Battle of Britain, the musical.

[stu]

With the Battle of Britain memorial flypast rapidly approaching, it reminded me of something I put together last year when I had some free time and, for no apparent reason, decided to put the Battle of Britain to music - homepages.ihug.co.nz/~russells/BoBmusic.mp3 (note, very lo-fi version but still over 3 meg).

More of a case of "playing around" than anything too serious (20 years working in TV sound does strange things to you) but I thought others may want to have a listen.

[phil82]

That's very, very good Stu! What a wonderful orator Winston Churchill was. We visited his house at Chartwell in May, and it's quite a moving experience, well I thought so.

Guess who, as a brand newly-commissioned Pilot Officer, did the last official Battle of Britain parade in Wellington? 1968

They gave me a flight of Wrafs; perhaps as a measure of my ability!

[Dave Homewood]

That's great stuff Stu. I like it very much.

I recognise a number of the recordings, especially the bomber crew who shhot down the night fighter - that's an amazing recording in its entirity.

I have to ask - what's up with that Churchill recording? Is that actually him? It sounds slower, and deeper, have you slowed it down to match the pace of the music? He also sounds too sobre for his wartime recordings (which I have a number of) and there are a few different words which I'm putting into italics:
"The Battle of France is over, and I believe the Battle of Britain is about to begin."

In the wartime broadcast he didn't state those words.

Interestingly most Chrurchill wartime speech recordings are in a sense fake - many , inculding alledgedly the most famous one from May 1940 "We'll fight them on the beaches..." were actually recorded by Norman Shelley who was a BBC radio actor and at the same time was the voice of Winnie the Pooh on radio.

Churchill's speeches were made in Parliament for the better part, not in public, and the laws then were no recordings could be made. The press staff realised quickly how inspiring they were and wanted him to record them for the wireless so the public could hear them, and to send to the USA on record to inspire them to join the war, but he declined as he was too busy trying to save Britain. So a secret deal was done between Churchill, his staff and the BBC to employ Shelley to impersonate him. So, all the speeches he made in Parliament in wartime that recordings exist of are alledged to be Shelley. Churchill did make his own radio broadcasts for the public.

This was secret till about 1988 when Shelley made the announcement on a radio interview that he played Churchill. tehre was outcry, he was called a liar by most and it wasn't pleasant. The BBC tried to locate any evidence but none existed so they weren't sure what to make of it.

When Shelley died his son was clearing his house and came across a 1940's recording that was clearly from that time and had Shelley impersonating Churchill - I think the proof was on the tape, it had out-takes and his own voice, etc. It's now accepted officially by the BBC that it did happen.

Of course there are also genuine recordings of Churchill giving those same speeches, which he recorded after the war for release on record. I am wondering if your version of Churchill's voice is one of these postwar ones?

It's odd to think the genuine wartime recording of Winnie C was a fake done by the guy who also played Winnie the P, whereas the genuine recording of Churchill is a fake as it was recorded over a decade later, and the genuine performance of the speeches were never actually recorded at all. Confusing eh.

[stu]

Hi Dave,

you caught me out with the bomber crew recording (Lancaster according to the file name but don't take that as necessarily true). I cut it up a bit and was trying to pretend they were fighter comms as there weren't that many British bombers involved in dogfights during the Battle of Britain

I'm not sure of the origin of the Churchill recording but it's used as found - via Google. After reading your post (very interesting by the way) I'd hazard a guess that it's an impersonation.

Cheers,
Stu.

[flyjoe180]

Brilliant Stu!

[Dave Homewood]

Cheers Stu, not trying to catch you out, what you did works really well.

[Dave Homewood]

Just for information if you don't have it, that Lancaster raid recording was made by a BBC recording unit on a raid on Berlin during the night of the 3rd of September 1943, so is 63 years old on Sunday.

I'd like to know who the crew were and their ultimate fate. They all sounded very calm under fire from flak and nightfighter, so no doubt they had some experience under their belts.

[stu]

You've piqued my interest now Dave so a burst of Googling is in order ;D

More info on the Lanc and its crew is available here ... www.207squadron.rafinfo.org.uk and the actual recording process www.btinternet.com/%7Eroger.beckwith/bh/repwar/wr_intro.htm

It seems that the pilot, Ken Letford who passed away in 1984, would go on to find later fame .... www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Mike_Strobel/2005/02/23/939248.html

The remaining crew were:
Charlie Stewart, Flight Engineer
Bill Bray, Bomb Aimer
Jock Fieldhouse, Navigator
Con Connelly, Wireless Op ?
Bill Sparkes, Mid Upper Gunner ?
Henry (Harry) Devenish, Rear Gunner - credited with shooting down the German nightfighter (Bf 110?) heard in the recording.

The aircraft - Lancaster ED586 EM-F (Freddie), 207 Squadron - was lost with all crew during a raid on Stettin (Poland) on Jan 5/6, 1944. www.lostbombers.co.uk/bomber.php?id=2413

Finally, a copy of the recording - for those who may not have heard it - is available here homepages.ihug.co.nz/~russells/Lanc.mp3 although I think it may be missing a bit.

Cheers,
Stu.

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting stuff indeed.

[Dave Homewood]

Have you seen this site? Lots of brilliant recordings there from WWII

www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/sub/mshws.htm

[corsair67]

Stu, if that's an example of what you can do when you're "playing around", then I'd love to hear what you can do when you're working seriously.

That is a wonderful piece of work, and also very moving too. Thank you for sharing it with us.