Words at War: The Ship (Encore) (A0106)
episode
The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio| Daily Mystery Dramas
33 min
4 speakers
5 chapters
transcribed 2 months ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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The War.
Welcome to the war from Boise, Idaho. This is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, send it to me at box13 at greatdetectives.net. Well, today we have a special treat for you. Today's episode is fictional, but it could very well have actually happened that way. The writer was associated with naval fiction, though definitely from another era. However, C.S. Forrester, famous for the Horatio Hornblower series, wrote The Ship, a realistic novel of Navy combat in World War II that was so realistic that it was chosen as a selection for Words at War. So here now from July 24, 1943, is The Ship.
Words at War presents The Ship.
With half a million men in the Royal Navy, it is inevitable that there should be some coincidence of names and ranks between characters in this book and officers and ratings now serving. That is so inevitable that the author has made no attempt to avoid any such coincidence. All he can do is to assure the reader that he has attempted neither portrait nor caricature of any living person.
You'll find that written on one of the front pages of a book I read a few days ago. The Ship by C.S. Forreston.
Words at War.
The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Council on Books in wartime, brings you another in its series of radio adaptations of great books of this war. Each week at this time, we bring you selected dramatic episodes from some of the most stirring of our war-inspired literature. Tonight's story... The Ship by C.S. Forrester, eminent English author of Captain Horatio Hornblower and other fine books. Adapted for radio by Edmund Burnbrier.
The ship is a glorious yawn about a glorious British vessel and the men aboard her. A novel. Yet as you read it, you feel you're reading facts. It's tough, authentic, gripping, this yawn. I read it and I was excited. I hope you will be too. If the convoy didn't get through, Malta might fall. The convoy had to get through. And there were only these five light cruisers and a dozen destroyers to get it through. The ship, HMS Artemis, was a light cruiser. Most hit.
Smoke in the starboard bow. Green one nine. Most hit.
Smoke in the starboard bow. Green one nine. Some men would have been uncomfortable in the crow's nest. Not so ordinary seaman Harold Quimsby, whose idea of happiness was a full belly and nothing particular to do. Thanks to many hours of practice, Quimsby was able to watch the whole horizon forward of the beam without allowing any of his automatic movements to break into his inner thoughts. He was thinking now of his first seaboard, back in the almost unbelievably distant days of 1939. He'd been up in the crow's nest then, too, he remembered. when his binoculars picked up a dot on the distant surface, and he'd rung down to the bridge with excitement and seasickness.
There's something over on the left. Where are you speaking from? The head mast. I mean the mast head, sir. Then that's what you say first, so that we know down here. And you don't say, over on the left, do you? What do you say? On the port bow, sir. That's right. But it's better to give a bearing... What does your bearing indicator read? Twenty-one, sir. How do you say it? I've forgotten, sir. Port is red and starboard is green. Remember that port wine is red, and then you won't forget. And twenty-one isn't plain enough, is it? No, sir. Yes, sir. Now, let's have your report. Remember to say where you're speaking from first. Masthead, sir. Object in sight. Red, two, one. Very good, Grimsby, but you must say it twice over.
Do you remember being told that? If the guns are firing, we might not hear you the first time. Yes, sir.
What is the background and broadcast origin of 'The Ship' episode?
I mean, I, I, sir.
He'd been a very green hand at that time, this ordinary seaman, Harold Quimsby.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:44
2
What is the background and broadcast origin of 'The Ship' episode?
6:44–10:14
3
How does the narrator introduce C.S. Forester and the novel's wartime setting?
10:14–19:24
4
What mission are HMS Artemis and the convoy undertaking toward Malta?
19:24–20:33
5
How is lookout duty and shipboard procedure shown through Quimsby’s crow's-nest scene?
20:33–33:39