Audio recording of RAF Lancaster under nightfighter attack

Guy Alcala wrote:

Andrew Chaplin wrote:

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message

snip

Personally I'm inclined to the view that it was not uttered
by the skipper at all but by an actor or continuity man in
BBC Broadcasting house when they were cleaning up the
tape.

I subscribe to the re-enactment hypothesis too, that way the BBC man and
the aircrew would have been able to say he was really there to record the
sortie and that they had really said those things. The only anomalous
thing seems to be the use of "bombardier".

Well, that, the lack of use of first names for the crew members other than
the pilot ("skipper" is correct), and the lack of profanity. Of course, a
crew that knew they were being recorded might well have tried to sound more
'professional'; use of names instead of job titles was officially frowned
upon, but almost universally practiced by the crews. I'd be willing to bet,
though, that the original language was a hell of a lot more salty, especially
when reacting to or talking about the fighter. I lean towards the cleaned-up
reconstruction view.

Guy

Come ON you guys...how in hell did they get all the engine noise
out?...NOBODY talks in a low conversational voice on a Lancaster
intercom ...you shout to be heard over the bloody engine noise...

Look...let's just for a minute think. Did you ever hear a hot rod
with no muffler? Loud aint it?, and that's going by your house
maybe 30-40 feet away. How loud would you think FOUR huge 12
cylinder unmuffled hot rod engines would sound all within about
the same distance??...it's so loud in fact that you can't use
the intercom on takeoff, it's all hand signals.
--

-Gord.