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Audio recording of World War One artillery now available for download
Terry Teachout, "About Last Night"On October 9, 1918, an HMV sound engineer named Will Gaisberg set up a primitive piece of recording equipment immediately behind a unit of the Royal Garrison Artillery stationed outside Lille and recorded a British gas-shell bombardment. His purpose in doing so was to preserve the sounds of war before the coming armistice caused them to vanish forever from the face of the earth. According to HMV's catalogue, the recording, which was commercially released, consisted of the actual reproduction of the screaming and whistling of the shells previous to the entry of the British troops into Lille. It is not an imitation but was recorded on the battlefront. The report of the guns and the whistling of the shells is the actual sound of the Royal Garrison Artillery in action on October 9th, 1918. No book or picture can ever visualise the reality of modern warfare just the way this record has done...it would require only the slightest imagination for one, by means of this record, to be projected into the past, and feel that he is really present on the battlefield witnessing this historic chapter of the war. You can listen to the two-minute-long recording by going here, and it can also be downloaded from iTunes by searching for "Gas Shells Bombardment." . . . Posted by: Mike 2008-11-11 |
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