Recording goes mobile – and miniature
The ability of correspondents on the front line to record dispatches quickly and easily was a vital ingredient in the BBC’s wartime news-gathering operation. Yet in the early years of the conflict, the only equipment available had been incredibly cumbersome. When correspondents such as Richard Dimbleby or Frank Gillard used “mobile” recorders in the North African campaign, that generally meant a disc-cutting machine mounted on a large lorry. In the months running up to D-Day, the corporation’s engineers therefore put considerable effort into creating a device that was small, light and robust enough for the War Reporting Unit’s latest recruits to use in the rough and tumble of combat.
In June 1944, the BBC’s workhorse remained the Type C recorder, which weighed an inconvenient 450lbs. On the eve of invasion, dozens were installed in old military ambulances, or on board ships and aircraft. But work also went on around the clock to design and build a so-called “midget” disc recorder. Each would feature a turntable, a microphone, batteries, and 12 double-sided 10-inch discs, all wrapped up in a wooden case and weighing no more than 40lbs. On D-Day itself, fewer than 20 were ready for use but, by autumn, another 37 had been built and sent off to the front line. This new “midget” recorder transformed the ability of the BBC’s war correspondents to create short voice reports or capture location sounds at a moment’s notice and in almost any environment.
After the war, lightweight, portable recording devices would transform not just journalism but broadcasting more generally – especially once magnetic tape started to replace discs. In the 1950s and 60s, pioneering radio and TV producers such as Charles Parker and Denis Mitchell would show how ever-smaller cameras and recording devices gave them the freedom to work alone and capture the intimate contours of “ordinary life”.
Recording dispatches quickly was vital to the BBC’s wartime news-gathering operation