The run
- Network
- NBC
- Years active
- 1943–1945
- Surviving broadcasts
- 97
- Genre
- anthology
Words at War ran on NBC from 1943 to 1945, adapting newly published books about the war into half-hour dramas, often within weeks of publication. The series was supported by the Council on Books in Wartime. Recordings come from the Old Time Radio Researchers' restored single-episode collection.
Restoration quality — measured from the surviving files
Source collection
Old Time Radio Researchers Group
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
12 dated broadcasts across 3 years on the air. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1943, in original transmission order.
- 1. Combined Operations - The Official Story of the British Commandos · 24 Jun 1943
- 2. Last Days of Sevastopol · 19 Aug 1943
- 3. Paris -- Underground · 12 Oct 1943
- 01
Combined Operations - The Official Story of the British Commandos
24 Jun 1943 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'OTRR_Words_At_War_Singles' (public domain).
- 02
Last Days of Sevastopol
19 Aug 1943 · 30 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'OTRR_Words_At_War_Singles' (public domain).
- 03
Paris -- Underground
12 Oct 1943 · 28 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'OTRR_Words_At_War_Singles' (public domain).
- 04
Ave Duce Sawdust Caesar Balcony Empire
30 Nov 1943 · 29 min
Broadcast 30 November 1943. Public-domain transfer from the Old Time Radio Researchers certified set at the Internet Archive.
- 05
Eighty-Three Days - The Survival of Seaman Izzi
11 Jan 1944 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'OTRR_Words_At_War_Singles' (public domain).
- 06
The Weeping Wood
7 Mar 1944 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'OTRR_Words_At_War_Singles' (public domain).
- 07
Lifeline
16 May 1944 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'OTRR_Words_At_War_Singles' (public domain).
- 08
War Below Zero
18 Jul 1944 · 29 min
Transferred from the Internet Archive item 'OTRR_Words_At_War_Singles' (public domain).
Also on NBC
NBC in 1943–1945
Other series the network carried while Words at War was on the air.
Same seasons
anthology on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
The experiment in sound
Producers treating the microphone as an instrument — layered voices, unreal spaces, structure as the subject. The CBS Radio Workshop and Arch Oboler proved audio could be art.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Words at War
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
