(WW2 Audio) Street fighting and artillery in NW Europe 1944-45 

Cymru am byth 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

It was a tough old slug

Sadly that comment didn't age well. :( Who would ever have thought that we'd see war again at such intensity? Well... even back at the end of WWII many people were sure they'd be fighting Russia before long.

The cracking is the firing, the muffled sounds that follow are the echoes. You do hear a few rounds whistling by though

I think the cracking are the bullets hitting the ground or walls somewhere nearby and the muffled sound is the actual firing of the MG, which is even further away

@@anyversum you're wrong

That cracking is the rounds coming by. I was going to comment this. Bullets make a crack when they’re coming at you. It’s little sonic booms due to bullets being supersonic when they go past. You always hear the round first and then the report of the gun.

@@bryanp9504 You are correct.

Yep I've had these clips for some time now :) Plenty more to come at some point too

@@nm-sn4xz what?..wow!!

With a audio recorder

I read an article about these recordings some time ago, never imagined I'd get to hear so many! Of course several, sadly none of those included here I think, have been in the BBC's repertoire of sound effects since the 1950s, and have been used in productions ranging from documentary to comedy! They were recorded by two very enterprising gentlemen from the British Army film unit I believe. Their 'audio recorder' was set up inside a truck, and I believe that they actually recorded the sounds optically on film, which would have given them a more continuous medium, and one more flexible to starting and stopping than discs. Apparently they had several narrow squeaks, including losing a small but vital piece of equipment to a lump of shrapnel. On sending back to England they were sent a new one with the blunt message, "Don't expect a replacement every time you get something blown up." On another occasion they had parked their truck in a barn which shortly afterwards received a direct hit from a shell. Believe it or not they were even recording at the time, and according to the writer of the article the sound of that hit has been used in many BBC productions. I apologize that this is all rather vague and purely from memory. I will see if I can dig out the article and link you to it. I hope I have at least told what I can remember in an interesting way.

@@dan4lau The recordists went on to win oscars for their work on big Hollywood movies.

@@charlesuplifted5216 was going to reply pencil and paper but your answer seems more obvious.

I thought it sounded more like “Sergeant..” And then a name like Griffiths or something to that effect, would make more sense as they did not refer to each other by their first names

@@courvoisibean Yes, Griffiths would make sense considering there was a welsh infantry division involved.

Ringo starr voice