Audio recording of RAF Lancaster under nightfighter attack

Do you know where i might be able to get hold of the whole recording ?

It would be fascinating to hear all of it.

"M. J. Powell" wrote in message
...
In message , Stolly
writes
FYI with the help of a number of other people we have proved this
recording
to be authenic.

"Wynford Vaughn Thomas did a trip to Berlin on 3 Sep 1943 to make the
famous
BBC recording, broadcast in the Home Service on 4th September 1943 and
many
times since, of a Lancaster crew on a bombing raid. This included the
shooting down of an attacking fighter"

That's the one that I remember, sorry for false attribution to Richard
D. I remember the tremor in WVT's voice and wondering whether it was
fear or the vibration of the aircraft.

Mike

Discussion thread here

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forum...readid=97116&p
erpage=50&pagenumber=1

"av8r" wrote in message
...
Hi Brian

This whole thing stinks. Couple of points:

The Nav says half a minute to go..for what, the I.P. because later the
bomb aimer says the bombs going in about a minute. In the meantime
someone (the Nav?) is saying keep weaving.

The R.A.F. used the term Bomb Aimer NOT Bombardier. BTW, you never
here
the Bomb Aimer say 'Bombs Gone'

There was no drone of engines in the background even with the pilot and
other crew members talking with O2 masks on you would have heard
something.

All the wartime R.C.A.F. and R.A.F. pilots I know, used individual
names
of their crew versus crew position when calling them on the intercom.

The skipper asks the engineer to put the revs up. To what RPM?

The recording device would have been connected to the intercom system.
Only one person can talk at a time yet we here a number of the crew
cheering over the supposed shoot down of a unidentified Luftwaffe
aircraft. I don't think they had hot mikes back then.
Maybe our resident Lanc F/E Gord Beaman can answer that question.

How could the pilot see the aircraft going down, as it would be well
behind him by the time he says anything about it, even if the aircraft
had been shot down while making a head on attack.

There are other things that don't sound right but I'll leave it at that
for now.

Cheers...Chris












--
M.J.Powell

av8r wrote:

There are other things that don't sound right but I'll leave it at that
for now.

Cheers...Chris


Well, I could be wrong of course but I doubt that it's real. As
Chris says it's too quiet. the bloody Lanc makes one hell of a
lot of noise and I remember the intercom being of poor quality
because of that and the poor headsets we used (HS-33 with
handheld T-17 carbon mikes). You can indeed hear several people
talking at once on any a/c intercom system that I've ever used
though but it's just too quiet on this one. Another thing is that
on any system that I've used (except for 'hot mics' on takeoff
and landing) you always hear the click as anyone pushes their mic
switch and the hiss of background noise while the mic is open.
There was none of this...all in all it was too quiet in my
estimation...I think it was faked. I gotta add though that the MG
sounded kinda real to me...
--

-Gord.

ITS REAL

We have the name of the aircraft involved, its Squadron, the name of the BBC
guys that made the recording, a photo of them standing outside the aircraft
in question before the mission, pictures of the equipment they used, and the
date of the incident.

""Wynford Vaughn Thomas did a trip to Berlin on 3 Sep 1943 to make the
famous
BBC recording, broadcast in the Home Service on 4th September 1943 and many
times since, of a Lancaster crew on a bombing raid. This included the
shooting down of an attacking fighter"

Seriously, read this thread. Proof is at the end of the second page. On
Page 3 you have the people who said it was not authentic admiting they were
wrong.

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forum...pagenu mber=1

ITS REAL

"Gord Beaman" wrote in message
...
av8r wrote:

There are other things that don't sound right but I'll leave it at that
for now.

Cheers...Chris


Well, I could be wrong of course but I doubt that it's real. As
Chris says it's too quiet. the bloody Lanc makes one hell of a
lot of noise and I remember the intercom being of poor quality
because of that and the poor headsets we used (HS-33 with
handheld T-17 carbon mikes). You can indeed hear several people
talking at once on any a/c intercom system that I've ever used
though but it's just too quiet on this one. Another thing is that
on any system that I've used (except for 'hot mics' on takeoff
and landing) you always hear the click as anyone pushes their mic
switch and the hiss of background noise while the mic is open.
There was none of this...all in all it was too quiet in my
estimation...I think it was faked. I gotta add though that the MG
sounded kinda real to me...
--

-Gord.

Hi Stolly

I'm still not convinced this is the real thing despite all the
testimonials otherwise. Why was the term 'Bombardier' used for
instance. Do you not think it could have been just a BBC studio
production for the folks back home who were starving for some positive
news in the night bomber campaign against Germany. It would have taken
very little effort to collect a crew and snap a few pix then pass it off
as the real deal.

Cheers...Chris

In message , "Gord
writes
av8r wrote:

There are other things that don't sound right but I'll leave it at that
for now.

Cheers...Chris


Well, I could be wrong of course but I doubt that it's real. As
Chris says it's too quiet. the bloody Lanc makes one hell of a
lot of noise and I remember the intercom being of poor quality
because of that and the poor headsets we used (HS-33 with
handheld T-17 carbon mikes).

I really can't remember any RAF a/c where hand-held mics were used. I've
seen them used in American films and thought how awkward they were.

You can indeed hear several people
talking at once on any a/c intercom system that I've ever used
though but it's just too quiet on this one. Another thing is that
on any system that I've used (except for 'hot mics' on takeoff
and landing) you always hear the click as anyone pushes their mic
switch and the hiss of background noise while the mic is open.

