Classic Radio 07-28-26 - Second Class Passenger, Missing Person, and Marriage Bureau Murders

**Wyatt Cox** (0:10)
Now, the greatest radio shows of all time.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:14)
Suspense, The Shadow Node, Washington Calling, David Harding, Counter Spy, Classic Radio Theater, The Great Yildir Slave, Fibber McGee and Molly, Dragnet, Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger.

**Wyatt Cox** (0:29)
Now, step back into our time machine with your host, Wyatt Cox.

**Wyatt Cox** (0:34)
Good evening, friends of the NSXN.

**Wyatt Cox** (0:38)
Crime on a Tuesday, we start out with High Adventure from Escape. Parley Baer in The Second Class Prisoner, Jack Webb in Dragnet and The Big Missing, Did Justice Triumph and The Marriage Bureau Murders, The Adventures of Philip Marlowe starring Gerald Mohr and The Glass Donkey. And we'll wrap it all up with an adventure with Claudia.
That's what's coming up today on this Tuesday, 28th day of July, 209th day of the year, 156 days remaining. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which established the citizenship of African Americans and guaranteed due process of law, ratified on this date in 1868 In 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, precipitating the start of World War I. Herbert Hoover ordered Douglas MacArthur to evict the bonus marchers from their camps on this date in 1932
On the foggy morning of Saturday, June 28th, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel William Smith, piloting an Army B-Fit 25 bomber through New York City, and he crashed into the Empire State Building.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:50)
Two girls at work in the 73rd floor were Ms. Edith Iverson, of 857 Fairmount Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Jean Fagan of 3 East Bank Street, Chicago.
They were at work in the Empire State Offices of the North Central Broadcasting System. And they are now at the Mutual Newsroom microphone here in New York to tell you in their own words what happened. Now, Ms. Fagan, tell us what happened when you first heard the crash.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:17)
When we first heard the crash, we sat at our desks and looked at each other. We didn't know what it was lightning because we've heard so much publicity lately on lightning striking the Empire State Building. But we opened our office door and in the hall, it was so covered with smoke we couldn't see and the elevator shafts were flaming with smoke.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:37)
Tell us what was your reaction, Ms. Iverson.

**SPEAKER_7** (2:39)
Well, I too thought it was lightning. We found the service stairs finally and began to walk down. There were only two other girls on the floor.
But many people from other floors, there must have been at least 30 or 40, and they were all walking down, too.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:54)
Was there any fire on your floor besides that from the elevators? Ms. Pagan.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:59)
The windows. We looked out the windows before we went out the door, and it must have been a piece of the wing of the plane because we could see it falling. In fact, it was so thick, you couldn't see anything but this bright orange flame going by the windows.

**SPEAKER_5** (3:14)
I see. And how much of a flame would you say in judging it in feet? Or couldn't you judge from your position?

**SPEAKER_7** (3:21)
All we could see was just a plane falling.

**SPEAKER_6** (3:25)
Just going by the window.

**SPEAKER_5** (3:26)
Was there any sign of panic in the building among the people you saw?

**SPEAKER_6** (3:30)
Not until we got to the 66th floor.

**SPEAKER_5** (3:33)
What happened at 66th?

**SPEAKER_7** (3:35)
Some of the children started to cry and whimper and said they wanted to get out of there. That's about all we found. And otherwise, I think everything was very well conducted.

**SPEAKER_5** (3:45)
How about the adults?

**SPEAKER_9** (3:46)
They were perfectly under control?

**SPEAKER_7** (3:47)
Very well so.

**SPEAKER_6** (3:48)
The men?

**SPEAKER_5** (3:49)
At the time, the men reacted favorably.

**SPEAKER_6** (3:52)
Very well. They took control of the situation and handled all the stenographers and office girls and so on and directed them as to what to do and where to go.

**Wyatt Cox** (4:00)
14 people killed in that plane crash into the Empire State Building on this date back in 1945 The number one song in the nation on this date in 1954 belonged to the crew cuts.
The song written and originally performed by The Chords, a black R&B group. At the time, often white artists recorded sanitized cover versions of music originally performed by black artists. On this date in 1965, President Johnson ordered another 50,000 American soldiers into the Vietnam War.

**SPEAKER_10** (5:54)
We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences that no one can foresee. Nor will we bluster or bully or flaunt our power.
But we will not surrender. And we will not retreat.