What happens
Lux Radio Theatre presents Irving Berlin's This Is the Army, a 1943 broadcast with a cast of more than 200 soldiers, introduced by Cecil B. DeMille. Irving Berlin and Cecil B. DeMille open the program, and the show moves through a series of sketches and songs about life in the Army. A group of young recruits is inducted and stripped of civilian comforts, while sergeants and privates trade jokes and bluster. Scenes follow a boastful hunter, a soldier with a talent for a sharp reply, a visit to the Stage Door Canteen, and a nostalgic return to the last war's Yip Yip Yaphank. The program ends on the morning reveille song, with Berlin's new song on the radio.
A radio broadcast from Hollywood's Lux Radio Theatre, with army life scenes at induction centers, camps, and the Stage Door Canteen.
Characters: Cecil B. DeMille, Irving Berlin, Sergeant Dick Bernie, Private Anthony, Corporal Ralph Moggleson, Ezra Stone, Phil, Private O'Jaw
Listen for: The recruits' induction scene, the boastful hunting stories, and the reveille song.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.