Speaker 1: Tired of the everyday grind, ever dream of a life
Speaker 1: of romantic adventure.
Speaker 2: I want to get away from it all. We offer you.
Speaker 3: Escape, Escape designed to free you from the four walls
Speaker 3: of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 1: You are four hundred feet below the surface of the
Speaker 1: South Pacific, the heavy taste of chlorine gas souring your mouth,
Speaker 1: while somewhere up above you, searching through the night for you,
Speaker 1: is an enemy destroyer and on sending the submarine and
Speaker 1: you to a murky death.
Speaker 3: Listen now, as Escape brings you Richard Chandley's exciting story Pressure.
Speaker 4: November sixth, nineteen forty four, US S Amberfish S S
Speaker 4: five nine three departed Pearl Harbor for her assigned patrol area,
Speaker 4: the East China Sea. She carried eighty two men and
Speaker 4: twenty four torpedoes. She was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Daniel Hall.
Speaker 4: Her record was zero. This was her fourth war patrol.
Speaker 4: On the thirty second day of patrol, at seventeen hundred hours,
Speaker 4: Amberfish surfaced off the southern coast of Japan.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't you know it, Mac. If the sea doesn't run heavy,
Speaker 5: we get bogged. What can you find in this.
Speaker 6: What's the old man got planned for the night?
Speaker 5: Lieutenant routine? Night surface routine? You think the last line
Speaker 5: of patrol?
Speaker 7: We hold it?
Speaker 2: Hold it, are you? Boys?
Speaker 5: Captain?
Speaker 2: Evening?
Speaker 1: Sir, that's a lousy night. What speed we make in.
Speaker 5: Frank but five not, sir? One or two main engines
Speaker 5: on battery charge number, foreign propulsion position about halfway through?
Speaker 5: Assum me straight of course? Zero four or five right
Speaker 5: out has the coast of Kyushu range at approximately fifteen
Speaker 5: miles of the port beam picking up the usual fishing boats.
Speaker 5: Aside from that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean nothing.
Speaker 1: Thirty two days and nothing, four patrols and nothing, Sir?
Speaker 3: May I suggest something?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 7: What oh last night on patrol?
Speaker 8: Sir?
Speaker 6: Maybe we could go after one of those fishing boats,
Speaker 6: take some prisoners for intelligence, and sink by gunfire.
Speaker 2: We got no orders for it.
Speaker 3: I know that, Sir, but I might know us.
Speaker 5: Awesome good captain and of the patrol, and it's better
Speaker 5: than nothing.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, boys, we've got no orders that said.
Speaker 5: Yes, they're only were only what nothing, Captain? Nothing at all?
Speaker 4: Thirty two days at sea, cramped living and thoughts passed
Speaker 4: between men without being spoken. He knows what the torpedo,
Speaker 4: the executive officer, the whole crew think, Captain Hall a
Speaker 4: book commander last night on patrol, and he still goes
Speaker 4: by the book. Got to blame someone for an empty sea,
Speaker 4: for a tired ship, for bringing back a full load
Speaker 4: of torpedoes four times in a row. The Captain stares
Speaker 4: at the fog and into his own thoughts. They need
Speaker 4: officers behind desks. That's where they'll put him after this patrol.
Speaker 2: A desk officer.
Speaker 4: Just a few more hours and he's headed for it.
Speaker 5: Fog looks like it's thinning.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, yeah, what's the time?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 7: A one hundred cent.
Speaker 2: Rid This is the gunning tower, radar contact.
Speaker 5: This is bridge?
Speaker 1: What's very zero ree ree yep, yeah.
Speaker 4: It jus barely in range. It's funny looking. I don't
Speaker 4: think it's a fisherman this time.
Speaker 1: This is Captain Rader. I'll be right there.
Speaker 5: Scope's gone crazy.
Speaker 1: Can't be keep the bridge, Frank, Yes, come on man,
Speaker 1: this I gotta see.
Speaker 2: Okay Johnson, what have you got? Yes, happen.
Speaker 9: And there is sir, see it's a pip.
Speaker 4: Then it goes nothing.
Speaker 2: Scope's going crazy.
Speaker 1: Come left to course zero three three zero three three, sir,
Speaker 1: I'll stop.
Speaker 2: I'll stop there all right, Mike. What do you hear
Speaker 2: on the bearing?
Speaker 3: Nothing, sir, not a thing.
Speaker 4: Pip's gone. Nothing on the scope.
Speaker 3: Either, must be the radar cappen must be with our luck.
Speaker 2: Luck can change.
Speaker 1: Study on course zero three three, All ahead, four, all ahead.
