Speaker 1: Hello, this is your host, Adam Graham. The Great Adventurers
of Old Time Radio is taking a break from posting
in new episodes, but we are sharing some adventure themed
episodes of other podcasts I've done over the years until
we return on January eleventh for the premiere of Tarzan.
In the meantime, please enjoy this episode, which was originally
released as part of the Amazing World of Radio. If
you'd like to listen to more episodes of that series,
please check it out and Amazing Great Detectives dot net.
But now on with today's show. Welcome to the Amazing
World of Radio from Boysey, Idaho. This is your host,
Adam Graham. This episode is also being shared on the
Great Detectives of Old Time Radios feed, and this is
something I'm going to do as a go forward. I'll
share one episode of any ongoing series we're doing on
the Amazing World of Radio, including our summer series. So
listeners who are interested ken choose to go over to
Amazing Great Detectives dot net to subscribe. We are doing
a series, the Jackweb Centennial series. Currently. This is the
third episode. The first two episodes covered Webb's career in
San Francisco on radio station KGO with the jackweb Show
for comedy and the news and commentary series one out
of seven. In the later portion of nineteen forty six,
Webb's radio efforts in San Francisco had some success as
he starred in Pat Novak for Hire. Written by Reared Breen.
The series originated in San Francisco and was broadcast over
ABC West Coast affiliates. Buoyed by the success, Webb headed
to Hollywood, as did Breen in early nineteen forty seven.
Two and a half years later, Webwood began Dragnet. But
in those intervening years, Webb had to make it as
an actor in Hollywood. He only had a few movie roles,
though some of them were quite important, such as he
Walks By Nine, where a conversation with the police advisor
to the program set the stage for Dragnet down the Road. Still,
during these years, Webb's work ultimately was down to radio.
He starred in three separate detective programs.
Speaker 2: That were on the air for a.
Speaker 1: Total of about fifteen months. In addition to that, Webb's
Hardweil performances had given him an in with William Russo,
who gave Web regular work as the police foil to
Michael Shane on the New Adventures of Michael Shane and
also for a time on Murder and Mister Malone. Yet,
the key to being able to make a living in
radio during the Golden Age of radio was to do
radio work, and a lot of it, even if you
had your own series that didn't write your ticket. Jack
Webb's key to financial stability in this period was making
a lot of radio appearances, and the vast majority of
his radio appearances was as various tough guys. He'd play
cops and he'd play thugs. If you listen to Webb's
radiography and the list of programs, you know you'll find
several episodes of suspense. And on most of those episodes
he's playing either policeman or thug, and he's not even
playing a prominent role. I've gone through all these jackweb
programs and you listen to episodes of suspense and you're
kind of like, I think that was Jack Web there.
He just had one or two lines. Of course, suspense
was a tricky proposition. In the mid nineteen forties, it
was one of radio's best programs, and nearly every week
you had a major star as the lead character, and
you didn't really have up and coming actors in lead
roles in radio's best anthology series. However, there was so
much demand for a series like Suspense that CBS did
another series called Escape. Much like Suspense, Escape was an
exciting anthologyies, and the two often did the same stories.
An episode of Escape would be done in later Suspense
would pick up the same script, particularly as the Golden
Age of radio went on and the need to economize
became a big deal. In its early days, Escape gave
bigger roles to lesser known actors and really to me.
In Escape, jackweb got probably some of the best material
in his acting career, certainly in his radio acting career.
So this is all a long winded introduction to the
next three episodes of the Amazing World of Radio, where
we will be bringing you episodes of Escape starring Jack Webb.
The original air edate on this one is July the
fourteenth of nineteen forty seven, and the title is Operation Florida.
Speaker 2: Escape.
Speaker 3: Escape Tonight to Occupied France and the Underground.
Speaker 4: A Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations presents Escape,
a new series of programs of which this The second
is Operation Florida Lys, written and directed by William N.
Robeson today, the fourteenth of July, the people of a
free France celebrate the anniversary of their escape from the
tyranny of the Kings of Versailles. One hundred and fifty
eight years ago. Today the people of Paris stormed the
Bastille and left loose the French Revolution. The torch of
liberty set a fire that day never burned more fiercely
than during the years when France was occupied by Bazi.
