What happens
Kogoro Fujita, a rice farmer west of Tokyo, struggles to feed his family after the war ends. He and his wife work their small, rented and owned fields with the help of their two sons, but high rents, heavy taxes and the cost of fertilizer leave them in debt. Fujita recalls earlier famines and the wartime shortages of fertilizer, fuel and fish that followed Japan's military buildup. The Pacific Story, a National Broadcasting Company program first aired on October 28, 1945, traces how Japan's food supply broke down. The episode is narrated by Gaine Whitman and was written and directed by Arnold Marcus.
Rural Japan, west of Tokyo, in the years before and immediately after World War II
Characters: Kogoro Fujita, Mrs. Fujita, Kiyoshi
Listen for: Fujita's account of the shortages of fertilizer, fuel and fish, and his memory of earlier famines
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.