The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by DuPont, presents Eagle to Britain, an original radio play about the ferry command. Out of the present moment, its actors are the actors of the greatest drama of today. Our star is Kenneth Delmar of the Cavalcade Players. The target for American bombers tonight is an industrial area somewhere on the continent of Europe. The Great Bombay is open, and out of the bellies of American bombers, American explosives curve down through the darkness to smash into rubble another of Hitler's factories for death. Our play tonight will tell of how one of these American bombers got to Britain, flown there by a four-man crew of the ferry command, a crew determined to deliver their American eagle to Britain. With gratitude to the men of the ferry command, we present on the Cavalcade of America, Eagle to Britain, starring Kenneth Delmar. For reasons of military secrecy, some details in this play are referred to by such cryptic symbols as position X or position Y. Where code words are actually used in communicating information in the ferry command, our story employs fictitious code words. Newfoundland ferry command base, morning. There are conversations in each of the three telephone booths just outside the office of the operations officer. Look, Dad, don't tell Mom, but I'm flying Atlantic again. No, not yet, I'm still just the co-pilot. Glenn Williams, you remember him. You met him, he's the guy I had home with me a couple of weeks ago. We went to see the Dodgers. Them bums, yeah. Yeah, that's the guy. Look, listen, Dad, tell Marty I got the St. Christopher he sent me, and boy, I can use it. He what? What's that? He shipped on a freighter heading east out of New York. When? Well, is he on the same ship? Oh, he is. Yeah, maybe I'll pass over his ship at that. Huh? Sure, Pop. Thanks. Well, look, I gotta go now. Yeah, I'll call you. So long. What? How much more operator? 60 cents. What do you think I'm calling, Shangri-La? Okay, okay. 25, 50, 60. Hello, honey. No, no, I'm still here. They didn't cut us off. I can't tell you where I'm going, sweetie. It's a military secret. No, no, it's not Brazil. I'll tell you that much. Now, look, honey, I just happened to meet that girl in one of those Portuguese bars. She's nothing to me at all. Honest, baby. Look, look, I'll call you as soon as I get back, okay? What? Oh, sure I do, baby. Let me hear you say it. That a girl. Goodbye. Is it worth it? I asked myself, is it worth it? Hello? Oh, hello, Lila. How's Jimmy? Yeah, I'm fine. Had a good night's rest. How's the kid? Oh, no change, huh? Is that good or bad? Uh-huh. Well, what does the doctor say? Well, gee, honey, I've got to worry. I can't help it. No, I should have stayed with you and the kid at the hospital. Yes, I should. I... Well, sure, this is the army, but I... Well, is he a good doctor? The best? Uh-huh. Uh-huh, well, all right. I... Hey, Captain, come on, let's get in there. Okay, Jaeger. All right, honey, you pray and I'll keep my things crossed. Take care of Jimmy. Yeah, don't you worry. I'll be careful. Yes, dear. Yeah, bye. Sorry to interrupt you, Captain, but it's nearly time for briefing. Okay, Jaeger. Uh, where's Burnett and that new man O'Brien? Well, they went to the lunch room to get some hot coffee for the thermos bottle. Oh, good, good. Have you made your goodbye telephone call yet? I have no one to say goodbye to on this side, Captain, and I don't think the long-distance service to Norway is so good these days. Uh-huh, no, I guess not. Well, come on, let's get going. I guess we're all set to go, Burnett. Yeah, gear switch. Neutral. Fuel transfer valves and pump. Off. Hydraulic pressure. Okay. Hydraulic selector is normal. Intercoolers are cold. Hand primer is off. Parking brake is on. Gyro is uncaged. Cowl flaps are open. Right. Open left. Fuel shutoff switches. Off. Booster pumps are on. Supercharger's off. Throttles, props, flight controls. Okay. Your radio okay, Jaeger? All okay, Captain. O'Brien, all your navigation instruments? All set, sir. Select the number one engine on, sir. Well, here goes. Fuel pressure is up. Mixture on rich. And first one is singing pretty. I'll get taxi clearance. Pilot Williams, number one to tower. Pilot Williams to tower, requesting taxi