The Story of Dr Wassell

Lux presents Hollywood. Lux radio theater brings you Gary Cooper with Barbara Britain, Carol Thurston and Alan Hale in The Story of Dr. Wessel. Ladies and gentlemen, your producer is your Cecil B. Demir. Greetings from Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen.

With the war news what it is today, it's hard to believe that only 30 months ago, the Allies faced their bitterest reverses of the war. In Africa, German troops had launched a drive that ended at the gates of Cairo, and the glorious defensive Stalingrad had yet to turn the tide in Russia.

Meanwhile in Asia, the Japanese hordes had pinned our troops on baton and swarmed south toward Indochina and Malaya and the fabulous islands of the Far East. Names that we learned in our geographies at school, assumed a new and terrible importance.

Java, the jewel of the Indies, is a peaming island, lying south of Borneo in a line between Australia and the naval base of Singapore. From Java, in the early months of 1942, came some of the great news stories of the war. Tonight's play on the Lux Radio Theater, requested by so many of our listeners and starring Gary Cooper, is one of those epic bits of history,

The story of Dr. Karadin M. Washoe of the United States Navy. In the midst of war and death, it is a story of saving life, not destroying it. A story of a man's love for his fellow men, and of that rise from defeat to victory that is rewarded, that has rewarded all our sacrifice and effort.

For today in the Pacific, with the mightiest navy in the world, we are fighting our way back, leading a path to hard-pressed China, where a gallant people struggle for the freedom of Asia, and from China I have a touching story of how life goes on in spite of hardship.