What happens
Joe writes a letter to his father, a retired American steelman, describing what he has seen of Australian heavy industry while stationed there. The story traces the Broken Hill mines, founded when Charles Rasp, James Poole and David James staked a claim in New South Wales, and the rise of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company. Its later history follows labor disputes, state ownership proposals, the company's move to Newcastle, and the wartime expansion of Australian industry. The Pacific Story is the series, and this episode aired on March 24, 1946.
Australia, from the 1880s Broken Hill mines in New South Wales through the Newcastle and Whyalla steelworks to the Second World War era
Characters: Joe, Charles Rasp, George McCulloch, James Poole, David James, Mr. Del Pratt, Mr. Baker, Mr. Brown
Listen for: The letter from Joe to his father, and the boardroom debates over Del Pratt's bluff about state-owned iron and steel
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.