What happens
Captain Kirby York serves at Fort Apache, a tiny cavalry outpost in Apache country, under the new commanding officer, Colonel Owen Thursday. When a telegraph repair wagon is destroyed and its men killed, Thursday orders York to lead a small detail out, and the two clash over tactics and over how the Apache should be treated. Thursday is a career man from Washington with firm ideas about frontier discipline. York, who respects the Apache as fighters, finds himself caught between his orders and his own judgment as the tension with Cochise and the reservation's corrupt Indian agent, Meacham, grows. This Screen Directors Playhouse broadcast of Fort Apache, aired August 5, 1949, stars John Wayne and Ward Bond, and is introduced by the film's director, John Ford.
Fort Apache, a small cavalry outpost in Apache-infested country on the American frontier, and the surrounding desert and mesas.
Characters: Captain Kirby York, Colonel Owen Thursday, Sergeant Mulcahy, Sergeant Beaufort, Meacham, Cochise, Miss Thursday
Listen for: The exchange between Captain York and Colonel Thursday over whether to send out a small detail after the telegraph wagon is attacked, and York's later meeting with Cochise.
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.