The Archive Hour

Lance Corporal Mike Baronowski was killed in action on 29 November 1966. He left behind not just memories of the Vietnam war, but an extraordinary legacy of recordings which he had sent home to family and friends. They contain vivid and often comic reflections on his battle-field environment and experiences. The story of his life and death is told through the tapes, which were left to collect dust on top of a cupboard for thirty-odd years, and from the differing perspectives of two Marine comrades and Baronowski's own brother and sister.

A Loftus production.

BBC Radio 4's re-broadcast of the Sony Gold-winning documentary Lance Corporal Baronowski's Vietnam on Saturday 26 February 2005 in The Archive Hour was followed on Sunday 27 February at 1.30pm (GMT) by Life After Vietnam, a half-hour feature presented by Alan Hall from the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington. The programme traced what happened to Tim and Ray, Cookie and Sandy, in the years between Baronowski's death in combat in 1966 and the rediscovery of his tapes.

Listeners have responded as follows:

"this should be listened to by many more people in an attempt to further the message that fighting for 'one's country' is not a glorious thing to do and how easily all the human sacrifice is forgotten"

"so much more than an appendix to the Archive Hour ... what a stunning document".

And in May 2005, WDR, West German Radio, broadcast a translated version of the programme, under the title Die Kriegsaufzeichnungen des Michael A. Baronowski

"... full of deeply felt emotion. Baronowski is shown to be an everyman figure as well as an individual - it's as if the identity of the unknown soldier has finally been revealed."
Geoff Ellis, Radio Times

Gold Winner, The Feature Award, Sony Radio Academy Awards 2004
and BBC nomination for Prix Italia 2004

'A beautifully produced account of an extraordinary man in an extraordinary family at an extraordinary moment in world history.'
Sony Radio Academy Award citation

Click below to read a review of the programme.

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