clearance. Okay. Tower to Pilot Williams, number one, U is runway seven. Wind direction, pineapples. Wind velocity, John Doe. Military double talk. Only they call it code. Here goes. Okay, below. Knocks out. Knocks out. See you Friday, boys. Thumbs up. Going to be pretty heavy tonight, Burnett. Better give me about 10 percent flaps. Got it. Going blind a minute after we're in the air. Let us have the gyro compass against the magnetic compass. Got it. Mixture still on rich. Pilot Williams to tower, request permission to take off. Tower to Pilot Williams, all clear to take off. Parking break off. Parking break off. Let's go. Running heavy, all right. Terrific overload. Yeah. We're going to have to build. Yep. He's off. Okay, landing gear up. Gear up. Reduce manifold pressure to about 40 inches. RPM's 2500. He's up on the flaps. Next stop, Britain. 6000 feet, 24 mile tailwind, RPM 1800. That left engine is hotting up a little, Burnett. You lean out the gas mixture a little, I'll reduce power. That ought to fix it up all right, yeah. What'd you find out about your kid? Nothing good. It'll all work out all right. You'll see. Hope you're right. Hey, I didn't meet any brother of yours when I was visiting you. Didn't even know you had one. He was at sea. The family never talks about him when he's at sea. Sort of a superstition, I guess. Oh. Like the way Medwick always touches third base when he comes in from left field. Yeah. According to my first fixer, we're just over the Labrador current. Okay, Orion. I hope that engine don't give us any trouble. I hate to complain, but this North Atlantic run is monotonous. Is the Brazil run more exciting? Well, at least it's monotonous in a more southerly direction. I'm hungry. Burnett, what's that glow over there in the east? Nowhere near dawn yet. Oh, yeah. Captain Williams, there's a distress signal on the radio. S.O.S., huh? And the one some poor guys have gone and got themselves torpedoed. What ship is it and where? I don't know. The radio's silent now. It just began and then it stopped right away. Williams, that light in the east, that's a ship on fire. That must be it. Dead ahead. Yeah. Better take a few turns over, huh? No, no, Joe, you're all wrong, I tell you. I tell you, yes. I'd know that ship any place, any time. I tell you, it's the Tomahawk. How could you tell from way up here? Especially the way she's burning. It's the Tomahawk. It's Marty's ship. My brother's on that ship. Look at her burn. Here's a position, Captain. Give it to Yeager to put on the radio. Here you are, Yeager. Fifty degrees, fifty minutes north. Forty-seven degrees, thirty minutes, fifteen seconds west. Want to repeat? No. I have it. Maybe if he had the St. Christopher, he'd get away in one of those lifeboats, huh? Don't worry, Joe. It's really his ship. He'll get away, OK? It's his ship, all right. Well, he'll be picked up. I'd like to drop some flares, signal some other ship, if we could only do something. We radioed, Joe. We're just wasting gasoline now. Imagine being stuck up here with only an A-car. Shut up, Orion. You know something? Marty named his kid after me. After me? Joe, snap out of it. Cut it out. We know how you feel. Don't you think I'd like to be back with my kid? He may be dying. Got to go on. What more can we do for that ship down there? Nothing. Sorry. Let's get out of here. You are listening to an original radio play, Eagle to Britain, starring Kenneth Delmar on the cavalcade of America, sponsored by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. As our play continues, the giant bomber with its crew of four men is roaring eastward through the night. This must be the somewhat turbulent air they told us we were headed for. Somewhat turbulent? I don't know which end is up anymore. We can fly over it if that hot engine will take it. Yeah. Going upstairs, boys. Hit the oxygen when you need it. All right. All right. Well, it's quieter up here anyway. Williams. Captain Williams. Hmm? Are you taking enough oxygen? You look kind of dopey. Oxygen? Hmm. Oh, I was just thinking is all. Okay. Me too, I guess. Williams. Hey. Hey, Williams. Hey. Williams. Captain Williams. We're trying out loud. What happened? Captain Williams passed out. Turn up his oxygen, will you? Oh, I thought we merely lost a