Eld upphör 1918

This is the last record by sound ranging of artillery activity on the American front near the River Moselle. It is the reproduction of a piece of recording tape as it is issued from an American sound-ranging apparatus when the hour of 11 o'clock on the morning of November 11, 1918, brought the general order to cease firing, and the great war came to an end. Six seconds of sound recording are shown. The broken character of the records on the left indicates great artillery activity; the lack of irregularities on the right indicates almost complete cessation of firing; the two breaks in the second line probably being due to the exuberance of a doughboy firing his pistol close to one of the recording microphones on the front in celebration of the dawn of peace. The two minutes on either side of the exact armistice hour have been cut from the strip to emphasize the contrast. Sound ranging was an important means of locating the positions and calibers of enemy guns. A description of these wonderful devices, which were a secret with America and the Allies, is given in Book III, chapter 4.

Utifrån grafen har ljuden rekonstruerats. Därför kan man nu höra när det stora kriget tog slut, när The Guns of August efter 51 månader tystnade.

Moment First World War battlefield finally falls silent on Armistice Day - audio, Mirror 10 november 2018

Notera att det vi ser är själva inspelningen. När man skulle avgöra var fiendens kanoner fanns var man inte så intresserade av att höra ljuden som att "se" dem. De sex ljudvågorna visar att denna apparat spelade in ljud från sex "mikrofoner", eller kanske seismografer är ett bättre ord: De utgjordes av tunnor fyllda med olja som grävdes ner i jorden. De återgav inte ljud i luften utan i marken. Allt detta beskrivs av de som sattes att omvandla graferna till ljud:

Making a New World: Armistice Soundwave, Coda to Coda 6 november 2018