What happens
The Pacific Story opens its first episode by surveying the lands around the Pacific Basin and why they matter to Americans. The drama then takes us to 1927 in Mukden, Manchuria, where a Chinese agent named Chen reports on a secret Japanese military conference. Japanese officers and experts meet to plan expansion into Manchuria and China, and the agents' efforts to gather and carry the information are shown. The program traces how these plans unfold in the following years, with Japan's moves across Asia leading toward the Pacific War. Commentary by Owen Latimore closes the program, explaining the stakes for China and the United Nations.
Mukden, Manchuria, 1927, and later Asia and the Pacific during the Second World War
Characters: Chen, Fung, Yang, Owen Latimore
Listen for: The secret conference in Mukden and the agents' report, followed by the 1931 attack on the Chinese telephone and power facilities.
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.