I don't remember any 'click' when the oxygen mask mic switch was used.
Some time early in the war the mic was changed from carbon to
moving-coil, using an extra amplifier in the intercom circuit.
Convention in my time was that only the pilot left his mic open all the
time, otherwise you got all the crew's breathing in your ears
continually.

Mike
--
M.J.Powell

"M. J. Powell" wrote:

I don't remember any 'click' when the oxygen mask mic switch was used.
Some time early in the war the mic was changed from carbon to
moving-coil, using an extra amplifier in the intercom circuit.
Convention in my time was that only the pilot left his mic open all the
time, otherwise you got all the crew's breathing in your ears
continually.

Mike

Could be Mike, but you mention RAF and WW2 era. The RCAF used the
Lancaster X Maritime Reconnance version in the early to mid
fifties which indeed did still have hand held carbon mics. They
were the T-17 type and being young curious types we 'dismantled'
one and saw the carbon granules in the little pocket in there. We
were in ASW service so hardly ever wore O2 masks but I remember
that they also had those small round mics imbedded in the rubber.

Actually any intercom system (that I've used) will exhibit that
distinctive click and the hiss of background noise while the mic
is open. I recall searching for a stuck mic switch on an Argus
with maybe 20 intercom stations.

We used hot mic for takeoff and landing for the Pilots and F/E on
the Argus for instant comms. The hiss was annoying and was often
not used for that reason.

The Lanc model that we used carried a 'wire recorder' for the
sonobuoys which could likely have been wired to the intercom so
that's not a big deal but it didn't sound real to me. Mind you
now, I left Lancs nearly 50 years ago but I remember a lot about
them because I was young then and impressionable and I'm pretty
sure that that recording is fake...it's just much too quiet, no
engine noise at all...they were hellishly LOUD...the commands
just didn't sound 'right'...mind you they were RAF but still...

My considered opinion...fake...
--

-Gord.

"Gord Beaman" wrote in message
...
av8r wrote:

There are other things that don't sound right but I'll leave it at
that
for now.

Cheers...Chris


Well, I could be wrong of course but I doubt that it's real. As
Chris says it's too quiet. the bloody Lanc makes one hell of a
lot of noise and I remember the intercom being of poor quality
because of that and the poor headsets we used (HS-33 with
handheld T-17 carbon mikes). You can indeed hear several people
talking at once on any a/c intercom system that I've ever used
though but it's just too quiet on this one.

I get the impression it was genuine.

This lack of noise *could* be because of limitations in the recording
process.
It could also be due to to things done post recording to improve the
quality.
If this was a 'disc cutter' of some kind it may have had some
problems reproducing high frequency hiss and even static.
The ear is far better at hearing such things, though I suspect the
actual intercom is the reason for the lack of engine noise at least.
The lack of engine noise doesn't greatly surprise me, a carbon mike
is insensitive at best and if they were mask fitted (which seems to be
the case) they might well not 'hear' the engine noise well enough for
the recording device to record it. (Again bear in mind that your ears
are more sensitive than the equipment likely used, if you were there,
you'd hear it, but the level might not be high enough for the recording
equipment to record it at anything like the same level.)

There is also another possibility that I'll mention in a moment.

Another thing is that
on any system that I've used (except for 'hot mics' on takeoff
and landing) you always hear the click as anyone pushes their mic
switch and the hiss of background noise while the mic is open.
There was none of this...all in all it was too quiet in my
estimation...I think it was faked. I gotta add though that the MG
sounded kinda real to me...

The MG sounds like it was picked up through the rear gunners mike, with
the
resulting loss of high and low frequencies that would cause.
The general audio quality has that 'telephone' quality that such a
system would
present, and the lack of hiss and other noise may be due to either the
lack
of audio bandwidth in the system itself, or in the recording process.

The other possibility is an 'either or both' thing.

It's also *very* possible it was 'washed' in the process of putting it
into electronic format
to make it clearer. This is quite trivial to do and can make a bad
recording sound
significantly better, simply by eliminating the audio frequency 'notch'
that (mostly) contains the noise.

It's also *possible* that the original disk (or whatever) was played
back and the output
put through some passive filters to clean it up a bit and perhaps adjust
the levels and *then* cut
to a new disk before it was airplayed (or whatever they did with it).

Some of the terminology seems appropriate as well.
There is a report in there 'Photograph taken' which would probably be
a little obscure for all but the most cunning of fakers. That bomber
command did in fact take photos (and the reasoning for it) is pretty
well
covered in 'Evidence in Camera" by Constance Babbington-Smith, but it
strikes me that a faker could overlook that in a construct.

The CO

In article , The CO
writes
It's also *very* possible it was 'washed' in the process of putting it
into electronic format
to make it clearer. This is quite trivial to do and can make a bad
recording sound
significantly better, simply by eliminating the audio frequency 'notch'
that (mostly) contains the noise.

Maybe they were using filters on the recording equipment? If the first
thing an experienced Lanc crewman says when planning the idea is "You
can't hear anything over the engines, and there's this awful hiss from
the intercom..." it would make sense to me.

--
John

Brian wrote:

Sounds fake - too calm - even considering the Brit resolve.

Yup - quality is far too high for recording methods of the day and, to a
Brit, the voices don't have the correct 'period feel' - sound like ppl
today.


Graham

Stolly wrote:
As far as i know this is authentic.

Does anyone know anymore about this ?

Is it indeed authentic ?

http://www.stolly.org.uk/lanc.wav

Its a 400k wav file.

Dunno but there is an archiving service by the IWM and they'll fill a CD-R
with stuff you ask for, for about a tenner which is very cheap.

All that wartime recording by in-the-field news gatherers can be yours for
little money!


Richard.