Speaker 4: You never can tell. There have been false alarms before.
Speaker 4: The procedure is standard by the maybe one last chance
Speaker 4: to break the dull leaden monotony that smothers the boat
Speaker 4: in the forward battery the cruise quarters, another rumor, Hey.
Speaker 9: We'd picked up speed, really moving.
Speaker 1: Relaxed burg and they think they got something on the
Speaker 1: radar again, cards are the players?
Speaker 2: Come on you guys, I got a wipe.
Speaker 4: To support by ten fifteen minutes, All ahead full. The
Speaker 4: little flurry in the conning tower begins to settle, and then.
Speaker 9: Captain there it is, sir. We've got it now, sir,
Speaker 9: we've got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Man tracking stations.
Speaker 3: Just one pip and it's a big one.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it.
Speaker 4: The men run, there's excitement, no feeling of obedient drill.
Speaker 4: Even the engines sound different. In the green eye of
Speaker 4: the radar, the spot grows stronger and holds a chance,
Speaker 4: one last glimmering chance for the captain to show he's
Speaker 4: not a book, to keep his job out there in
Speaker 4: the night. Something big and fast.
Speaker 10: Two three three s motorpicks now captain, one big ship
Speaker 10: and three escorts six econs.
Speaker 2: It's still a long way off bridge. Yes, sir, you
Speaker 2: see anything, Frank.
Speaker 5: Not yet, boks God, but it's blackest pitch. Hen'll we
Speaker 5: come up to him.
Speaker 1: We'll come up to him. Just keep your eyes open
Speaker 1: when you're ring. Tell those motormacs back then. I give
Speaker 1: it everything.
Speaker 2: All I had flank maneuvering. They gloss me all I
Speaker 2: had black ther What.
Speaker 7: Do you think we got, Captain?
Speaker 2: We haven't got him yet?
Speaker 6: One ship, three escorts must be worth something to the chaps.
Speaker 2: The moon's coming out.
Speaker 11: We're getting the board.
Speaker 1: That's something on sounds. Their heavy screws buring zero four one.
Speaker 1: Frank got him on sound. Now can you see.
Speaker 5: I thank you captain?
Speaker 11: Wait a minute, yeah, yeah, I could jus the bot
Speaker 11: see a very zero for zero that's him.
Speaker 2: What do we got, Frank? What is he?
Speaker 9: A minute?
Speaker 2: Hold it?
Speaker 11: Air craft carrier coming right down the.
Speaker 1: Crow, Battle stations, torpedo make ready on tubes and stand
Speaker 1: by Uti.
Speaker 9: Standing by another sick Captain, it's coming right at us.
Speaker 2: What's the range now?
Speaker 9: Eight thousand yards? Are closing fast?
Speaker 12: Light screws on sound destroyer six thousand yards see zecho ranger.
Speaker 1: Okay, Harris Bridge, what about those escorts molving around?
Speaker 8: Captain?
Speaker 5: Looks like they know that stuff.
Speaker 11: Take it down anytime.
Speaker 1: Keep your eye on him, Frank. We're gonna stay up
Speaker 1: on the firing bearing.
Speaker 5: Now you mean on the surface for the whole attack.
Speaker 1: Are looking for something submerged. Just keep those sight bearings coming.
Speaker 1: We'll stay up as long as we can.
Speaker 11: Okay, Captain, it's your buddy.
Speaker 3: Ry mark zero four one range mark seven five double
Speaker 3: o yards set.
Speaker 8: He's right on, Captain.
Speaker 2: How much time done?
Speaker 8: Set firing point in fifteen seconds?
Speaker 7: All set?
Speaker 1: Ready to shoot.
Speaker 2: Another destroyer, Sir, Light screw's nice meat turning.
Speaker 5: This week on a destroyer coming right at us.
Speaker 2: Stand by forward bridge destroyer.
Speaker 1: I hurt you shooting observation, Come on, give it.
Speaker 2: To me, break off, Captain diving like, give me.
Speaker 1: The carrier's bearing very mark, All right, Frank Cletherbridge, get out.
Speaker 9: Here, zero four nine set.
Speaker 8: Fire dive, dive dive.
Speaker 2: Oh guy.
Speaker 1: Left full runner all I had emergency take it down
Speaker 1: to two hundred feet, all ahead of mergency, rig for
Speaker 1: depth charge, rig for silent running.
Speaker 5: Destroyer had us cold captain six hundred yards. Won't have
Speaker 5: any trouble finding us.
Speaker 12: Now, destroyer close aboard zero five zero forget the destroyer.