wing or something. What's that all over your face, Orion? That? Yeah. That's a lemon meringue pipe. Imagine, I towed it at all its distance just to smoosh it all over my face when the plane lurched. That's enough. The oxygen will fix it up all right. How do you feel now, Captain? Hmm? You passed out. Not enough oxygen. I told you to watch it. Sort of sneaked up on me. How are we doing? That left engine is heating up pretty bad now. Can't cut down any more on power. Couldn't hold our altitude up here. We'd get down into that storm, get weathered in solid. If we don't cut down on the power, that engine is going to really give us trouble. She's running too hot to be helping. All right, boys. We'll let them down. What? Let them down through that weather. Are you eating again, Orion? Just some cold-forged beans out of the can. Food for the gods. The way it looks now, they're going to get it too. I don't like this weather at all, Burnett. I don't like it a bit. Do I? She's getting pretty white out there in the wings. Icing up. Feel the vibration. Yeah, I feel it. It's getting worse. And there's more up ahead. Well, what do you say? What do I say what? Four hours out. Got to decide now if we're going ahead or going back. Ahead. We should go ahead always. You're prejudiced, Jaeger. So are you, Williams. So am I to go back. Got a failing engine. Might get worse. Getting into worse weather. Going to sweat a lot of weather from now on. Should we risk a valuable plane, valuable cargo, valuable personnel? In war, one takes risks. One seizes the initiative or fails. Captain. What do you think the odds are? I'm a pilot, Orion, not a bookie. I'll give you a minute to decide. It's just this far back now. Is it this ahead? Ice is getting thicker on the wings, Williams. Probably bad weather ahead. Probably bad weather behind. Yeah. We could head straight down. Get up, Orion. I'll tell you, boys, maybe I'm prejudiced. But I'm all for easing down Britain Way myself. Okay. Well, I'm glad that's settled. I'm glad that's settled this way. Hey. Hey, that ice is loosening up. You must be in warmer air. That ice is breaking off. Yeah. I feel it in the controls. Oh, yeah. How would somebody like a quick shot of hot chicken noodle soup? I feel like a celebration. Always easy. Hey. By the way, Orion. What now? I just thought of something. This is your first flight over the North Atlantic, isn't it? Yeah. Hey, that's right. We've got the initiative. Hey, wait a minute now. What's all this? Here I am, a quiet guy, minding my own business. Quiet nearby. You're about to be inducted into the holy and ancient order of short snorters. Not so ancient order as that. Well, everybody that flies across the North Atlantic is a member. Got a dollar bill on you? Uh-oh. So I'd come in from a long ways off. I must say, this is the most complicated way of putting the arm on somebody I ever experienced. Okay, when do I get it back? Right away. Come on, fork it over. How do you like that? Now I take this dollar bill and got a pen, Red? Oh, he takes my buck, now he takes my pen. How about my portable radio? Here, Joe, take over the control. Right, Glenn. Now then, on this dollar bill, I write your name. Red Orion. Now the date. September 21st, 1942. There you are. Now what? I get my buck back? You get it back and you better hang on to it. You are now a member of the short snorters. And any time any short snorter asks you, are you a short snorter? And you have to produce your dollar bill proving you're a short snorter within one minute. Or else you've got to pay any short snorter present one buck, okay? Okay. I think I heard about this somewheres before. Oh, sure. Everybody who ever flew the North Atlantic is a member. Churchill, Molotov, all those guys. Captain, don't you think we could have waited until we got there before you took my buck? What's that on the radio, Carl? Anything about that ship? Listen, Joe, I told you to relax about that ship, didn't I? Matter of fact, Captain Williams, this message is about the freighter. All right, enter it in the log, Joe. On the U.S. freighter Crawford, they say they stood by and picked up every man and officer of the Brazilian freighter Montezuma. Then they sign off. But, well, how do you know that's the ship we passed back there? Look