We escaped tonight, too, occupied France from which three years
ago there was no escape.
Speaker 5: You can call me Duke, but don't use my right name.
Speaker 6: I might want to go back to France someday, and
there are a lot of people in the world that
wouldn't understand that what I did.
Speaker 5: Was justified in the war.
Speaker 6: No, I don't have any regrets, moral ones. That is,
it isn't what I did to Renee that keeps me
awake at nights. It's just the memory of her. There
isn't much a body in my official report on Operation
flirti Ly, but then it isn't customary to include descriptions
of slim sunburned legs and wide, deep brown eyes and
a military document. And anyway, she was only an incident
in the operation, even if she became somewhat more important
to me. Operation Florida Lee began like all the others,
in the grubby, undistinguished house in London, which was the
headquarters of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, otherwise
known in various parts of the world as screwballs, cutthroats, spies,
cloak and dagger boys and American underground agents gentlemen.
Speaker 2: Operation flur de Les has planned to assist the advance
of our forces once they've secured a beach at Normandy.
Is that where we're going in major That is one
of the possibilities, Lieutenant, Yes, sir, you will jump over
Grandma in northern France. Here on the map, you are
to set up roadblocks on these three state highways, here, here,
and here there is an underground contact near Grandma's. Yes,
Al Sine Dutton, he's leader of the local My quis
expecting it. In addition, you are to block these railroad
lines entering and leaving Grammont. These operations are to coincide
with the advance of our ground.
Speaker 5: Forces if they land in Normandy.
Speaker 2: If they land in normally, you will then plain tonight
at twenty one hundred hours and will drop over your
objective at I should think approximately twenty two hundred and thirty.
Any questions, No, I don't think so, sir. Well, yes, sir,
I have a question, Yes, lieutenant, how.
Speaker 5: Many of us are going on this mission?
Speaker 2: Just the two of you?
Speaker 6: Just the two of us, And all we had to
do was organize an underground army, disrupt the supply lines
of a half a dozen Nazi divisions, and give support
to the entire light invasion.
Speaker 5: Just the two of us.
Speaker 6: But that's the way the USS worked. But nobody ordered
Hill and me into it. We'd volunteered. I don't know why.
Maybe for moments like this one, when you get a
BE twenty four assigned to you as a personal taxi
and there's lots of room to sprawl around after the bombay.
Speaker 7: How do you feel fine? Scared?
Speaker 5: Of course I'm scared, aren't you me?
Speaker 2: Nah, there's a walk.
Speaker 3: You forget how tough it was when we were at
paratroops school at BENNI.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I was real rugged.
Speaker 3: If the wind wasn't right, you might land in the
Chattahoochie and get all wet, and.
Speaker 6: It was always the chance that you'd sprain your ankle
coming down too.
Speaker 3: Hot, and the sun was so bright on some of
those daylight jumps.
Speaker 6: Whereas we got none of those things to worry about. Here,
a nice pitch black night over France, no sun to blindness,
no Chadahoochie.
Speaker 7: River to fall in.
Speaker 6: Hey, Lieutenant, Yes, Sergeant Skipper wants to talk to you
on the intercom.
Speaker 7: Thanks, here, use my cans hike him. Do here, lieutenant,
and we're we're objective.
Speaker 5: Any signal from the ground, Yes, the.
Speaker 7: One arranged or dots two dashes green? Very well, you're
Lieutenant Hill. Move into the bomb bay cut wood open
bombay doors in thirty seconds, Roger, good luck.
Speaker 6: Thanks, Sergeant stand by to demp those supplies as soon
as we're clear. Yes, sir, come on it, this says
someone has said, is it?
Speaker 8: So?
Speaker 2: Assume just as I was settling down a good book.
Speaker 7: Bombay dodgs are opening, sir.
Speaker 5: Okay, Sergeant, all right ed, let's check your heartness.
Speaker 2: It's a frightful mess. I just can't seem to do
a thing with it.
Speaker 6: I know, but this is the last party you'll have
to wear it on.
Speaker 2: Okay, am I well, don't look now, but your shoot showing.
Speaker 4: Tack it in.
Speaker 5: Let's get out on that catwalk, Oh, Percy, breeze all.
Speaker 2: Up France on our feet. You see the signal.
Speaker 5: That's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 7: There it is over to the left.
