Human Voices is set during the height of the Blitz in 1940, when the Nazi German Luftwaffe (or German Air Force), battered the United Kingdom nightly with different kinds of ferocious bombs. The British public, particularly those in London (who were the hardest hit by the Luftwaffe's bombs), were left practically defenseless as people around them were maimed or injured.
Human Voices follows the lives of several British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) employees who work hard to get the news on the air each night for the British people to listen to. Unlike other wartime media enterprises, however, the BBC has decided that they will be brutally honest with the British people about how the war is going. But the employees of the BBC must do their jobs while contending with interpersonal difficulties and the difficulties caused by the nightly raids by Nazi Germany.
There is a battle for control of the BBC and its reporting by two program directors—one of whom is called Seymour (or Sam) Brooks. Sam is efficient and technically brilliant at his job but surrounds himself with women called recorded program assistants (RPAs) as a way to insulate himself from the bureaucracy and other challenges involved with working with the BBC.
One day, one of the RPAs that Sam recently hired, named Lise Bernard, leaves her position soon after being hired so that she can find her French boyfriend, Jeff. After her departure, the management of the BBC decides that Sam can no longer be responsible for hiring. The BBC swiftly hires Annie Asra, a 17-year-old orphan, as Lise's replacement. And Annie quickly impresses Sam when she recognizes that a singer that Sam employed was slightly flat, something which Sam didn't recognize.
After Sam takes Annie and the rest of the RPAs out to an expensive dinner, Annie realizes that she has fallen in love with Sam. Meanwhile, Lise contacts one of her colleagues and convinces them to allow her to sleep for a couple of days in the BBC's bunks. Lise, as it turns out, is pregnant, and one of her colleagues transports her to the local hospital once she goes into labor.
In the meantime, bombs start to reign down on the offices of the BBC. Fearing that she and her coworkers will die, Annie goes into Sam's office and professes her love for him. Once safe, the two leave their office and go to a cafe. Sam resigns from the BBC (as does his boss), but is killed by an unexploded umbrella bomb that was laying on his car after leaving the BBC building one more time for good.
