What happens
This 1944 episode of The Pacific Story, broadcast on March 19, 1944 by the National Broadcasting Company, examines the strength of the Japanese war effort. It follows Kijiro Asami, an ordinary factory worker on Japan's home front, whose long days and sparse rations serve the war machine. The program describes Japan's control of resources across its growing empire, its shipping losses, and the use of prisoners, workers from occupied countries, and wartime substitutes to keep production going. It also introduces Kijiro's son Iki, a soldier trained in fanatical devotion to the emperor, and the government's plans to develop self-sufficient occupied territories and a fortified inner empire.
Japan and its occupied empire in the Pacific during World War II, including factories and mines in Japan, Manchuria and Korea, and occupied Southeast Asia.
Characters: Kijiro Asami, Iki Asami
Listen for: The description of Japan's inner empire and its plans to withstand bombing and shipping losses.
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.