Lancaster and Halifax engine noise generators.

Moggy, ‘scarecrows’ were exactly as you say. Not a secret German weapon, but bombers exploding when hit.

Johnny Kent, in his book “One of the Few”, tells of the test flying he did to find an effective cable cutting method. This involved flying a Fairey Battle fitted with various devices into cables. Fascinating stuff.

…and the complexities of wing cable cutters!

A couple of very good photographs of cable-cutters in a previous forum thread:

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?93112-Lancaster-Part-Questions

Thanks for the replies. Amazingly complicated affair the Bomber War in WW2.

Now I’m reading about Scarecrows, trying to decide if fact or fiction…

Funnily enough the microphones in the engine nacelles of Bomber Command aircraft (stumbled across while thumbing through ‘Bomber’ by Len Deighton) was the exact thing that reignited my interest in historic military aviation after a gap of about twenty years!

It was truly an utterly fascinating technical conflict; coupled with the sadness of a great human tragedy.

There was a good thread about ‘scarecrow’ (or scarecrew) shells on this very forum:

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?95014-Did-Scarecrows-Really-Exist

Blimey! Was that really four years ago?

I’ll be interested in what you turn up about scarecrows.

My belief is they did not exist and that each apparent explosion of a bomber in mid-air was actually a bomber

Moggy

Im constantly educated by this forum, I make no claims to be anywhere near knowledgeable on this subject but I do take on the basics, “microphones fitted to Bombers to transmit engine noise over enemy frequencies…….” such fascinating info,

thanks to all you learned chaps for both knowing such detail and sharing it with “lesser” folk like myself!

Thanks for the replies. Amazingly complicated affair the Bomber War in WW2.
Now I’m reading about Scarecrows, trying to decide if fact or fiction and the complexities of wing cable cutters!
ATB.

Quote from Jack Bromfield, a Halifax WOp/AG (sadly now gone):

“My job was to listen out for transmissions at set times, you know, recall, diversions, any information. Normally you’d hear nothing, just a long dash and a time signal, and in between those ten-minute segments, you were given a section of the 1155 dial to search. What you were looking for was ‘Achtung Nachtjager, Achtung Nachtjager.’ What you would do then is tune your transmitter exactly to the frequency you were listening on, throw a little switch and press the key, and your set was then connected to a carbon mike in the starboard outer engine. So he’d just get engine noises on that frequency, so he’d go somewhere else.”

Moggy nailed it.. it was called Tinsel…

The Halixfax had one. The Wireless operator would press a button down to jam the signal.

Dave

Lancasters were fitted with the ability to transmit engine noise over the night fighter frequencies, generally 101 sqn Lancasters fitted with ABC.

The devices were called ‘microphones’

The W/Op, whose services were not much needed for a lot of the flight, would scan for frequencies used by the nightfighters and their controllers to then rebroadcast the engine noise on that frequency.

Sometimes known as Tinsel

Moggy