The World War 2 Radio Podcast · Brick Pickle Media LLC

WW2 Sabotage - Death Carries a Lunch Kit

·32 min·2 clips

Peters hides a thermos of nitroglycerin in a lunch kit, then has to spend the night carrying it back to the plant.

1. The World War 2 Radio Podcast presents The Whistler episode “Death Carries a Lunch Kit,” a wartime sabotage story first broadcast October 23, 1944. 2. The host identifies The Whistler as a CBS Pacific Coast Network program, written by Larry Markets, and says the podcast uses vintage radio programs about the war. 3. The episode asks what can push Peter into a sabotage plan for money, even while his country is at war. 4. Peter meets a man with a foreign accent and enters a house where Gus works on the device. 5. Gus chips out the inside of a thermos box, handles a detonator that looks like an old watch, and fills the thermos with nitroglycerin. 6. The thermos goes into a lunch kit with sandwiches and an orange, and Peter is told not to drop it. 7. Peter’s older ride, called Pop, waits in the Chevy while Peter explains he is visiting a sick friend. 8. On the drive to the plant, Peter worries about the lunch kit, hears it rattle, and keeps asking what time it is. 9. At the plant gate, a guard inspects workers with a flashlight while Peter carries the lunch kit inside and leaves it in his locker. 10. Peter forgets his wristwatch, then spends the shift trying to guess the time while Mr. Davis criticizes his riveting work. 11. The story builds around the 6:30 timing, the plant whistle, and Peter’s fear that a delay could leave him trapped. 12. Peter collapses in the shop, wakes in the dispensary, and tells the doctor he wants to return to work. 13. The doctor offers barbitol, a cot, and a window escape plan, but Peter worries about missing the whistle. 14. Peter slips out the window, changes back into his street clothes, and tries to leave before the plant clears. 15. The punch clock line, the crowded parking lot, and a damaged headlight slow him down as he tries to get away. 16. The final pressure point comes when another worker holds him up, and the lunch kit remains at the center of the story. 17. The tone uses a noir narration style, direct address, and repeated warnings from The Whistler voice. 18. The format mixes dramatic dialogue, sponsor breaks for Signal Gasoline, and a fast-moving moral tale structure. 19. Fans of old-time radio suspense and wartime drama. 20. Listeners who want modern interviews or light comedy.

As heard by us

A rattling lunch kit turns an ordinary factory shift into wartime suspense.

Death Carries a Lunch Kit finds its tension in an ordinary object and an uneasy night shift. A young man is pushed toward sabotage during the war, and the lunch kit's rattle works as a clean signal that danger is close.

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Why you'd press play

Play it for a wartime sabotage thriller built around one nervous lunch kit.

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