Are you willing to undertake a dangerous mission behind the enemy lines, knowing you may never return alive?
What you have just heard is the question asked during the war to agents of the OSS, ordinary citizens who to this question answered, yes.
This is Cloak and Dagger.
Black warfare, espionage, international intrigue, these are the weapons of the OSS.
Today's story, the Black Radio, concerns an OSS agent who broadcasts allied propaganda from behind the enemy lines and is suggested by actual incidents recorded in the Washington files of the Office of Strategic Services.
A story that can now be told.
It was one of those quiet days. The sun was splashing into the windows and I was marking time until lunch in the cafeteria.
And a date I had with the redheaded secretary.
There were just the two of us in the big gadget room of the OSS in Washington. Just me and Hank Morton.
And all of a sudden Hank grabbed my arm.
Get down, Harry, duck!
Okay, okay, what's the big idea?
Oh boy, I wish I had a camera just then. Brother, did you look scared.
All right, what was that thing you just threw in the wastebasket?
Just a little noise maker. Great if you get in a tight spot and want to start a riot.
All right, look, let's start from the beginning, huh? How does it work?
Well, like you see, it's not very big, just about the size of a lemon. Easy to slip into your pocket. All you do is pull out the cap and throw it.
And when it explodes, pow! We call it the Hetty Lamar.
Major Langer, I have a job for you.
Yes, sir.
When our army has crossed the Rhine into Germany, Freiburg will become a strategic city.
The less resistance we get from the people when we make that advance, the less lives will be lost.
Up to date, we have no report of any underground or partisan movement there.
And OSS wants me to go in there with a black radio and soften them up, is that it, sir?
Right. Cut in on the Nazi local stations, broadcast the information we want them to get.
Another of our agents infiltrated that area over three months ago to get acquainted with the city and locate suitable hiding places for the radio.
Of course, sir, it'll have to be moved every time we use it.
Yes, that's right. Now, we haven't heard from our agent since she was sent in.
We didn't want her to run the risk of trying to contact us.
Did you say she, Colonel?
That's right. Have you any objection to working with a woman, Major?
Oh, no, sir. I mean, no, sir.
Her name was Lucille, the Colonel said.
I wondered if she was anything like the redhead, Miss Lucille.
Nobody had heard from her for months.
Maybe she'd been caught.
Maybe the Nazis had twisted out of her the reason she'd been sent to Freiburg.
Maybe, maybe I'd have a reception committee of Germans waiting for me.
It gave me something to think about on the plane flying over the Black Forest in Germany a few weeks later.
There's your honorable point straight ahead, Major.
Straight ahead and straight down, you mean?
Running in. Ready.
Ready. Go. Good luck.
I tossed the radio out first, then I jumped after it.
No matter how many times I jumped, it was always the first time.
The feeling of falling. Sick feeling.
Like a dream. I came to with a jolt.
A sharp pain across my thighs from the pull of the strap and the crack of the chute.
Then, air all around me.
I looked down on the Black Forest that was blacker than ever at 0400.
Four o'clock in the morning.
There were no Germans waiting.
But no Lucille either.
There was nothing but a foreign country.
And up above the plane faded away.
Then it was gone.
And I was alone.
The radio had floated to Earth about 50 feet away.
I checked it, made sure it was all right, buried my parachute and wondered what to do next.
There was a milk wagon coming down the road.
I could hear the milk can swaying with the movement of the cart.
I could see a shadowy figure holding the reins.
I dragged the radio behind a clump of bushes.
And then I waited for the wagon to pass.
For a moment I didn't recognize the song.
And then all of a sudden the words wrote themselves in my head.
Come away with me, Lucille, in my merry old mo...
Lucille?
Lucille.
I'm sorry I was late, Major Langer.
A German soldier, I know, stopped to talk.
I couldn't break away without being impolite.
Well, just as long as you got here.
Hurry, Major, let's go.
Yes. I was ever so glad to see anyone in my life.
Gee!
But I didn't quite expect to meet a milkman.
What did you think I'd be like, huh?
Oh, I...
Ah, come, come, Major.
Well, I had no idea.
No doubt you pictured a slim young thing
who'd add interest to your intrigue.
