Beatrice Harrison (above) played the cello in her garden in Foyle Riding, Surrey, regularly accompanied by nightingales. The BBC transmitted the music of Beatrice and the birds live on May 19th, 1924 – the first ever live outdoor broadcast.
Each May 19th, the BBC returned to the garden to broadcast the nightingales, even after Beatrice moved house in 1936. On May 19th, 1942, as BBC engineers were recording the bird-song prior to transmission, a faint hum gradually became audible, slowly increasing in volume, as 197 bombers flew overhead on their way to raids in Mannheim. Realising the security risk, the broadcast was halted.
But not the recording…
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Thank you to Iestyn Davies, Music and Nature, and Simon Mallindine.
Wonder how many of those bombers came back?
Hi Stuart – 11 of the bombers did not return.
Haunting. Something of this recording reminded me of the theme in the Bruegel painting of the Fall of Icarus.
An amazing contrast…I can’t even imagine seeing 197 bombers flying overhead. But I must say that lady had one lovely musical garden.
rather haunting…a really unnerving piece of history, the quietness of it seems unreal.
That really is the most amazing thing. What a contrast; the beauty of nature superimposed with the horror of war. Thank you for posting this.
From The Bomber Command War Diaries by Middlebrook and Everitt (1985)p.267
“197 aircraft – 105 Wellingtons, 31 Stirling’s, 29 Halifax is, 15 Hampdens, 13 Lancasters, 4 Manchesters. 11 aircraft- 4 Halifaxes, 4 Stirlings, 3 Wellingtons – lost.
155 aircraft reported hitting Mannerheim but most of their bombing photographs showed forest or open country. The Mannerheim report describes the long delay before the attack developed, with aircraft greater height than in previous raids passing to and fro searching for the target. When the raid did begin, bombs approximately equivalent to no more than 10 aircraft loads fell in the city. Concentrated group of about 600 incendiaries in the harbour area on the Rhine burnt out 4 small industrial concerns-a blanket factory, mineral-water factory, chemical wholesalers and a timber merchants. Only light damage was caused elsewhere in the city. The only fatal casualties were 2 firemen.”
That was astonishing! No other word for it.
I agree, Gerard
Wonderful. There’s something about sound that evokes a raw emotion like no picture can.
My mother’s cousin, Frank Flint was a gunner in a Halifax on thet mission. Unfortunately he was one of those not to make it back.
Halifax W1101 was one of two 35 Sqdn Halifaxes lost on this operation. See: W7658. Airborne 2230 19May42 from Linton-on-Ouse. Cause of loss not established. Crashed near Mannheim, where the crew was initially buried. They have been subsequently re-interred in the Durnbach War Cemetery. Sgt Morris was a regular RAF NCO whose Service Number indicates he joined the Service in the 1920′s. at 41 he was well above the average age for operational aircrew. F/S D.H.Reed RNZAF KIA Sgt E.J.Morris KIA Sgt F.D’O Hunter RAAF KIA Sgt F.E.Flint KIA Sgt R.L.Prosser KIA F/S L.P.Russell RNZAF KIA
Incredible…other readers may be able to help me with a related query. I half remember something about a 1940 BBC nature recording including the sound of German bombers passing overhead en route to an attack on London. Am I misremembering’
Hauntingly beautiful. It conjures up so many images. Does the BBC still make a yearly recording on 19th May, I wonder? If not, why not?
Lie in the dark and listen
It’s clear tonight so they’re flying high
Hundreds of them, thousands perhaps
Riding the icy, moonlit sky
Men, machinery, bombs and maps
Altimeters and guns and charts
Coffee, sandwiches, fleece-lined boots
Bones and muscles and minds and hearts
English saplings with English roots
Deep in the earth they’ve left below
Lie in the dark and let them go
Lie in the dark and listen
Lie in the dark and listen
They’re going over in waves and waves
High above villages, hills and streams
Country churches and little graves
And little citizens’ worried dreams
Very soon they’ll have reached the sea
And far below them will lie the bays
And cliffs and sands where they used to be
Taken for summer holidays
Lie in the dark and let them go
Lie in the dark and listen
Lie in the dark and listen
City magnates and steel contractors
Factory workers and politicians
Soft, hysterical little actors
Ballet dancers, ‘Reserved’ musicians
Safe in your warm, civilian beds
Count your profits and count your sheep
Life is flying above your heads
Just turn over and try to sleep.
Lie in the dark and let them go
Theirs is a world you’ll never know
Lie in the dark and listen.
Noel Coward, 1944
Wonderful poem. I presume the author is the Noel Coward. I just looked his bio up and, my God, how can anyone in Hollywood even dare to think they’re in the same league?
Amazing recording is there a way to copy this?
Wow…. gives me goosebumps!
This is a very famous recording and is included on the CD “Nightingales: a Celebration” recently issued by the British Trust for Ornithology, all proceeds going towards conservation of nightingales and other migrant birds. Also wonderful are the nightingale plus cello recordings on the disc.
You’d think it would be in the BTO on-line shop but it isn’t. I finally found it as follows:
Go to http://www.bto.org and click on Support Us. Follow the “Nightingale Appeal” link.
BN
Fantastic recording. Heard it on Radio 4 yesterday and was so glad to find it here
Haunting, and the listener comments add to it. It reminded me of the Lyrebirds Of Tidbinbilla cd released here (Australia) in 1994.
The beautiful Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve was nearly destroyed by the January 2003 firestorm. Fire so intense, even granite boulders were damaged by heat-spalling. Animals and birds in vast numbers died, even flying birds (heat stress and firestorm gas clouds). As flightless birds of course the lyrebirds were victims.
The lyrebirds are playing as I type this.
I heard this piece on desert island discs for the first time this morning 27-01-2012. What an evocative recording.
I have often wondered what a large raid sounded like and this left me in no doubt.
The soiund of the nightingale with the bombers overhead left me with a lump in my throat.
Do not forget that 75,000 pesonnell were lost by bomber command in the war it is only now we are to get a fitting memorial for what they did for us.
Wonder if this is what inspired Roger Waters to write “Goodbye Blue Sky” on The Wall.
Strange to think that, nearly 70 years later, I can see and hear one of the only two flying Lancaster’s left in the world. It is a very distinctive hum.
The nightingale’s song was truly splendid. It’s a sound I’d not enjoyed since I was four years old when my grandfather took me into his garden at dusk to experience. During the war the skies were hardly ever quiet especially when the US Army Air Force arrived in 1943. At night the drone of Luftwaffe bombers overhead was not at all inspiring as we sat in damp, cold shelters devoid of lighting. Their deisel engines had a distinctive beat quite different from the song of the Rolls Royce Merlin engines. There were so many airfields supporting RAF and USAF planes that overlapping circuits introduced potential collisions especially on 1000 plane raids. These were feared nearly as much as enemy flak.
Go to google earth street view and look around while listening to this…
I find it incredible that the Mannfred Mann’s Earthband use of the track appears unknown today.
@Edward Grossmith: the Luftwaffe didn’t use diesels in their aeroplanes, Wehrmacht however liked to have diesels in their tanks for many good reasons, one of them made obvious by calling the Shermans “Ronsons” because they “lit up every time [hit]“.
This is hauntingly fantastic. Thanks very much for the find!
Thank you so much for sharing this. Beautiful. I have always wondered what a Nightingale Bird sounds like, since I was a child and read the story of the Emperor and the Nightingale.
The two kinds of birds, peace and war, is so very haunting and beautiful.