What happens
The Pacific Story presents the history of the B-29 Superfortress, from its development at Boeing and the Air Technical Service Command through the training of its first crews. Corporal Olson, Sergeant Lowrie, Lieutenant Carter, Major Horves and Captain Brooks are among the men introduced at Smoky Hill Army Airfield in Kansas, where they learn the new bomber's systems. The crews then move to India and China, where they fly the aircraft over the hump and prepare for combat. A shakedown raid on Bangkok is described, including an engine failure that forces the crew to throw equipment overboard to stay aloft. The program then follows the crew's first raid on Japan, a night attack on the Yawata steel works in June 1944. The episode is part of the National Broadcasting Company's Pacific Story series, broadcast on July 29, 1945.
Smoky Hill Army Airfield in Salina, Kansas; the Boeing plant in Wichita; India and China bases; the flight over Japan toward Yawata; Hollywood and Cincinnati, Ohio.
Characters: Major James Horves, Captain Harlan Brooks, Lieutenant Carter, Lieutenant DuBois, Lieutenant Walton, Lieutenant Poplowski, Sergeant Lowrie, Corporal Olson
Listen for: The sound of the B-29 crew's preparations and the flight into Japan, including the searchlights and anti-aircraft fire over the target at night.
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.