Unsynchronised engines; the Rationale

[Chris Going]

Folks

Here’s a small thing which over the years I’ve never heard addressed, by anyone. Those of us who talked to people who survived GAF night attacks Blitz, will almost all have heard references to the unsettling sound GAF aircraft with desynchronised engines made (if you want to hear one, listen to IWM audio tape No 7135, ‘Air Raid World War 2’ 03.20-04.05).

I’d wondered if the effect intended to be in part, psychological (Listen! the enemy is overhead), but recently I happened to be looking at transcripts of conversations between Luftwaffe POWs in the UK National Archives (an astonishing,
under-used resource of contemporary oral testimony), where one of them referred to it as being something they did to thwart acoustic range-finding devices. Can anyone throw more light on this?

Best


Chris