at the position they gave for it. That's the same position. Ah, you see there? I told you, Joe. Nighttime and fire and the state of a man's mind, flams and quid tricks. Then he's safe, Marty's safe. My brother wasn't on that ship and he's okay. That's right, Joe. Everything works out, doesn't it, Joe? Yeah, everything works out. Sure, you see. There's no question we should have gone on. Now you see why I'm glad we did, huh? Yeah, we're that much nearer England, Joe. I can smell the roast beef I'm going to eat already. It's pretty light now. We ought to be close to our objective. Jager, how about getting me a couple of true bearings from positions X and Y? Kind of hurry it up, huh? Yes, sir. Seems to me we ought to be almost there. It ought to be time to get down closer to the water. We don't know how far down this weather goes. Well, we'll let it down easy. Here goes. Just a couple of hours out now. Pretty foggy, though. We'll be through the weather in a minute now. Let it down. In the clear. Hey, watch it. The ship down there. What? She's just blazing away at us without stopping to ask any questions. Well, I hope they see our insignia before they get in the uproar. We're claiming our launch. She's been hit. Been torpedoed astern, that's right. Yeah, can't be bad though, back there. We could knock out her steering gear. Watch for that U-boat to break water any time now. She'll surface to finish the job by shelling. The gun crew, the freighter's going to post. When that U-boat surfaces, it's up to us to distract her long enough to give that gun crew a chance for a couple of good, clean shots. Williams, over there. Huh? No, not there. The U-boat. She's up. That's right. What do we do now? Dive on that sub. What? What good's that? We haven't any bombs. How do they know we're a ferry bomber? That's right. Well, they know we're loaded to the ears with bombs. Going down to dive. Tell the inspector, here goes. The hell machine gun that they'd keep us out of is this how a suit should know that, don't you? No, watch it, boys. Doctor, look. No, no, let's do it again. Do it some more. They're going to crash down. No, they're not. They hit the freighter. Yeah. The U-boat's gun crew got her. The freighter's hit. That too. Look at that oil flame up. Yay, yay. Now, that lets us out, I'm afraid, boys. The freighter's a goner. Descending a position, Jaeger. Not that it'll do her much good. I'm getting her signal now, Captain Williams. S.O.S. Yeah. Boy, devil. Well, let's be on our way. Captain? Captain Williams, sir. Yes, Jaeger. Do you want this message from our local? Yeah, I suppose so. Give it to Burnett. I think you'd better take it, Captain. Why? Oh. Okay. What's the matter? I enter things in the law, don't I? Yo. Yeah? This message... one is from that ship burning down there. Name of that ship is the Tomahawk. Marty. Here, kid, you want a slug of my coffee? My brother Marty. Better guy than anybody they got in that Germany. What writer they got doing that to him? What writer they got? I'd like to take this plane and die... Burnett, stop talking like a kid. What do you mean, like a kid? They killed my brother Marty. I'll say what I like. You lost the brother. Now you're going to win the war all by yourself. So you lose your temper, forget your job, and you endanger all of us. What do you know about it? Who are you to go shooting off your mouth? I had three brothers, and the father and the mother and two sisters... and the whole village. They put my village on a diet of potatoes. And last winter they took every blanket from my village. More than half of my village froze to death. You had a brother. I had a family. And a village. And a whole country. Give me that coffee, man. Looks like land got ahead of us, Captain. Must be Britain, sir. Get ahead. The fog is breaking, boys. Visibility unlimited. Ladies and gentlemen, later in the program we want to introduce to you... Lieutenant Harold H. Cargill of the Ferry Bomber Command. Lieutenant Cargill and many others are the men responsible for delivering our planes to Britain. Before we hear from Lieutenant Cargill, we'd like to tell you about an anniversary DuPont is observing this year. This year, 1942, the DuPont Company observes its 140th anniversary. It was in 1802, just 140 years