August 2003

New audio files added to LAFAS website.

In a recording made a year before his death the late Ronald Tadberry, former Navigator and member of Pathfinders, talks about flying in Halifax and Lancaster Bombers. He recalls the time he and his crew were shot down, eventually ditching in the North Sea and becoming members of the Goldfish Club.

Recorded at the former RAF East Kirkby airfield (now the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre), veteran Ken Whiteman speaks to Liz Butterfield about his first visit there. In the early hours of 30th August 1944 he flew in a badly damaged Wellington across Europe before trying to land at Morton in the Marsh near Gloucester. But the plane was diverted to East Kirkby, finally crash landing there with one engine on fire.

These audio extracts can be heard on the audio page of this website.

Do you have sound recordings of former aircrew or ground crew? Lost And Found Aviation Sounds are looking for interesting aviation oral history material to feature on this website in the coming months. For more information email us info@one-voice.co.uk.

April 2003

1) Read about our work in the April/May 2003 issue of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Magazine (website)

2) Help us with an audio mystery.

Would you like to help with an audio mystery? From time to time we receive material from which the titles are missing, and unless you heard the material when it was first broadcast it is very difficult to identify. After we appeared in Plane and Pilot magazine last month, Tim Grace from Washington State sent us a cassette loaded with interesting audio material. Of prime interest to Tim was a wartime interview made with is late father, then 1st Lt. Gerald G. Grace and recorded in Febuarary1945 (download an mp3 version of the interview).

Following the interview with Lt. Grace there was also a fascinating but unidentified feature dramatising the role of P47 Thunderbolt pilot in Europe. Download the mp3 file and see if you can help us identify its origins.

March 2003

Read about our work in the March 2003 issue of Plane and Pilot magazine (website)


PRESS RELEASE

Sounds of the Battle of Britain Found in Garage.

"There's one coming down in flames - there somebody's hit a German - and he's coming down - there's a long streak - he's coming down completely out of control - a long streak of smoke" A tape containing the sounds of the Battle of Britain has been discovered in a private garage in Lincolnshire, England. Having gathered dust for 60 years until found by the Lost and Found Aviation Sounds team, the tape is one of only three copies of the recording known to still exist. The tape is also unusual as it was made of paper, not the usual plastic backing material used on tapes. "Considering the conditions we found this tape in, it should have rotted away years ago", said Chris Butterfield, Curator of Lost and Found Aviation Sounds. "We'd gone to look at an old wire recorder and the owner had this old tape machine too, the machine was beyond salvage, but the tape looked interesting and we were asked to find out what was on it."

"Oh boy, I've never seen anything so good as this - the R.A.F. fighters have really got these boys taped."
Charles Gardner, BBC Radio report (10th July, 1940)

Join the BBC's veteran reporter Charles Gardner on the cliffs of Dover at the height of the battle, as he describes German dive-bombers attacking an allied convoy in the English Channel, while high above RAF Spitfires battle German Messerschmitts.

(download an mp3 version of the interview)

Background Information

Lost and Found Aviation Sounds are a small team dedicated to preserving audio recordings related to aviation and space flight before its too late and historically valuable recordings are lost for good. The LAFAS team recently worked on rare wire recordings found in a Washington DC basement, the recordings were interviews with the team that broke the sound barrier in 1947. The tapes had been forgotten for onwards of 25 years, until a member of LAFAS, a sound engineer in Washington DC found them. What makes these recordings special are that they include not just Chuck Yeager, but other people intimately involved with the X-1 test program. Many of these people have long since pasted on, but these tapes recorded at the time; allow their voices to describe the events while they are still "raw" in their own minds. Audio extracts available.