiographical adaptation of Donald Hough's Captain Retread follows a middle-aged World War I veteran returning to uniform as an Air Force captain. Through loosely connected vignettes, Hough buys…
A dramatization of War Below Zero follows American servicemen assigned to isolated weather stations on Greenland's ice cap. Their enemy is primarily cold, blizzards, loneliness and the strain of maintaining…
Army engineer Major George Dodd arrives on a peaceful South Pacific island to prepare it for conversion into an American airbase. As he grows close to Ruth, Vigo, Father Vincent…
A dramatization based on Robert Parker's Headquarters Budapest uses satire and reported scenes to examine corruption, dictatorship and political weakness in the prewar Balkans. The program portrays rulers such as…
A warning-oriented dramatization argues that Nazi power could survive military defeat by moving underground. Staged scenes show German officials planning infiltration, propaganda, sabotage and the placement of loyal personnel inside…
This staged first-half recording combines material from E. H. Clayton's Heaven Below and Sun Fo's China Looks Forward to examine wartime China. Through missionary observations and dramatized examples, it contrasts…
Fifteen-year-old Simone lives with her prosperous uncle as France collapses before the German advance. She discovers that he has hoarded gasoline, profiteered from refugees and intends to preserve his garage…
A dramatized discussion of Willard Waller's The Veteran Comes Back examines the political and social danger created when returning servicemen are denied work, security and respect. Historical scenes from earlier…
A dramatization of the wartime career of fighter pilot Don Gentile traces his fascination with flying from reckless youthful aviation in Ohio to combat service against Germany. Once war comes,…
A policy-focused dramatization drawing on Sumner Welles's The Time for Decision and Walter Lippmann's U.S. War Aims asks what kind of peace can prevent another world war. Through family scenes,…
A dramatized survey of American social problems argues that the nation cannot win a war for freedom abroad while ignoring fear and division at home. Scenes examine slum housing, juvenile…
A dramatized adaptation of correspondent Joseph Driscoll's Pacific Victory 1945 surveys the American war against Japan and argues that victory depends on men, leadership, weapons and sustained support from the…
A documentary-style dramatization of Willard Waller's The Veteran Comes Back examines the social problems awaiting American servicemen returning from war. Through staged testimony from veterans of earlier conflicts, scenes of…
A dramatization of correspondent Jack Belden's Still Time to Die rejects sanitized or triumphalist descriptions of modern war. Recovering from wounds, Belden recalls the hunger, bombing, fear and misery he…
A dramatization of correspondent Tom Treanor's One Damn Thing After Another recounts his comic and dangerous path from low-priority, often unauthorized war reporter to an accepted front-line correspondent. Treanor talks…
A documentary-style adaptation of Kent Cooper's Barriers Down argues that monopolies and national controls over international news helped create prejudice and war. Dramatized examples show how distorted reporting encouraged nations…
Army wife Barbara follows her husband from post to post, learning how difficult wartime life can be for women trying to stay near soldiers whose orders change without warning. She…
A framed collection of dramatized accounts from Alfred Friendly's The Guys on the Ground honors the Air Force service crews who keep combat aircraft operating. Three pilots relaxing after a…
A dramatization of Marie Syrkin's Your School, Your Children argues that public schools must directly confront racial, religious and political prejudice rather than avoiding controversial subjects. Classroom and faculty scenes…
German tank-factory worker Willie Wegler becomes disgusted by forced labor, militarism and his own part in feeding the Nazi war machine. He arranges hay in the shape of an arrow…
A Christmas-season dramatization based on Kenneth Gould's Scapegoats in History and Gustavus Myers' History of Bigotry in the United States surveys the recurring use of persecuted groups as targets for…
American reporter Dave Sedgwick is sent to wartime England, where he meets Polly, a working-class waitress who distrusts patriotic slogans and the privileged people she serves. As Dave reports on…
A dramatization of Oscar Ray's Borrowed Night follows an Alsatian forced into the German army who attempts to escape service by feigning traumatic neurosis. In a military hospital he watches…
A radio treatment of Beverly Nichols' Verdict on India examines British rule and the political and social problems facing India near the end of the war. Nichols discusses public health,…
Polish officer Jan Karski recounts how the German invasion destroys his prewar life and draws him into the Polish underground. He describes the clandestine courts, sabotage, forged documents, financing and…
This second-half recording presents dramatic excerpts from Lieutenant William Kelly's Ten Escape from Tojo centered on Allied prisoners in Japanese camps in the Philippines. Former prisoners describe starvation, disease, executions,…
An argumentative dramatization of Louis Nizer's What to Do with Germany frames its policy case inside a fictional 1985 America enslaved by a resurgent Germany. A father explains how the…
A dramatization from Battle Report personifies the submarine tender USS Canopus as she recounts her role in the doomed defense of Bataan and Corregidor. Damaged but still operating, the ship…
A dramatization of the final voyage of the troop transport Dorchester follows Army chaplains George Fox, Alexander Goode, Clark Poling and John Washington as they minister to soldiers of different…
A dramatization of Wanda Wasilewska's The Rainbow depicts a Ukrainian village under Nazi occupation and the resistance growing around it. Partisan Olena Kostyuk returns while pregnant, is arrested and tortured…
A dramatized adaptation of William Bradford Huie's Can Do surveys the wartime work of the Navy Seabees through a veteran narrator looking back after discharge. The program moves through construction…
A dramatization of Elliott Arnold's Tomorrow Will Sing follows Italian-American airman Eddie Amato as he helps villagers near his wartime base understand American democratic ideas. The farmers come to trust…
Captain Arthur Curtin returns to the Irish countryside of his childhood and becomes entangled in a bitter struggle between impoverished tenant farmers, powerful ranching interests and political forces exploiting wartime…
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