I've been neither slim nor young
for longer than I'd like to remember.
Tell me, what did you do before the war, Lucille?
Taught history in grade school.
Now I'm helping to make it.
It's a good feeling.
Until you consider the possibility of getting caught.
We've got to make sure we don't get caught.
There is always that possibility, Major.
Accept it, and it's much easier to take it if it comes.
Ja, who is it?
May I... may I come in?
Well, what do you want?
As your neighbour across the hall,
I wish only to make your acquaintance.
My name is Gruber.
Am I disturbing you, Helanger?
Well, you know my name, I see.
As a poor old widower, alone in this world
with very few interests outside of the future
of the fatherland, it is,
I make it my business to know everyone in this roomy house.
Oh, do you?
You arrived in Freiburg only a few days ago, nein?
That's right.
You have a medical discharge from the army.
You are wounded at Anzio.
Is there anything about me you don't know?
Oh, nein, nein, nein. Do not take offence, my friend.
I asked the landlady about you.
It was she who told me.
Your information is right, Herr Gruber.
I was wounded.
I spent two months in a hospital.
And I'd like to be left alone.
Ja.
Oh, you are bitter.
Ja.
A civilian life will not be easy,
but you must mix with people, make friends.
Don't keep too much to yourself.
Now, here, I wrote with me this bottle of champagne.
A bottle of schnapps.
And two small glasses.
Will you not join me?
Well, ah...
Yes, yes.
To the future, Herr Langer.
Well, I'll drink to that.
There was something about the old windbag
who rented the room next door to me on the third floor
that I didn't like.
I couldn't put my finger on it.
Maybe it was the way his eyes, like patent leather buttons,
kept darting around the room.
Ah.
Good schnapps, nein, Herr Langer?
Ah, ja.
Very good.
Not like we used to get before the war.
Of course, I'm not complaining.
It is such a little sacrifice to make for the Reich.
Yes, of course.
Yes, yes, of course.
What are you planning to do here in Freiburg, Herr Langer?
Well, I have my craft card as a Union Motion Picture Projectionist.
I worked in a film house in Berlin before the war
and was hoping to find a position here.
You've had no success yet?
No, no, not yet.
The Motion Picture House, a block from the mining university.
Have you tried there?
Why, no, I haven't.
Oh, do, do, do, do try it.
Tell the manager, Herr Schmidt, that you are a friend of mine.
He's always complaining to me about being short of help.
But that also is just a little sacrifice to make for the Reich, of course.
Yes, of course.
I'll go there tomorrow.
Oh, tell me, what is your business, Herr Gruppe?
I? Oh, I am a clerk.
A clerk?
Ja, in the administration building of Gestapo headquarters.
Mo Schnapps?
A ja, Schnapps.
I may not have liked the old windbag, but I took his lead anyway.
I went to the movie house near the university and got myself a job there on a day shift.
And I counted the hours until the Thursday,
when I'd meet Lucille at the deserted car barn we'd agreed on.
On Wednesday, I was in the projection room, running a half-hour newsreel,
most of which was a close-up of Hitler making a speech in Berlin and foaming at the mouth.
I looked down over the heads of the audience,
wondered if all of them were as enthusiastic about the Fuhrer as they pretended to be,
wondered how much it would take to push them into starting their own underground,
wondered how many of them would be listening to their radio the next night, listening to me.
Herr Langer!
Ja, Herr Schmidt.
I came to tell you...
Turn that speaker down, will you?
Ja.
I came to tell you you may have tomorrow afternoon off.
Tomorrow afternoon? But I don't understand.
Verbrechen Sie mich im Kopf. I will want you tomorrow night instead.
Oh, but tomorrow night is impossible. I mean...
Herr Langer, you have a good job here.
For asking you to take the night shift this once, I see no need for argument.
Oh, but you see...
Is what you have to do that important that it cannot be postponed?
Er, nein, Herr Schmidt. Not so important.
I'll be here.
The next night at twenty minutes past ten, the feature film went off.
I set the machine.
The newsreel would run by itself for half an hour. No more.
That didn't give me much time before the reel would run out.
