What happens
A British naval officer, Captain Denham of HMS Herald, and a French admiral, Admiral Dupont, both arrive at the harbor of Yieldy Pan on New Caledonia to claim the island. The Pacific Story, a National Broadcasting Company program, tells how the island passed from the British to the French, and how its development was neglected by both nations. Foreign companies, Japanese and other labor, and the war in Europe later shaped the island's fate, with its colonists resisting the Vichy government and the French governor. The episode was first broadcast on 1946-01-20 and is narrated by the program's storyteller.
New Caledonia, a French island in the Pacific, from the early 1800s to the Second World War
Characters: Captain Dimmem, Admiral DePuat, Governor Felicier, Monsieur Véric, Governor Sato
Listen for: The narrator's account of how both France and Britain neglected the island's value, and the colonists' struggle against the Vichy government.
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.