Though the sound recording and reproduction technologies had improved in the Allied countries by 1940, Japanese movie industry miserably lagged behind on all counts. Sadly, the engineers and technicians had to live with it, knowing their technologies were utterly out of date. Propaganda filmmaking demanded not-so-ideal conditions not only in terms of subject matters, but also in terms of actual filming itself. One of the most demanding projects was aviation filmmaking.
William Walton composed the impressive Elgerian music for “The First of the Few (1942, U.K.)“. Leslie Howard directed and starred in the film, as (somewhat fabricated) R. J. Mitchell, the creator of Supermarine Spitfire, one of the most resilient fighter planes during WWII. The engine sound in the film is so realistic that you could almost feel the hot exhaust from the nozzles.
In “Stukas (1943, Germany)”, directed by Karl Ritter, dive bombers create shrieking, menacing noise, accentuating the furious velocity of attack. This unnerving noise is the sound of the infamous “Jericho Trumpet”, a wailing siren device mounted on the Junkers Ju 87 (“Stukas”). The historians said that purpose of this devilish siren was to intimidate ground enemies as the aircraft engaged dive bombing. This ‘trumpet’ symbolizes the velocity and intensity of Blitzkrieg of the Third Reich during the early stage of the war.
