“Are you willing to undertake a dangerous mission behind enemy lines, knowing you may never return alive?”
“This is the question asked during the war to agents of the O.S.S., ordinary citizens who, to this question, answered, yes.”
Cloak and Dagger (May 7–October 22, 1950) aired “The People in the Forest” on June 11, 1950 as the 5th of its 23 episodes. Like the other stories comprising the episodes in this radio series, it was one of the tales taken from the 1946 non-fiction book Cloak and Dagger: The Secret Story of the O.S.S. by Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain. The book was the first attempt to show behind-the-scenes adventures of the O. S. S. (Office of Strategic 
Services, the forerunner of today’s CIA), and give credit to those exploits rarely mentioned in the public eye. It became so popular that a 1946 film of the same name starring Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer was made, with Cooper as a scientist sent behind enemy lines to uncover German nuclear secrets and Lilli Palmer as his contact in the Italian resistance.
In “The People in the Forest” we have paratroopers in the dead of night landing in the French countryside near a town taken over by the Nazis. Their assignment is to get a look at the plans detailing the defensive positions the Nazis have deployed so as to avoid them when the time comes for the Americans to recapture the town. Because these stories are drawn from real life, not everything always goes as planned nor does everyone always make it home alive, making for some tense, unexpected moments packed into these half hour dramatizations. So sit back and enjoy tales of true heroism as some of America’s bravest play the deadly but necessary game of cloak and dagger when it really counted.
(The linked CD at top includes this episode and 19 others, all digitally remastered and restored.)
Play Time: 28:01
{When this episode of Cloak and Dagger aired it was an early June Sunday of 1950 and summer vacation spread before the neighborhood gang like a never-ending sea of possible adventures. Their first stop on an early Monday morning, however, was the nearby newsstand where they hoped to find more excitement of the kind they had heard the night before with “The People in the Forest.” While magazines featuring tales of the O.S.S. or other secret operatives were virtually non-existent by the 1950s, danger and intrigue could always be found in some of the gang’s favorite detective pulps. Detective Tales (1935-53) was one of the most popular in the detective field. For most of its 18-year run of 202 issues it was a monthly, including 1950. The Phantom Detective (1933-53) was begun in direct response to the success of Street & Smith’s The Shadow Magazine (1931-49). The Shadow Magazine saw many more monthly issues during its 18-year run, while The Phantom Detective ran with fewer monthly issues, thereby holding the record for the longest-running single-character pulp. It was a quarterly in 1950. Super-Detective’s (1940-50) first run lasted only 15 issues from 1934-35. After a 5-year hiatus in which it retooled and ran as a new magazine in 1940 it showcased stories featuring Jim Anthony “scientist, businessman, adventurer.” The featured Anthony novels were dropped in late 1943 but the magazine remained popular and ran for another 65 issues. It saw 6 irregular issues in 1950 with the May issue pictured below its 3rd from last.}
[Left: Detective Tales, 6/50 – Center; Phantom Detective, Summer/50 – Right: Super-Detective, 5/50]
To view the entire list of Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.