Since radios were not so advanced, audio clips from World War Two are quite rare.
This make the following radio chatter clip of a Lancaster bomber being attacked by a German fighter during a war mission over Germany particularly interesting.
The crew seems to panic as the German plane engages the Lancaster shortly after the latter has dropped its bombed, and the captain at one point shouts “Okay, don’t shout all at once!”
Eventually one of the gunners manages to bring down the German fighter.
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.
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7 Comments
Fake or propaganda. Dad was on lancs as tailgunner; under attack the tailgunner took control of aircraft movement by instructing pilot. And yes, bombardier flew her on the bomb run. No idea what an ‘engineer’ is doing there as there wasn’t room for one. No chatter allowed over the intercom. The mg’s did not go rat-a-rata-tat but made a raspberry burping noise as four of them would go off at over 1,000 rpm each – thraarrp.
I’m sorry, but it’s all far too “Queen’s English” for me.
My grandfather was in the RAF during the war, and he was as Geordie as you could get!
Don’t try and tell me that everyone in the RAF had the same accents, that ain’t gonna fly with me!
Crews varied. Some were ‘all Canadian’ or ‘all Aussie’ etc.
It isn’t far fetched to have a crew from the same area.
Obviously, however my point was about how everyone seemed to have the same kind of dialect and it was all a bit too “BBC broadcast” in quality for me, it wasn’t about the country of origin.
Can you please, in your own words, tell me what point you seem to have understood me making – just so that I really do follow that you’ve grasped what my point was?
I do not have enough information to say that this is a propaganda piece or not, but as to the sound of the engines, it’s not likely they would be drowning out the microphones. By this time, development of noise cancelling microphones was fairly well along, and given the proximity effect of the microphones to the crew members mouths, plus the need to make clear, intelligible transmissions, I would expect nothing less than the audio quality you’re hearing here.
Fake or propaganda. Dad was on lancs as tailgunner; under attack the tailgunner took control of aircraft movement by instructing pilot. And yes, bombardier flew her on the bomb run. No idea what an ‘engineer’ is doing there as there wasn’t room for one. No chatter allowed over the intercom. The mg’s did not go rat-a-rata-tat but made a raspberry burping noise as four of them would go off at over 1,000 rpm each – thraarrp.
I’m sorry, but it’s all far too “Queen’s English” for me.
My grandfather was in the RAF during the war, and he was as Geordie as you could get!
Don’t try and tell me that everyone in the RAF had the same accents, that ain’t gonna fly with me!
Crews varied. Some were ‘all Canadian’ or ‘all Aussie’ etc.
It isn’t far fetched to have a crew from the same area.
Obviously, however my point was about how everyone seemed to have the same kind of dialect and it was all a bit too “BBC broadcast” in quality for me, it wasn’t about the country of origin.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039lmkg
Can you please, in your own words, tell me what point you seem to have understood me making – just so that I really do follow that you’ve grasped what my point was?
I do not have enough information to say that this is a propaganda piece or not, but as to the sound of the engines, it’s not likely they would be drowning out the microphones. By this time, development of noise cancelling microphones was fairly well along, and given the proximity effect of the microphones to the crew members mouths, plus the need to make clear, intelligible transmissions, I would expect nothing less than the audio quality you’re hearing here.