Speaker 2: You got it, got it.
Speaker 7: Let's go, your.
Speaker 5: Kid, Sure, your kid.
Speaker 6: It helps of those ten seconds while you fall free.
Nothing helps you hang onto the rip court. You count
off the seconds, so you're trying not to count too fast.
Your hand on that rip cord is the only certain
thing in the world is your tumbled hit over teacups
with a wind tearing sound from your ears. And there's
only one thought, always the same thought, whether it's your
first or your fiftieth jump.
Speaker 5: We'll the shoot open.
Speaker 6: It does yanking at your armpits, knocking the breath out
of you, slowing you down, and you swing there like
a rag doll, trying.
Speaker 5: To get your bearings. First, you make out the horizon, and.
Speaker 6: That's where the black becomes darker black, where the stars stop,
and you wonder about it, ed, but you can't risk
calling out.
Speaker 5: And now that you're located where the stars are right,
you look for the.
Speaker 6: Signal light and there it is slightly to the left,
so you tug at your shroud lines, spelling a little
air to guide you toward it, and it's coming towards
you awfully fast, and you hope this particular French patriot
has picked out a field free of trees and church steepers.
Speaker 5: And then you try to remember all the.
Speaker 6: Things they taught you about hitting the ground and rolling
with the wind and collapsing your shoot, because it's always
like this.
Speaker 5: You always feel like you've never hit the silk before.
Speaker 6: And then you're down just right, and we collapse your
shoot and it's second nature to you after all. And
then you hear footsteps running towards you, and you remember
another important instructing your WHIPI you're automatic, and you hope
your friend's is good enough to get.
Speaker 5: You buy hivah, who is it?
Speaker 8: El? Scene?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 5: Where? Okay, el scene?
Speaker 2: Come on lest you have arrived, lieutenant. So it seems
you have no idea how long we've wisher for this molden.
Speaker 5: That's my partner. Come on, heyea ed all the hair, duke, okay.
Speaker 2: My hump and it's just slightly damage otherwise Okay.
Speaker 5: This is al scene our content hel scee, Lieutenant Hill
or el scene.
Speaker 2: Lieutenant. It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance
and on behalf of my country.
Speaker 6: Now one, let's get these shoots buried and blow this place.
Where's your transportation?
Speaker 5: Al scene?
Speaker 2: We haven't any what where's this safe house? You might
be able to stay at my hands. I don't think
she'd talk. I don't think. Aren't you sure? Oh yes,
I'm supremely confident.
Speaker 5: There are the Germans.
Speaker 2: They're everywhere, and that is why I'm so glad you're here.
Now we can fight again. With your help, we will
kill many bush.
Speaker 5: Wait a minute, how many are other than you're a
mokey myself.
Speaker 2: And two others?
Speaker 5: Just three of you?
Speaker 2: Oh my aching bag. But now that the Americans are here,
we can do anything.
Speaker 6: Oh why don't they get these things straight in London?
How can we block roads with a three man my key?
Speaker 2: Three men in an ant who perhaps will not talk.
Speaker 5: Well, let's get cracking, duke.
Speaker 2: You're not going through with this mad adventure, are you?
Speaker 5: What would you suggest?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 3: As for me, I'm all for taking the next plane
back to London.
Speaker 2: Another lieutenant, no, thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 8: This bone chicken is delicious.
Speaker 2: How do you call it?
Speaker 5: Ky raction supreme?
Speaker 2: We've had nothing like it since the bosh came. Yeah,
well you get used to it. And cigarettes, Tom Mally
cigarettes made a real tobacco. Ah, you Americans have everything.
Speaker 6: Madam, I'll sing, you're kind, you're hospitable. But the comforts
of k raction will not block roads.
Speaker 5: We need men. We must form a my key.
Speaker 3: But we have a makeys my alsee. And there are
three of you and two of us. Sure, we've got guns,
and we've got ammunition and supply shoots somewhere out in
that field where we landed. We've got arms for fifty men.
But if we had those men, we still couldn't go
to war against the German division.
Speaker 5: And you said to yourself, is at least a division garrison?
Speaker 2: And grandma, what must we do?
Speaker 5: First? We must organize a my key. We need men.
Can you get them?
