WW2 BBC Recordings?

I’m told that the Broadberry request was made directly to the BBC Sound Archive, without success.

At least the written reports and documentation survived.

The BBC has a database of all surviving material which they can do a quick check on when enquiries are made. The best way to find out if something exists is to ask on this forum, which has many BBC employees who care about their heritage and will readily help:
http://missingepisodes.proboards20.com/

Some material is available – and I suspect there is a LOT more within the Beeb that has not been admitted to.

We located some colour footage showing Ben Lyon interviewing the crew of the Memphis Belle at Bovingdon before they went back to the USA. The footage is silent (and went to William Wyler ) but it stands to reason that is the images were filmed, sound exists also – Ben Lyon has one of those huge hand-held mics in his hand. The USAAF filmed the same event in Black and White for newsreel and William Wyler also filmed it in colour from a different perspective. A few seconds were used in the movie, but I suspect the rest has never been shown.

A few years ago when we produced A harvest of memories about Pauline Gower, we managed to get some audio out of the Beeb of an interview she gave about the ATA in 1943. It was the first time her sons had heard her voice, as she passed away giving birth to them!

The wartime material that is available form the BBC Archive can be limited.

I understand that this project http://www.learnwithmuseums.org.uk/museums/newark_air_museum/teaching_packages/index.html sought access to the Broadberry recordings relating to the Polish Wellington crash but they had been lost! 🙁

Bolyman, perhaps not specifically what you’re hoping for but this link has many downloadable BBC and US radio broadcasts from the war, as well as lots of period music.
http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/sub/mshws.htm

Well I am actually trying to get some audio of 416 RCAF sqdn after a victorious day where the BBC filmed and interviewed the successful pilots including my friends uncle, of course he didn t survive and she would love to hear him. The BBC interview was around Nov 3 1943, I may to navigate through the BBC website, thanks.

Yes WW2 BBC recordings do still exist. The BBC have released many of their ‘in house’ sound effects CD’s commercially, but alas only the first 60 of these are easily available. However some of the more recent CD’s, that are not available outside the BBC feature wartime recordings of air-raids and aircraft.
Disc ECD70 has Barracuda, Defiant, B-17, Hellcat, Hurricane, Marauder, Liberator, Spitfire, Stirling and Tempest.
ECD 71 has Thunderbolt, Typhoon, Whitley and Wildcat along with an anti-aircraft ATS plotting room and various naval recordings.
ECD 100 is various WW2 army recordings, barrages, tanks etc and V1 and V2’s exploding including the famed ‘doddle bug’ noise of a V1 as it’s engine stops .
ECD 101 is all air-raids and Battle of Britain actuality recordings.
It includes all types of air-raid sirens including French, German and Italian as well as British.
All these were originally recorded on acetate 78’s of course and have been re-processed to improve the, however with even more modern computer techniques it is easily possible to improve them still further.
That helps ‘surface’ noise and clicks etc but the sometimes limited frequency range of the recordings will still show up.
The National Sound Archive also has a wonderful library of relevance to WW2 but the two CD’s that they have released use modern recordings of aircraft like Mosquito, Spits and Hurricanes, treated to make ‘modern montages’ useful in recreating WW2 soundscapes.
David Taylor
Postfade Sound, Pinewood Film and TV Studios.