What happens
The Yellow River, known to the Chinese as the Huang Ho, is presented as a force that has shaped China's history for thousands of years. Engineer Yu is ordered to master the river's floods by clearing its channels, while his father Kun is banished for failing to control the waters. The story then follows rafts carrying wool and hides down the upper river and the flood of the 1930s that devastated the countryside. Chinese workers repair the dikes by hand, and later the river becomes a weapon when Chinese forces break the dikes near Changzhou to halt the advancing Japanese army. The program was broadcast by the National Broadcasting Company as part of The Pacific Story series on July 8, 1945.
The Yellow River in north China, from its upper course through Lanzhou and Baotou to the Great Plain, during ancient times, the floods of the 1930s, and the Japanese invasion of 1937-1938.
Characters: Yu, Kun, Wang
Listen for: The Chinese breaking the dikes near Changzhou and the river flooding the Japanese forces on the plain.
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.