This article interrogates how the UN forces’ engagement in heavy fighting in Congo 1961 was narrated in Swedish radio at the time. Drawing on previous research on the act of listening and the affective framing of war engagements, it explores how the violent hostilities were experienced by those living the ‘long peace’ back in Sweden. The analysis elaborates on how radio broadcastings convey and/or engender feelings of presence and intimacy, suspense and sorrow, fear and estrangement, pride and national belonging. By doing so, it brings into view one of the many peripheral and often hidden, though enduring, Cold War histories.