HOT COPY RADIO THEATER · HOT COPY RADIO THEATER

DEADLY CARGO

·40 min·2 clips

Ann Rogers proposes Molotov cocktails made from empty bottles and gasoline to attack a German submarine.

1. Hot Copy Radio Theater presents "Deadly Cargo," a wartime audio drama about Ann Rogers's flight from the United States to England. 2. Ann Rogers is a syndicated newspaper columnist, Sprightly Poole is her assistant, and the two women are traveling to report eyewitness accounts from battlefronts. 3. The episode asks whether Ann Rogers and a lightly armed bomber crew can survive a planned attack and respond to a German submarine threatening a freighter. 4. Luggage merchant Kempert tells Ann Rogers that wartime restrictions have left his store without ordinary leather bags. 5. Agent Grossman tells Kempert that Ann Rogers's column, "Second Glance," makes her politically significant to the German agents. 6. Grossman orders Kempert to set a time bomb for approximately the seventh hour after dawn. 7. Kempert is instructed to deliver the bomb inside a suitcase carrying a gift card signed with Thomas Williams's name. 8. Ann Rogers accepts the suitcase at her apartment and phones Thomas Williams's office, but learns that Williams is away for the weekend. 9. Lieutenant Martin, Lieutenant McNaughton, Lieutenant Weston, and Sparks ferry the Banshee toward England with only a skeleton crew aboard. 10. The crew explains that the Banshee is a replacement for an earlier aircraft shot up over Berlin and is not yet fully armed. 11. Ann Rogers notices that the gifted suitcase is unusually heavy and nearly falls from the overhead rack during the flight. 12. The crew spots a German submarine shelling an isolated freighter after descending below the clouds to view the ocean. 13. The pilot initially refuses to attack because the Banshee has no bombs, no cannon, and insufficient personnel for combat. 14. Ann Rogers cites Russian and Yugoslav use of Molotov cocktails and suggests filling empty bottles with gasoline. 15. The crew loads the bottles into Ann Rogers's suitcase and positions the improvised bomb through the bombardier's compartment. 16. The Banshee's machine guns cover a low approach while the crew prepares to drop the suitcase onto the submarine. 17. The dialogue moves from light banter about crew rations and travel to urgent wartime suspense aboard the bomber. 18. The format combines scripted character dialogue, aircraft sound cues, a mid-episode sponsor segment, and a closing cast announcement. 19. Radio-drama listeners who enjoy wartime suspense and improvised tactics. 20. Listeners seeking contemporary interviews or unscripted nonfiction may skip this dramatization.

As heard by us

Ann Rogers's flight drops below the clouds and finds a German sub.

Deadly Cargo opens in wartime bustle, with Ann Rogers, the newspaper woman behind the syndicated Second Glance column, hunting for luggage before boarding a flight with Miss Poole.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play when you want a cockpit tour to open onto gray ocean and a German submarine below.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from HOT COPY RADIO THEATER