Just a half hour to get to the car barn, broadcast, and get back.
Well, that's it, Lucille. Seven hundred and thirty killer cycles.
But I can't seem to get reception.
Ah, they are signing off.
This is Reichsstation K.L. Day signing off.
Until tomorrow morning, Heil Hitler.
Well, here we go. Keep your fingers crossed.
Don't turn off your radios, people of Freiburg.
This is for you.
I am your voice of freedom.
Bringing you news as it actually exists.
Not as the propaganda ministry would like you to believe.
Mark, that's good. Wonderful.
It wasn't fifty sons of Freiburg who died at the Anzio Beach.
Had but five hundred.
You mothers, wives, sweethearts who have not heard from your men.
You think the mails are slow?
Is that why you haven't received letters?
Your men will never write again.
They were killed at Anzio.
Women, they are taking your men away.
What do you have for compensation?
You have no food. You're cold.
And the political leaders want to sacrifice everything but themselves.
Haven't you sacrificed enough?
Mark, it's late.
It's alright.
And now, until another time soon,
this is the voice of freedom.
Good night.
I will not say Heil Hitler.
I say instead, God be with you.
The first of many, God be with us both.
The Radio
We dismantled the radio.
I lifted it into the back of the milk wagon,
ran as fast as I could back to the theater,
and slid in through the side door.
And then I heard it.
Hey, Langer, Langer, where were you?
Schmitt, well, I...
What business had you to leave the projection room during the newsreel of the Führer?
I only hope the authorities do not hear of this.
Our leader cut off in the middle of his speech.
Where were you?
Where was I?
I was in the washroom.
I was just going up to see if you had fallen asleep.
So, go fix the machine, quickly.
When did this happen?
Happened just a minute ago, of course.
It's a wonder you couldn't hear all the disturbance from the washroom.
So, hurry up.
Yes, yes.
The Radio
I ran up the stairs to the projection room.
The guard must have been with me that first night.
If the machine had broken down five minutes earlier,
Schmitt would have known I'd left the theater.
The Radio
The next week, and the next, and the next,
we were on the air.
We moved the radio to a deserted warehouse,
to a cave in the black forest,
to a barn on the outskirts of town.
As the voice of freedom I told the people of Freiburg,
you are fighting a lost cause.
The losses of the Luftwaffe are 75% higher than reported.
Resistance in all German occupied territory is growing stronger.
People in the city looked the same,
were as respectful as ever to the Nazi soldiers that walked the streets.
None of them showed by so much as a look or a word,
that they ever heard those broadcasts.
Then I received my first indication.
I saw you through the window of the coffee shop, Herr Langer.
May I join you at your table?
If you'd like.
Thank you.
So, have you been listening to your radio lately?
I have no radio.
If you get one then, I advise you not to listen to Reichstation KLD.
Why not?
Because the Gestapo will arrest anyone caught listening
to the man who calls himself the voice of freedom.
What is he?
Talk about this voice of freedom.
It's nonsense, of course.
A lied propaganda nonsense.
You sure you have never heard him?
I told you Herr Gruber, I have no radio.
Of course. I forgot.
Why is it Herr Langer, I have the feeling I've seen you somewhere before.
It was ridiculous to suppose that he had ever seen me before,
but he told me one thing.
The people were listening.
And the Gestapo was looking for me.
Our leader will bring us victory from the clandestine.
Don't listen to Mark.
Mark, with that cough of yours perhaps I'd better broadcast tonight.
No, no, no, I'll be all right.
People of Freiburg, this is your voice of freedom.
I want to tell you my friends how step by step Hitler has developed his program.
Step by step he has carried it out successfully.
First he took our men and destroyed them.
And now Hitler is destroying our cities and our factories.
Allied bombings will destroy all Germany.
Our men are already dead in a hundred battlefields.
This is the Fuhrer's greatest achievement for Germany.
He is accomplishing it all in less than twelve short years.
Twelve short years of Hitlerite success.
They are jamming the radio Mark. You'd better sign off.
This is the voice of freedom saying good night.
I will not say heil Hitler. I say instead, God be with you.
I'm afraid they may be closing in.
Yes, Lucille, it's the first time they've jammed our broadcast.