Speaker 2: I can go into the village and talk to my friends.
You've done that a long time ago.
Speaker 5: Four scene.
Speaker 9: That would be most unwise. Why didn't you know Alcine
is a patriot. He's a deserter from the VIC army,
so he's wanted by the Gestapo.
Speaker 3: Oh great, and there's a Gestapo headquarters and grandmar.
Speaker 2: Of course, of course, Arsene is not run to run
from danger, quite the countrary. I can get Renee to help.
Speaker 5: Who's Renee?
Speaker 9: I've seen Sweetheart, a lovely girl from Paris, for I
think she had to come down to the country because
her house was bummed down.
Speaker 2: Leave her out of this, but Lieutenant, she would be
most happy to help.
Speaker 6: Al Sine, you've got a lot to learn about guerrilla warfare.
You might as well study your first lesson right now.
It's shortened to the point, no, dames. Well, well, the
next day we collected the supplies which had been dropped
with us, and we set up a camp deep in
the woods. Hill and I were loaded with French money,
so we were able to buy food from the friendly farmers.
Maybe it was the food as much as patriots, and
that brought us recruits. Anyway, after a week we had
nearly thirty men. Our marquis wasn't big enough for the
job we had to do, but it was growing in
the right direction. And then one night, as I was
winding up a report to London, well, what do they say?
Speaker 5: What do they ever say, message acknowledged? Carry on?
Speaker 3: What about new batteries for the radio? What about extra
ammunition for the buck Rogers guns? What are they going
to get another drop to us?
Speaker 5: Why don't you ask him?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: They do the best they can.
Speaker 6: I guess, after all, we're not the only boy scouts
in this chambourine.
Speaker 2: Hey you do?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: There goes out scene again. I'm off toward the road.
Speaker 5: Hey, I'll see.
Speaker 2: Yes, hew me on a minute, Yes, Lieutenant, where are
you going? I was just taking a stroll. You're on
night guard, not tonight.
Speaker 5: You weren't on night guard last night?
Speaker 6: Where no, lieutenant? By the night before, no, sir. But
you weren't in camp all night, were you?
Speaker 2: No, sir?
Speaker 6: What's the matter? Don't you like the camp rather sleep
at your ants? It's a two rugged out here for you, No, sir.
Then where were you in the village? You know the orders?
No one is to go into the village.
Speaker 2: Yes, lieutenant, but I only go in at night.
Speaker 5: It makes no difference, but it does.
Speaker 2: You see, Lieutenant.
Speaker 5: I'm so in love, oh ray, the girl from Paris.
Speaker 2: Yes, you should see her, Lieutenant. She's the most beautiful,
the most charming, the most.
Speaker 5: You know you're endangering the whole my key by disobeying
my orders.
Speaker 2: Oh no, sir, there's no danger with rightne. Hey, she
hates the bush. Why she wants to join us?
Speaker 5: You told her about us?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, sir?
Speaker 5: Are you out of your mind? How do you know?
She's all right?
Speaker 2: I just know, that's all. She's the most one of
a person in the world. She's a real patriot.
Speaker 5: I told you. Rule number one is no dames.
Speaker 2: Yes, but Rene is different. Yeah, well you better marry
her before you bring around here. You'll have to share
it with the rest of these wolves. Lieutenant, Do I
understand you get an el se?
Speaker 5: It's just an American figure speech.
Speaker 2: May I tell Rene she can join us?
Speaker 5: Well, not quite yet, later maybe.
Speaker 2: Yes, Lieutenant? Is that all? Yeah?
Speaker 5: That's all?
Speaker 2: If you got to take it out scene, take it easy.
I do not understand.
Speaker 5: Just another American idiom el scene.
Speaker 2: Good night, good night? Hey duke, you're gonna let them
get away with that?
Speaker 5: What are we going to do?
Speaker 6: Slap them into the garden house for thirty days only.
This isn't the American Army. We haven't any guardhouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Stinks from a security standpoint, I know we try to
keep these boys.
Speaker 5: From sneaking off home every now and then. We're not
going to have any monkey.
Speaker 2: Ah, he's French, an immoral race.
Speaker 5: I don't know about that. Remember Phoenix City, Alabama?
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I see what you mean.
Speaker 6: There wasn't anything we could do if we'd ordered out
scene to stay in camp.