Speaker 2: Sound, got on that carrier. Listen for those torpedoes to hit.
Speaker 5: That's him here he comes, Mac.
Speaker 2: What's the time on the torpedo?
Speaker 7: Run seventy seconds? Hit any second?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 5: Down forty feet? Come on, get out to get out.
Speaker 7: To seventy five seconds.
Speaker 2: It should be a hit eighty.
Speaker 5: He's trying a ram.
Speaker 1: Hang on on.
Speaker 5: Missed us?
Speaker 12: He missed, Harris, did you hear her him? Did you
Speaker 12: hear anything? No, sir, I don't know that destroyer. I
Speaker 12: didn't hear anything.
Speaker 2: Missed, Yeah, we missed.
Speaker 7: Down seventy feet?
Speaker 1: All right, sound get on that destroyer. We're playing target now.
Speaker 5: So how did fat captain? Leveling off? How far at
Speaker 5: the bottom? Another hundred not so high?
Speaker 2: That go ranging, sir.
Speaker 6: He hasn't got us yet, just poking around.
Speaker 12: He's slowing down, turning toward us. Now, screws speeding up,
Speaker 12: shifting short scaled. He's got a contact here it comes. Come,
Speaker 12: we go on range. He's honest, he's dropped his charges.
Speaker 7: Three four, All right boys, five, six, seven, eight, hang.
Speaker 8: On nine, ten, time, all right, imagine for life.
Speaker 1: We'll turn on lighter, but help me with Harris.
Speaker 2: It'll turn down. The volume went right through and I
Speaker 2: get here.
Speaker 1: I get here, Johnson, Get Harris out of here, get
Speaker 1: into his buck.
Speaker 2: Find the pharmacist.
Speaker 1: Mate.
Speaker 8: Yes, keep him quiet.
Speaker 5: Those charges were right on like he looked right down
Speaker 5: at saws.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, I guess we ran into one.
Speaker 1: Expert Burgan, check all compartments, report all damage, Yes, sir
Speaker 1: mac get somebody on sound.
Speaker 8: I'll do it, so.
Speaker 5: We're in for it. Captain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just hope she stays together.
Speaker 4: A beating and for nothing. The captain tried. He had
Speaker 4: his chance. Check through the boat and pray none of
Speaker 4: the damages beyond small, quiet, repairs small and particularly quiet.
Speaker 3: After Bilge's flooding, I'll dish in but holding.
Speaker 4: It's the captain's command. Because they thought he knew his job.
Speaker 4: They let him go to sea four times with seven
Speaker 4: million dollars in the lives of eighty.
Speaker 1: Two men, Number one and two Airbanks empty diving planes, damage,
Speaker 1: losing depth control, listens.
Speaker 4: To the damage. Nothing fatal yet, but it isn't over.
Speaker 4: There's an expert up there, and he's got all the
Speaker 4: time in the world and he's going to take it.
Speaker 3: We will return to Escape in just a moment. But first,
Speaker 3: Tomorrow night on Lux Radio Theater, Paul Douglas recreates his
Speaker 3: original screen role in an adaptation of the film play
Speaker 3: Fourteen Hours. Terry Moore co stars. Also Tomorrow night, Agnes
Speaker 3: Moorehead stars in Suspense's thrilling production of Charles Dickens's Eerytail,
Speaker 3: The Signal Man. Remember on Lux Radio Theater. Paul Douglas
Speaker 3: in fourteen Hours on Suspense, Agnes Moorehead in The Signalman.
Speaker 3: Both Tomorrow Night at the Star's Address. Now back to Escape.
Speaker 4: Captain waits, waits and listens in silence. All operations are
Speaker 4: done by hand now no pumps, no motors, All necessary
Speaker 4: movement by silent hands, no air conditioning, no fans, and
Speaker 4: the temperature climbs to one hundred and twenty five degrees.
Speaker 4: The boat slants at an odd angle. A bucket brigade
Speaker 4: bails endlessly from a flooding bilge empties it forward, hoping
Speaker 4: to level the boat. A working party tries to repair
Speaker 4: the damaged diving planes.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, offs of less dressed.
Speaker 2: Oh while you get back, h how's it coming?
Speaker 5: Then?
Speaker 2: Does it?
Speaker 13: I can't tell her. She's she's jam good. Might be
Speaker 13: able to do something. Bust your boy up there, go
Speaker 13: do the best you can, Uh, sir, but you walking
Speaker 13: back to the conning tower. Yeah, I'm on a good
Speaker 13: will to her find sir.