We'll have to move fast. Dismantle the radio and get out of here.
The wagon is right outside, hurry.
Less than five minutes later we'd left the basement of the schoolhouse near the cathedral.
It was quiet in the streets.
Too quiet. As if the city were holding its breath.
Waiting for something to happen.
Good night. Until Friday. You know the place.
Let me take the radio tonight.
Walk back to your room with it under your arm. What foolishness.
But Lucille, you always take the risk of being caught, do you?
I have the milk wagon to hide it and the barn to bury it.
We'd better not stand here any longer.
Good night again. And take care of that car.
I started to walk quickly in the opposite direction.
If German triangulation had found the general location of the radio,
the neighborhood would be swarming with Gestapo any minute.
The headlights of the official car came out of nowhere around a corner and blinded me.
Halt! Stay where you are! Halt! Halt!
I started to run. Halt! Halt!
I dug into a doorway. Up the stairs to the roof.
Across the roof. Down some stairs again.
Back into the street.
Somehow I'd shaken them. I was free of them.
I had to find somewhere to go, somewhere to hide.
The movie house where I worked was close by.
I went in through the side door.
Halt!
I was punched down in a seat, anonymous in the darkness.
I was one of hundreds of people watching it travel.
And then something happened to the film and the soundtrack went sour.
Lights! Lights for other lights!
You people listen to me. There will be no more film tonight.
Not until you reject the identification of every man in this theater.
One by one, cut! Cut!
We are looking for a man who has seen coming into this theater through the side door.
A man who has wanted for questioning by the Gestapo.
You will fire at the exit one by one and row by row with no talking.
Women to the right. Men to the left.
There will be no more film tonight.
Maybe my forged identification would pass inspection easily.
But the men who were chasing me had a general idea of my height and weight.
I couldn't take the chance.
I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out a round disc about the size of a lemon.
The noisemaker O.S.S. called the Hedy Lamar.
I yanked out the cap and threw it.
Eerie!
It started a riot all right.
The soldiers couldn't hold them back.
They practically walked over them in their rush to get out.
And I walked out too.
I walked along in a tide of panic.
Guten Tag, Herr Langer.
Gruber.
Just on your way to work, I see.
I will walk with you part way.
Well, if you'd like.
Tonight, when you get home from your work, listen to your radio.
I told you I have no radio.
I do keep forgetting.
You are welcome to listen to mine then.
There has to be an important announcement at seven o'clock.
Announcement? About what?
I learned about it this morning at the administration building where I work.
Yes?
There has to be a hanging in the square at noon tomorrow.
An aligned spy who was caught with her radio.
What did you say?
A woman, a spy.
She was picked up last night driving a milk wagon.
Can you imagine such a...
Look, are you ill, Herr Langer?
I haven't been well. I'm cold.
I'm not the man yet.
The one who calls himself the voice of freedom.
But I have no doubt they will soon.
They're offering a large reward.
Are they?
It's a very bad cold, Herr Langer.
Tonight, when you return from work,
remind me to give you some of my cough medicine.
It's very eff...
Oh, I turn off here.
Please, have a seat.
I didn't stop by for the cough medicine.
After work, I locked myself in my room and stayed up all night
looking out of the window
up at the ice blue stars that hung over Germany.
And I tried to think of something to do to help Lucille.
Before noon, the next day, I went to the square.
But I still didn't have the answer.
Isn't it frightening, Herr Langer,
the way an execution will draw the people like flies to honey?
Is it fascinating, do you think,
of seeing someone else suffer?
You tell me, Herr Gruber. You should know you're here.
So I am. But then, so are you.
Wohat! Wohat!
Woman, have you anything to say before you die?
People of Freiburg!
Remember what you heard on your radios.
Remember what the voice of freedom told you.
It was the truth, the truth.
Your leaders are betraying you.
Goodbye, citizens of Freiburg.
I will not say, Heil Hitler.
I say instead, God be with you.
It happened quickly.
It was all over.
And I hadn't done a thing to stop it.
Yes, who is it?
Only I, Herr Gruber.
Go away, will you, please?
Go away, I don't want to talk to anyone.