Speaker 5: He had just sneaked off anyway.
Speaker 6: He had that dreamy, far away look that's baffled parents, teachers,
and first.
Speaker 5: Lieutenants since the beginning of time.
Speaker 6: I didn't worry too much about it because our my
quy was growing and d Hill and I were breaking
our backs pushing those French kids through an airsot's basic
in three weeks. Headquarters in London didn't tell us much,
but we did know from the BBC that the boys
had landed at Omaha Beach and it wouldn't be long
before they'd be needing our roadblocks. And then one morning,
about d plus four, I think it was, I was
out in the woods running a squad through concealment brill.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, hit the dirt.
Speaker 6: Don't wait on your tad when you see the single.
Speaker 5: Hit the dirt right now.
Speaker 6: Uh oh, I'll see have you been all that as
though I didn't know, Lieutenant, I've got to talk to you.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'll be true here and a half hours so, and.
Speaker 2: I've got to talk to you now, all right.
Speaker 6: Elsing, Okay, boys, take five, come along Elsin.
Speaker 5: What's on your mind?
Speaker 2: Lieutenant? My family's been killed? Oh no, yes, by the Gestapo.
He set fire to the house my mother and my
father and my two sisters. It ran out, the Gestapo
shot them.
Speaker 5: You was sure this?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 2: I heard it this morning from a neighbor who saw
it happen. Poor kid. When can we attack, lieutenant? When
can we stop this endless training and fight the Bush?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 2: I want only to kill and killed and killed until
I paid them back for my father, my mother, my
two sisters.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I know you'll get your chance at Elsing, but
not yet. We gotta wait. We're not ready yet.
Speaker 2: I'm ready before. I wanted to fight the Bush for
my country. Now I want to kill him with again
and again for them.
Speaker 5: I know, but you gotta be patient.
Speaker 2: Should happened to me now? Only last night Renne said
she'd marry me, come to live here with me in
the camp. I was so happy, And this morning I
learned this news.
Speaker 5: Why did you hear from your mother last?
Speaker 2: Not for a month since we began to work, But
I've written her every week.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Who mailed the letters?
Speaker 2: And they mailed them for me. She's so kind and thoughtful.
She offered the mail letters home for the other boys too.
Speaker 5: That was nice of it. Did they take advantage of
her offer?
Speaker 2: A couple of them who Paul and Sean. I told
them about and they wrote their families.
Speaker 5: And Renee mailed the letters.
Speaker 2: She's a wonderful person, Lieutenant. You're going to love her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I am.
Speaker 2: She's all I've gotten the world now.
Speaker 6: Two and two make four and occupied France just the
same as anywhere else, and sometimes it's just as hard
to prove.
Speaker 5: But one thing was sure now.
Speaker 6: I wanted to meet Renee in the worst way, but
I had to postpone the pleasure because early that afternoon,
one of the outposts broke into camp on bread.
Speaker 10: Yes, Paul, they're coming down the road through the forest.
How many I did not stop to count them? Several
truck clothes to be sure.
Speaker 5: Pass the words.
Speaker 6: Lieutenant Hill ask him to bring his detail in the
camp on the double. Yes, Lieutenant als, Yes, take two
men and go down to the road and see what
the ruck to. Yes, sir, just reconnoiter. Don't fire at.
Speaker 2: Them, but this is my chance for event. Listen to me.
Speaker 6: Don't fire at them, that's a command. Yes, they may
not be after us at all. I get coin.
Speaker 2: Immediately, Lieutenant. What's the order of the day, Duke plan Scraham.
Speaker 5: It looks like all your men here, President of the
counter for all.
Speaker 6: Right, boys, now gather around. We didn't get this as
a convoy of Germans coming down the forest road. I'll
wait a minute. We're not going to fight him. You
know what our job is roadblocks. We got tanks, artillery
and airplanes. It will be along soon to do the killing.
Our security has been pretty good, and those crowds may
be on a routine patrol. The chances are they don't
even know we're here. They do now listen, Yeah, well
that doesn't all right? Your men got your weapons good,
but you know the procedure, get lost before you leave
the forest, bury your weapons, ammunition and equipment. Rendezvous at
the home of Alcene's at at twenty two hundred dollars tonight,
good luck, Come on, Ed, let's stram it.