ago, that Irénée DuPont built a small powder mill on the banks of the Brantley Wine in the state of Delaware... to provide the frontiersmen, the miners and farmers of the America of that day... with the black powder needed in the building of a new nation, indivisible, dedicated to liberty and justice for all. Powder in those days was the need. And DuPont met the need. What does a long lifetime of nearly a century and a half mean to an American company? It means that as America has grown, as her needs have changed, so DuPont has grown and changed with those needs. The First World War brought a realization that America needed a chemical industry... needed it badly to supply dyes and drugs that had been imported from Germany. DuPont helped to build such a chemical industry for the United States. From the laboratories of DuPont within the past 25 years, you have had an ever-lengthening list of better things for better living through chemistry. In 1918, dyes. In 1923, Duco finishes. In 1927, moisture-proof cellophane. In 1928, Dulux finishes. In 1931, neoprene chemical rubber. In 1933, Xeron anti-rust anti-freeze. In 1934, Cordura rayon yarn, which along with DuPont rubber chemicals... helped to give you auto tires that ran tens of thousands of miles. In 1935, safer nitrimon blasting agents. In 1936, lucite methyl methacrylate resin, one of a long line of DuPont plastics. In 1937, fire retardant chemicals. In 1939, nylon. The little mill on the Brandywine has grown and become a company of almost 100 plants in 37 states. Today, the research and productive capacity of DuPont, all of it, is pouring out a night and day torrent of vital materials for war and essential civilian needs. The Dulux that used to protect your car is protecting army mobile equipment. Lucite is going into military aircraft. Neoprene is going into battleships and many other vital war uses. Cordura strengthens tires for heavy gun carriers. Nylon goes into parachutes. The peacetime products of DuPont are at work to win the war. But the scientific achievement of the future will grow out of these achievements of the past. Our future, which can be made to be the happiest era in all the long evolution of mankind. Part of the story of chemistry's wartime work, as much of it as can be told without giving comfort to the enemy, chapter after chapter that will make the enemy extremely uncomfortable, is told in an anniversary edition of the DuPont magazine just off the press. You'll find it an exciting, inspiring story. You may have a free copy of this 36-page illustrated anniversary magazine by writing to Radio Section, DuPont, Wilmington, Delaware. Send for your copy. Write to Radio Section, DuPont, Wilmington, Delaware. And now, ladies and gentlemen, we're proud to present Lieutenant Harold H. Cargill of the Air Transport Command. Thank you. Now tell us, Lieutenant Cargill, did our cavalcade play tonight make you homesick for that North Atlantic run? I can't say that it did, Mr. Collier. But that's not the fault of the player or the players. I've never made the North Atlantic run. Oh, then you're not a short snorter. No, not yet. But maybe I'm a long snorter. Because I've made the South Atlantic run to India and back on several occasions. India and back? Well, that's certainly a trip. Tell us, Lieutenant Cargill, is there anything special you'd like to say to our listeners tonight? Yes, sir, there is. I'd like to say two things. Number one is that the Air Transport Command is looking for good mechanics. Any Army recruiting station can give you the details. The second thing is this. We, the Air Transport Command, say to you, buy the buns, to build the bombers, and we'll get them for the do the access to the U.S. the most good and the access to the most harm. Thank you. Next week on Cavalcade, our star will be Orson Welles. Mr. Welles will play the role of Daniel Webster in a new radio drama, The Man Who Wouldn't Be President. Tonight's Cavalcade was written by Milton Geiger and Peter Lyon. Don't forget next week, Orson Welles in The Man Who Wouldn't Be President. The orchestra and original score tonight were under the direction of Don Burey's. This is Clayton Fodder sending best wishes from DuPont. This program has come to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.
