What did whistling bombs actually sound like?

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These optional gadgets were like organ pipes and sounded like them, plus the acoustic effects the question explains. But the sound as such may also be produced just by the stabiliser fins alone. When the organ pipes are fitted, this is called a screaming bomb.

If such a sound enhancer was used it might have looked like this:

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History of War, SC50

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a form of physiological warfare, small whistles called Jericho Devices or Jericho whistles could be attached to the tail of SC/SD 50 and SC 250 Bombs. These would produce the loud, characteristic bomb whistle noise when falling to reduce morale. Similar to the well know “Jericho Trumpets”, the sirens attached to the landing gear of the Stuka.

There whistles were attached in pairs of 4 on the tail of the bomb, opposite of each other.

A pamphlet, “Civil Defence Training Pamphlet No 2: Objects Dropped From The Air”, Issued by the British Ministry of Home Security in 1944, describes two types of flutes; One is described as a “black cardboard tube, shaped like an organ pipe”, and the other as “an adapted bayonet scabbard, with an attachment for fastening it to one of the vanes of the bomb.”

  1. WHISTLE ATTACHMENT FOR SCREAMING BOMBS Two types of whistle, sometimes attached to the vanes of German high explosive bombs, causing them to scream as they fall, are illustrated in Figure 35. These whistles are often found near the scene of a bomb explosion.

One type is a black cardboard tube, shaped like an organ pipe. The other model is an adapted bayonet scabbard, with an attachment for fastening it to one of the vanes of the bomb. Both models are approximately 14 in. in length and 1 1/2 in. in diameter, the vent being about 4 in. from the closed end, which is rounded. Owing to the mechanical weakness, the former often breaks in two at the vent and the parts may be found separately.

In the second type, the body of the pipe is sometimes a hollow sheet-metal tube, spot welded in two seams down the side, with a wooden nose secured to the tongue of the metal tube by two nails. (Note: 1-kg. incendiary bombs have also been found fixed to the vanes of a 50-kg. H.E. bomb by clips.)

–Civil Defence Training Pamphlet No 2: Objects Dropped From The Air, Ministry of Home Security, 1944

Emmas Planes: German Bomb modifications

A recording with the sound from the pilots perspective is at Why did World War 2 bombs made whistling sound while they fell ?

And for a Jericho-trumpet 'noise machine' with a bomb whistle you can hear one recoding overlaid to the closing accords on Pink Floyd's "In The Flesh"

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