Speaker 3: Well, he who doesn't fight and runs away, lives to
fight another day.
Speaker 5: There's something like that.
Speaker 2: Who tipped them off?
Speaker 6: I'm not sure, but I got a pretty good idea.
Who's down there at the road, Alcene. He's fighting a
private war, the poor jerk. The basic rule of three
in guerrilla warfare is surprise, kill vanish. However, one year surprised,
the only rule is vanished.
Speaker 5: Than we did.
Speaker 6: There were about fifty Germans and a half a dozen
dogs to track our scent. They spent the day thrashing
through the woods, firing into the underbrush and finding nothing.
It was a classic withdrawal and Hell and I were
proud of our little army, with the exception of al Scene,
It's self appointed hero. When we arrived at his aunt
house that night for the rendezvous, half a dozen of
the boys were already there.
Speaker 9: Who is it, Julie, our lieutenant.
Speaker 5: Come in, good evening, Madam.
Speaker 9: I've seen he's already here. I'm so proud of him.
Speaker 2: Oh, Lieutenant, I was just telling tom Elly and the boys.
It was magnificent. I got two of them. I killed two.
Speaker 5: Bush Your orders were not to shoot.
Speaker 2: Good lieutenant, What would.
Speaker 5: You What happened to the other boys that were with you.
Speaker 2: Jean was wounded and captured. Antoine became frightened and ran away.
That blows the Marquis. They'll get the full particular from Jehan.
Speaker 5: They haven't got him already.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but quiet answer.
Speaker 5: It, madame?
Speaker 2: Who is it? Julie opening, good evening, madame? Come in,
boys running any trouble boys?
Speaker 5: As you see, we are here.
Speaker 10: Yeah, not for long, lieutenant, Yes, Paul and I wish
to withdraw in the Marquis quit Why the risk is
too great?
Speaker 2: You're afraid for myself? No, but after what happened to John, he.
Speaker 5: Was wounded and captured, Well we all take that risk.
Speaker 10: Yes, But last night the Gestapo got Jean's family like
they did all scenes. I stood them up in front
of their house and shot them.
Speaker 2: Who knows will be next? My mother, Raul's sister al
scenes Ant. I wish to withdraw, right.
Speaker 5: I'll wait a minute.
Speaker 6: I don't blame you for being worried about your families,
But whose families do you think? The British and American
armies up in Normandy are fighting to.
Speaker 5: Liberate their own? No yours?
Speaker 6: Now, this thing isn't as bad as it looks there's
been a leak in our security. Somebody's been putting a
finger on us, so we lay low until the leak's plot.
Speaker 2: But the Germans are everywhere, Spies, perhaps two, are everywhere.
Speaker 6: I think I know who's responsible for these murders. I'll
make a deal with you. Give me a couple of
days to work it on. We'll issue you boys some money,
and all you've got to do is to get lost
until Saturday night and then meet me back here.
Speaker 5: If I haven't.
Speaker 6: Patched up our security by then, you can all quit
the marquis and become collaborator.
Speaker 2: No one wishes to collaborate, but one must think of
one's family.
Speaker 6: Okay, Dad, Yeah, dude, give the boys a thousand francs apiece. Right, come,
I get a boy a scene, Lieutenant, I'm gonna have
a little time on my hands the next couple of days.
Do you think you could arrange to introduce me to
your girlfriend? Oh but of course, Lieutenant, maybe she's okay,
like you say, we can let her sign up.
Speaker 2: I am desolated with happiness, Lieutenant.
Speaker 6: One thing, none of that lieutenant business around her until
I make sure she's all right. Very well, you think
my friends. She's good enough to pass as a native,
but of course, Lieutenant all right, then pass me off
as a friend of yours. Let's see, I need a name.
Let's call me Jacques deu Fran, Jacques du Frane.
Speaker 2: Good. I will make the arrangements immediately.
Speaker 6: I thought you'd like an excuse to get into town
Tony the next afternoon, i'll see. Brought the girl out
to the woods near his aunt's house. I stood behind
a tree to watch and make sure they weren't being followed.
She was all right, tall, long, sunburned legs, her hair
caught in a blue ribbon like a little girl's.
