What happens
The Pacific Story presents a public-affairs drama examining why Japan's push for empire in the Pacific was so hard to sustain. Dramatized scenes follow Japanese officials and economists debating population growth, food supply, and the need for territory, then trace the invasion of Manchuria and the costly drive to build heavy industry. Chinese cotton speculators are shown being cheated out of their holdings by a new Japanese-backed currency, and Japan's shipping losses leave its factories short of raw materials. Commentary by Dr. Clayton Keras, chairman of the Department of Trade and Transportation at the University of Southern California, closes the program with an analysis of the economic costs of conquest. The episode first aired on March 25, 1945.
Japan, Manchuria, North China, Shanghai, and the wider Pacific during the years of Japanese expansion, with a studio commentary segment
Characters: Japanese economist, Japanese military man, Chinese cotton speculator Chen, Chinese businessman, Chinese peasant, Dr. Clayton Keras, Gaine Whitman
Listen for: The dramatized exchange between the Japanese economist and military man on whether territorial conquest can solve Japan's economic needs, and Dr. Keras's closing analysis of the costs of conquest.
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.