Speaker 4: But uh, would you mind taking your shoes off? Make
Speaker 4: a terrible noise?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Sure, I'm sorry. Silence. Silence means life. Captain Hall walks
Speaker 4: the ship silently. The men smile weakly as he passes,
Speaker 4: but underneath he knows what they think. How much longer, Captain?
Speaker 4: How much more do we have to take? Captain? Is
Speaker 4: the brains? He knows, he should know.
Speaker 2: Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Speaker 4: Captain, we're gonna get out of there, saint way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jensen will get out of it. Yeah, sit tight.
Speaker 4: Captain Hall makes the good will tour, then back to
Speaker 4: the conning tower to wait.
Speaker 5: Wait the silent.
Speaker 4: Heat and sweat.
Speaker 2: The ship sweats.
Speaker 4: Too, thick heavy humidity condensing on every possible surface. Like
Speaker 4: the steel was porous, like the sea squeezing in. He's
Speaker 4: seen the men. He led them into this surface attack
Speaker 4: on the carrier. Be fast, impulse and make sure. But
Speaker 4: it didn't work. Now work hard to breathe the same
Speaker 4: foul air they breathed four six ten hours ago. He
Speaker 4: led them into this and for nothing.
Speaker 3: Turning this way, here he comes again.
Speaker 4: Not anymore, not anymore.
Speaker 5: It must be good leaking oil. That's because of the spot.
Speaker 6: The bottom three hundred feet that's so bad, it could
Speaker 6: have been four.
Speaker 2: It's the oil.
Speaker 4: That's what he sees. That's all he needs.
Speaker 2: We're not leaking oil.
Speaker 1: God is perfect. He must see something.
Speaker 2: That's enough. I said, we're not leaking oil.
Speaker 5: Captain by Jensen.
Speaker 4: Can we get off the bottom?
Speaker 2: Sir?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 1: When they get the diving planes in the shape, and
Speaker 1: when our friend clears the area, we'll get up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, sure, we'll get up.
Speaker 5: Jensen. You want something to do? Take over the sandwatch?
Speaker 4: Yes, hot, just getting awful hot.
Speaker 5: How many depth charges you think that Jap's got.
Speaker 9: Too many, sir, Just too many light screws.
Speaker 4: They're fading.
Speaker 9: He's going way off, gonna get a good run at it.
Speaker 2: Maybe he thinks he scored a bullseye.
Speaker 5: Uh huh. He's still good to make that kind of mistake.
Speaker 2: Thanks, you are a big help.
Speaker 5: Go on, kid yourself. It's too hot to argue.
Speaker 2: Captain.
Speaker 6: Maybe does he think he got us.
Speaker 2: Jensen? Can you still hear him?
Speaker 4: Just barely, sir, just barely.
Speaker 9: He's gone now, sir, I can't hear him.
Speaker 2: Captain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's smart. Lie out there and wait, see if
Speaker 1: we move. And that's the way we got to look
Speaker 1: at it.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 1: There's one thing he doesn't know. He gotta wait anyway.
Speaker 1: All right, settle down, you're all right.
Speaker 2: Sick so much?
Speaker 8: Should open the window. It sounds terrible in there.
Speaker 9: Shut up, shut him up, it's all right. I'm all right.
Speaker 2: You better go to your bunk.
Speaker 8: Oh, sir, I'm alright.
Speaker 2: I like it here.
Speaker 9: I wouldn't know what was going on in my bunk.
Speaker 4: Fourteen hours, fourteen hours, and the destroyer still up there
Speaker 4: and he can't be heard now. But there's a sense
Speaker 4: a feel to it, like an animal in the night
Speaker 4: that isn't seen. He's sunk subs before and knows how
Speaker 4: long a sub can hold out. The physical things, battery power,
Speaker 4: air life is gauged on those, but the men. The
Speaker 4: captain tells himself that he can hold out as long
Speaker 4: as necessary, but the men can take.
Speaker 2: Just so much.
Speaker 4: Which is worse a depth charge attack or waiting for
Speaker 4: the next one?
Speaker 2: Captain yapman? Does it diving plan? Working party? Just about
Speaker 2: complete repair? Oh what about it? Waiting for an ances?
Speaker 5: Sir?
Speaker 13: She for the party requests permission for one smack with
Speaker 13: a ten pound sledge. Well, is he crazy? You can
Speaker 13: hear that through the water for ten miles, she says,
Speaker 13: One good smack would free the plane, sir.
Speaker 2: Sound hear anything, fish, sir, Just fish out there.
Speaker 13: Captain, Maybe he has god, but the plane's working, Sir.
Speaker 13: We'd be our own boss again.