Speaker 5: I let them walk by, and then I stepped from
behind my tree.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, you guys, Shah, Hello, elsie Renne. This is
my good friend, Jacque de frand he's from Paris too. Jack.
This is an adency boy.
Speaker 5: Glad to meet you, ma'amselle.
Speaker 8: And I'm honored to meet you, monsieur. Where do you live?
In Paris?
Speaker 5: Near the Porto deu la La. But my home is
no longer there. It was bombed.
Speaker 8: Out alas so is smile.
Speaker 6: My family remain with friends, but I've come out into
the country to fight with the resistance.
Speaker 2: Jacques has much influence with the commander of our marquis.
Speaker 8: I hope you will be able to persuade him to
let me join you. Monsieur.
Speaker 5: I shall do what I can.
Speaker 8: It would be a privilege and an honor to work
with a patriot like you.
Speaker 2: See, Jacques, I told you Rene was all right.
Speaker 5: He didn't tell me the half of it.
Speaker 6: Mademoiselle, you understand that we must be cautious. There are
questions I must ask of a confidential nature.
Speaker 8: Why don't we meet again alone?
Speaker 2: Why not stay tonight.
Speaker 8: I have a little car. We might take a drive.
Speaker 2: Fine, But Rene, you promised me.
Speaker 8: That see you some other time. I share. Remember Franz
comes first.
Speaker 5: We just drove that night.
Speaker 6: She was wearing a white ribbon in her hair and
a loose white dress and no stockings. We just drove
around in her little citr Iron with the top down
and a wind blowing her hair like a girl in
a magazine. And then we came back about midnight and.
Speaker 5: Parked with a bridge. I felt like I was back
in high school in Illinois.
Speaker 8: Look at those stars, shack, yeah, so many of them,
so close you can almost reach out and touch them. Yeah,
I had them all once, Shack. I reached out and
gathered them all in my armswamps. Yeah, I want you
to know all about me, Shack, I want to. Don't
think it's wrong of me, but I've been in love.
Speaker 5: There's nothing wrong in being in love.
Speaker 8: He was a soldier.
Speaker 2: Most everybody is these days, a German soldier.
Speaker 8: Oh don't you think that love is bigger than war or.
Speaker 2: Hate or anything?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I guess.
Speaker 8: So he's dead.
Speaker 6: Now that's good. I'm sorry. I mean, I didn't mean
to hurt you. I'm not sorry.
Speaker 5: He's dead, Shack.
Speaker 8: I'm so confused. I want to understand things. I want
to be intelligent about things, and everything gets so mixed
up like now, like now, Yes, Shack, I've never been
so happy as I am tonight, not even with a German,
not even with him. Why does it have to end?
Why do those blessed stars have to go out one
by one to make way for another day of war?
Why can't we stop time? You and I gather all
the stars together.
Speaker 5: Just for us.
Speaker 11: I don't know, baby, it's never been done before. We
can try.
Speaker 2: Shut my shell shell shut?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, tomorrow night, same time, same place forever if you
say the word sure, why not? Who knows how long
forever is in this crazy world? Why not have it together?
Why not get married?
Speaker 8: Why not?
Speaker 2: My most.
Speaker 5: See you tomorrow night.
Speaker 8: I'll only be half alive until then, Sherry. If you
want to write your family in Paris, give me the
letter tomorrow night and I'll mail it for you.
Speaker 3: I drop that rock and grab a sock, rise and
shine a love a boy.
Speaker 2: I brought your cup of chocolate. Figured you want breakfast
in bed this morning? How'd you make out last night? Okay, details,
let's have the detail.
Speaker 6: I think much to report. We drove and then we
parked for a while and talk.
Speaker 2: Did you give anything away?
Speaker 5: No information? She's a funny kid.
Speaker 6: Her dialogue is as corny as a Bobby socks. She
knows she's pretty, so she wants to be atmired.
Speaker 5: For her mind. But I'm sure she's armana hai. I'll come.
She offered a meil a letter to my family.
Speaker 6: M It's consistent. I asked her to marry me what
she didn't believe me, but she pretended like she did.
I don't know why she's doing what she's doing.
Speaker 5: Thrills.
Speaker 6: Maybe French juvenile de lake winter. Maybe tonight's the night,
the night you get married, now the night we get her.