Upset, are you, my friend, about the hanging this afternoon?
Oh, God. No, I just don't feel well.
Now, don't torment yourself this way.
There was nothing you could do to prevent it.
She did not expect it.
What are you talking about?
Trust me. You have no one else to trust.
The Gestapo is going to check and cross-check every man's papers,
every man in Freiburg.
Are you sure you can stand a thorough investigation, Lange?
Are you crazy? Are you accusing me?
I have been suspected of freedom for a long time.
I was never sure.
I was afraid to step forward soon.
Now, look.
No, no, no, listen to me.
I know you don't like me.
I have not liked myself for years.
I'm afraid of my own shadow.
I'm afraid to think.
I'm afraid.
But no longer.
Herr Gruber, look.
I am a discharged soldier from the Wehrmacht.
Your face looked familiar. It was not your face.
But it was something about you.
Your voice.
I thought I recognized it.
And then I started to think.
Think.
I, who had been afraid to think for years.
You came to Freiburg about the same time the broadcast began.
You were too ignorant of what was going on.
And then, yesterday, you coughed, as he had.
I was almost sure then.
Now, today, I watched your face when she was hanged.
And then I knew.
Herr Gruber.
Trust me.
You have no one else.
He was right.
I had no one else.
And I had to get out of Freiburg.
Gruber offered to drive me across the bridge that night.
From there, it would be only a few miles to the border of France.
With his official pass from the Gestapo headquarters,
Gruber would be able to get past the guard.
I got into the trunk of the car.
It was open just enough to let me breathe.
I still didn't know whether to trust him.
There was a pretty big price on my head.
The car slowed down when we reached the bridge.
Let me see your identification.
There you are.
What is your business outside of Freiburg?
Official business for the administration.
Fair.
This looks all right.
I have orders to search all cars.
You can see there's nothing in mine.
Please, will you hurry?
This is official business for the Gestapo.
One moment, not so fast.
What's in your trunk?
The trunk?
Go see for yourself.
I have an American spy there.
I'm smuggling him across the board.
Don't be impudent.
Do you understand?
I'm sorry. I was just having my little joke.
I don't like jokes.
You work as a clerk for the administration,
so your head swells you think you're Himmler.
All right, pass.
All right, pass.
Quickly, quickly. Get out.
I want to apologize for the things I thought
when you told the guard what you did.
It was the only thing I could think of at the moment
that would prevent him from searching the trunk.
Well, the best thing is that you're not going to
have to do anything else.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Good-bye.
Thank you, my friend.
Don't feel the woman died for nothing.
She did not.
You and she have given us the courage
to look at ourselves in the mirror.
We will continue to talk and whisper,
but after you have gone,
there will be many of us
who will no longer think and whisper.
Yes, well, you go. Good-bye, good-bye. Be safe.
Major Mark Langer made his way back to Allied lines.
And when Freiburg was taken over some months later,
it offered little resistance,
thanks to the strong underground that had been encouraged by the black radio.
And thus, once again, the report of another OSS agent closes with the words,
Mission accomplished.
Listen again next week for another true adventure from the files of the OSS on
Cloak and Dagger.
Heard in today's Cloak and Dagger adventure as Mark was Larry Haynes,
Lucille Lillie-Darvos, and Gruber Barry Kroeger.
Others were Raymond Edward Johnson, Arnold Moss, Stefan Schnabel, Bob Weil, and Jerry Jarrett.
Script was written by Winifred Wolf and Jack Gordon.
Music was under the direction of John Gart.
Sound effects by Chet Hill, Dick Gillespie, and Art Cooper.
Today's OSS adventure was based on the book Cloak and Dagger by Corey Ford and Alistair McBain.
This program was produced by Lewis G. Cowan and Alfred Hollander
under the direction and supervision of Sherman Marks.
Three times mean good times on NBC.
There's mystery and music tonight on NBC.
The mystery is Sam Spade's latest case in which the romantic private eye solves the caper of too many clients.
The music is the NBC Symphony summer concert with Antal Dorati as guest conductor.
And the American album of familiar music, one of radio's best loved musical programs,
which returns to the air tonight.
Three times mean good times on NBC.