Speaker 5: Frank, you're the captain, sir. What's the difference?
Speaker 6: Don't don't let him captain here and I know you'll
Speaker 6: hear it.
Speaker 2: Sound make a full sweep?
Speaker 4: Nothing, sir, nothing at all?
Speaker 2: How came in? Does a permission? Granted one smack? Thank you? Sir?
Speaker 4: I think Plaine party permission granted one smack? Make it
Speaker 4: good acknowledge, sir, stand by.
Speaker 1: I can hear that all the way to Tokio.
Speaker 9: Echo, ranging I told you, I told you.
Speaker 1: Shut him up, stop him, sit on him.
Speaker 9: He's turning coming at us. He's dropping the way to starboard.
Speaker 2: He didn't get the range. He's not sure.
Speaker 9: He's turned away, Sir, going away at high speed.
Speaker 5: He lost us, Captain, he lost us.
Speaker 1: Then does a report from that damage party reporting?
Speaker 2: Now, Sir, Our planes works there.
Speaker 4: It's a jury rig, but they work.
Speaker 2: Captain.
Speaker 4: You think we could try to get out of here.
Speaker 5: Let's do it, Captain. We've got battery, but not much longer.
Speaker 6: If we can get up there, Sir, even if he's
Speaker 6: still there, we got torpedoes. It's better than being blown
Speaker 6: apart down here.
Speaker 1: All right, battle station surface, make ready our tubes and
Speaker 1: stand by. Surface surface surface.
Speaker 5: Thirty feet leveling off.
Speaker 1: Up periscope, stand by looking around.
Speaker 2: M hmm, this sun is just setting full sweep.
Speaker 1: Surface stand by, All tubes ready on all four engines.
Speaker 2: That's just clear. All right, Open the wrap. Let's get
Speaker 2: some air.
Speaker 4: Smell smell that old boy.
Speaker 2: Open the main induction. Start the floors.
Speaker 5: I can't see anything.
Speaker 3: We're clear nothing to port.
Speaker 6: Wait a minute, look at the sea, Captain, out there.
Speaker 5: Oil oil as far as you can see, to bree take.
Speaker 4: A big ship to put out that much junk.
Speaker 5: Frank, you see if, captain, that's why that baby gave
Speaker 5: us what you're working over. You know what it means?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see it.
Speaker 6: That's why the escort broke off attack probably went back
Speaker 6: to pick ups his survivors.
Speaker 1: What do you know, Conning Tower, that's the word. We
Speaker 1: got the carrier right for rudder, set a course for home.
Speaker 4: The course is due east to the captain. The air
Speaker 4: smells fresh and sweet. Home with eighty two men eighteen
Speaker 4: torpedoes left out of twenty four. But a captain who
Speaker 4: sinks a carrier doesn't have to worry about a desk
Speaker 4: job anymore. December sixteenth, nineteen forty four, USS Amberfish SS
Speaker 4: five nine three completed her fourth war patrol. After experiencing
Speaker 4: severe depth charging from enemy forces, she surfaced and confirmed
Speaker 4: sinking of large aircraft carrier, then set.
Speaker 2: Course for Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3: Under the direction of Anthony Ellis. Escape Has Brought You
Speaker 3: Pressure by Richard Chandley, starring William Conrad as the captain,
Speaker 3: with Larry Thor as the narrator. Featured in the cast
Speaker 3: were Bob Sweeney, high Everbach, Herbellus, Jerry Hausner, Frank Gerstell,
Speaker 3: Kurt Martel and Eddie Firestone. Sound effects were by Gus Bays,
Speaker 3: Ralph Cummings and Jack six Smith. The special music for
Speaker 3: Escape is composed and directed by Leith Stevens.
Speaker 1: Next week, you are seated before the dials of your
Speaker 1: radio receiver listening to a faint voice from the blackness beyond,
Speaker 1: while the one who speaks with words of friendship is
Speaker 1: debating the destruction.
Speaker 5: Of your world.
Speaker 3: So listen next week when Escape brings you Michael Gray's
Speaker 3: exciting story The Invasion. You want pleasure in the daytime,
Speaker 3: Here are two things to do about it. For one,
Speaker 3: join Arthur Godfrey Monday through Friday. For another, You're welcome
Speaker 3: to CBS Radio's House Party starring Art Link Letter. Yes,
Speaker 3: Arthur Godfrey Time and Art Link Letters House Party every
Speaker 3: weekday on CBS Radio. This is Roy Rowan speaking. Remember
Speaker 3: America's forty five million families listen most to the CBS
Speaker 3: Radio Network.