The boys are meeting us here at midnight. You know
what's the plan? Well, i'll take another ride with her,
and about midnight we'll be back in park with the
bridge and you'll be there out of sight, and I'll
have some brandy along and i'll slug or drink with
a capture pill.
Speaker 5: When she's passed out, i'll give you the come on
and you join me here, Baby, have another dent.
Speaker 8: I shouldn't shut Brandy always makes me sleepy.
Speaker 5: Well, what of it? This is a celebration of our engagement.
Speaker 8: Kiss me shut?
Speaker 2: Then a cat?
Speaker 8: Sure, shuck the stars and near nearer than they've ever been.
Speaker 5: Nearer than you think?
Speaker 2: Maybe I love you?
Speaker 8: Shall I do love you? Kiss me a cat? Do
it a care?
Speaker 2: A care?
Speaker 5: Really? Maybe? I guess? Sleep you? Collaboration is pig? Can
you hear me? Okay?
Speaker 6: And like a red lightning air ring, here's her person.
I'll start through it while I do n'tangle myself.
Speaker 2: When you I'll take a look at this.
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 3: I let her from good Stoppo Headquarters, confirming receipt.
Speaker 2: Of three addresses.
Speaker 5: Let me see that well, ill, that one's Elson's family,
and that one's John And here's.
Speaker 3: A good stop identification card plasure light over there.
Speaker 5: Look at her, What a dish Look at that kisser.
Speaker 6: She's responsible for the death of six people whose only
crime was being born French. She'd erecked our marquis snapp food,
our mission and turned me over to the gestapover her
lipsticks still in my collar, That gorgeous hunk a double cross.
Speaker 5: Now we got the proof. Let's get on with it, don'kay.
I guess you'd rather I know. This is my job.
Speaker 2: She is, she's gorgeous.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so long, honey, Thanks, it's so gorgeous. Now at
least that handbreak, got it?
Speaker 5: Come on, shove not yet, keep that steering real straight.
The river's deepest, right at the center of the bridge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now high right.
Speaker 5: On the wheel.
Speaker 6: You know something, ed, I think she finally did gather
that armful of stars. The operation was successful when the
time came. Our roadblocks tied up three German divisions while
patent rolled on to the east. But I still liolated night,
thinking I should have married that dame. Yeah, the operation
was successful, but the patient died.
Speaker 4: Operation Florida Lee was written, directed, and produced by William N. Robeson,
with Jack Webb as Duke, Elliott Lewis as Hill, Peggy
Webber as Renee, and Harry Bartel as al Scene. Operation
Flurid Lee was based on an incident from the files
of the OSS recorded in Sabrosa by Stuart Alsopp and
Thomas Brayden. The special musical score was conceived and conducted
by Cy Feuer. Escape is presented by CBS and it's
affiliated stations each week at this time. Next week, we
invite you to escape with f Scott Fitzgerald in his
unforgettable story The Diamond as Big as the writs, and
so good night until next week, when again it will
be time to escape.
Speaker 12: Calumnia Bodcasting System Welcome back, a superb story.
Speaker 1: I think that this was a very well adapted tale,
and you not only get Jack Webb in this, you
also get Elliott Lewis. Elliott Lewis was another up and
coming actor who on Mutual was starring in Voyage of
the Scarlet Queen and would later go on to really
work behind the microphone on so many series and like
Web that was really where his true ambitions lie. But
they really did play off each other really well. Web
did bring some of his hard boiled characterization to his
portrayal of Duke, but I think it didn't go over
the top at all. I think it was just the
right tone and tempo for this character. It's a very
realistic story and it was actually only the second broadcast
episode of Escape. The one thing I did question in
this was the combination of shooting and then sending the
car over. It did seem like it'd make more sense
for it to be one or the other, but as
this was adapted from the OSS Files, it's safe to
assume that that's just probably how it happened in real life,
so it doesn't really need dramatically explained. I should know
that I have played this episode before on the War
about five years ago, but I think this one definitely
is worth hearing again. So I hope you enjoyed it,
and I hope you'll join us back here on Monday,
when we will have another Jackweb led episode of Escape.
In the meantime, do send your comments to Box thirteen
at Great Detectives dot net from Boise, Idaho. This is
your host Adam graham Son and off