The Enemy Below: The Night History Broke In

On Saturday evening, November 23, 1963, listeners across Britain turned on the BBC Home Service.

The world was still reeling from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the previous day.

And that evening, Saturday-Night Theatre took listeners back to another time of uncertainty and death: the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Enemy Below, adapted from D. A. Rayner’s novel, is an extraordinary duel between two naval commanders—one aboard a British warship, the other commanding a German U-boat. They cannot see one another, yet through sonar, maneuver, deception and instinct, each gradually comes to understand the man he is trying to destroy.

But this particular surviving recording contains something even more remarkable.

The play ends—and the BBC news begins.

Suddenly we leave the fictional Atlantic of 1943 and find ourselves listening to November 23, 1963 itself, as broadcasters report on the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination.

In this episode of The Common Room, from The Little Station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas, we explore The Enemy Below, the real Battle of the Atlantic, D. A. Rayner, the art of radio drama, and the strange kinship that develops between two enemies.

And then we listen to what happened when history unexpectedly entered the recording.

Perhaps an old radio recording preserves more than a program.

Sometimes it preserves an evening.

Sometimes it preserves a world.

Pull up a chair. The Common Room is open.

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