But at this stage in its development, Escape was principally adapting older stories of fiction, particularly public domain works. "Operation Fleur de Lys" is based on actual events which happened just a few years before its 1947 broadcast. I understood the 1946 book Sub Rosa: The O.S.S. and American Espionage by Stewart Alsop & Thomas Braden was the source of this story so, out of my interest in Escape I recently read the book.
It's a very simple book - that is, it was written in very simple English. Like, if it had been placed on a shelf next to a Hardy Boys adventure it could have played pretty well to that audience. Even though the book is about espionage and spycraft during World War II, the very basic language makes the events it describes sound... not so bad. Many of the stories within were titled "Operation_____" but there was no "Operation Fleur de Lys" and I began to fear I wouldn't find it. The story finally appeared near the end of the book. Escape's adaptation was very faithful; the somber tone of the story really stuck out in Sub Rosa.
This reminded me that there was another old-time radio program connected to the O.S.S.: Cloak and Dagger. This one was also based on a 1946 book about the O.S.S., this one entitled Cloak and Dagger: The Secret Story of the O.S.S. by Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain (I couldn't find a copy to read for myself). I had never been able to finish that 1950 radio series before (even though there are merely 22 episodes; here they are on Youtube). When I heard the first episode I was very engaged and intrigued at what a series about wartime spies would be like. However, when I finally decided I would go through the series episode-by-episode I was soon discouraged.
You see, Cloak and Dagger was an NBC radio program. I've complained about them on this blog before. NBC fell into this pattern of using a lot of canned music, not only recycling the same musical score in every episode of a series but then recycling that music for other programs. They also had a tendency to use the same small pool of actors again and again. It does get tiring. But, as I have had some time to kill here in Angola, I decided to finish the series and hear every episode.
The series is certainly not one to 'marathon' because of the sameness between episodes. There are also elements which give one pause; after all, it's a series which celebrates the O.S.S. It's almost quaint, reading Sub Rosa, to learn of a time when the USA was cautious about the idea of employing an intelligence agency. But, natch, from the O.S.S. came the C.I.A. and a lot of international grief. Then too, it's a radio program of its time. As the adventures of the O.S.S. agents represented on the show were active in other nations it means the actors were frequently called on to supply accents. The various European accents mostly sound fake in a theatrical way; the various Asian accents, though, tip into racism.
Yet for all that, there are a few episodes of Cloak and Dagger which I think are worthwhile to mention: "The Swastika on the Windmill" relates a story which I read about in Sub Rosa about a spy who was caught but was able to both alert the Allies of his capture while making the Germans think he was cooperating with them. "The Last Mission" takes a welcome turn from the usual formula as it's about a civilian woman who is gradually recruited to help an undercover O.S.S. agent in China. And "Windfall" is about a grifter who ends up with vital intelligence that could help the Allies, but he'd rather sell it to the highest bidder.
Cloak and Dagger is... not bad. It's certainly great to hear Raymond Edward Johnson in nearly episode as the host and head of O.S.S.
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