I'm no HAZMAT or munitions specialist, but I know good vintage TV drama when I see it, and this episode has stayed with me for over 60 years, since I first saw it. The show opens with a young boy working furiously to get some reaction out of an object -- then we see that it's a blasting cap, and a few moments later an explosion ends the scene. Following the credits, we're introduced to Assistant Sheriff George Barrett (Richard Travis), who narrates the true story.
It seems a few boys playing in the area around a dam construction site stumbled onto a storage area for explosives -- they broke in and, not knowing precisely what they were dealing with, ran off with blasting caps and other explosives, which promptly fell into the hands of some of their friends, including the boy in the pre-credit sequence (who, we are told, has lost his left arm and may yet die from his injuries).
A lone explosives expert from the L. A. County Sheriff's office, played by Douglas Kennedy, is handling the field investigation, which centers on the junior high that the injured boy attended. While he does his best to retrieve the the stolen explosives, a parallel story unfolds, as two other boys prowling around the restricted government land where the dam is situated find a plastic squeeze bottle with a brown liquid inside. The boy finding that won't give it up, and manages to force it open, remarking on its pungent smell. He holds onto it even after his mother orders him to dispose of it.
This is where the story get more intense by implication. The bottle contains a "classified" experimental explosive being developed for the US Navy, and no details about it can be revealed -- but given its manner of setting a low-level Geiger counter clicking, and the boy's later physical reaction to having hung onto the bottle, it is, by implication, radioactive.
There is some silliness in here, as I'm not sure a bomb-squad member would be quite so cavalier about gathering and handling newly re-acquired explosives. But overall, this is a pretty intense show for its era, and nicely written and done.
It seems a few boys playing in the area around a dam construction site stumbled onto a storage area for explosives -- they broke in and, not knowing precisely what they were dealing with, ran off with blasting caps and other explosives, which promptly fell into the hands of some of their friends, including the boy in the pre-credit sequence (who, we are told, has lost his left arm and may yet die from his injuries).
A lone explosives expert from the L. A. County Sheriff's office, played by Douglas Kennedy, is handling the field investigation, which centers on the junior high that the injured boy attended. While he does his best to retrieve the the stolen explosives, a parallel story unfolds, as two other boys prowling around the restricted government land where the dam is situated find a plastic squeeze bottle with a brown liquid inside. The boy finding that won't give it up, and manages to force it open, remarking on its pungent smell. He holds onto it even after his mother orders him to dispose of it.
This is where the story get more intense by implication. The bottle contains a "classified" experimental explosive being developed for the US Navy, and no details about it can be revealed -- but given its manner of setting a low-level Geiger counter clicking, and the boy's later physical reaction to having hung onto the bottle, it is, by implication, radioactive.
There is some silliness in here, as I'm not sure a bomb-squad member would be quite so cavalier about gathering and handling newly re-acquired explosives. But overall, this is a pretty intense show for its era, and nicely written and done.