...In June 1943, Miller and his AAF band began a weekly radio series, "I Sustain the Wings," broadcast coast to coast on NBC..."
That's where we left off last week. Today we cover the rest of the story. Glenn Miller became Captain Glenn Miller. He had applied to the army but they weren't interested in a commissioned swing band. The air force went for it and it is their name that graces all of his acetates and the CDs now made from them.
In December of 1942 Captain Glenn Miller served initially in the Army Air Forces Southeast Training Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery. He found time to play on air at both WAPI-AM in Birmingham and WSFA-AM in Montgomery. In March of 1943 he was transferred to Yale University in New Haven. At that base he formed a marching band. There at Woolsley hall they did six broadcasts for I sustain the wings." the first was May 29th. This band shared members with his later broadcast orchestra. He began performing weekly on the program "I sustain the wings" NBC series live at the Vanderbilt Theater in New York. Nonetheless Victor records began recording this new band and releasing V-discs. The American Federations of Musicians (AFM) were on strike, but even union musicians were allowed to record V-discs for the troops.
These releases were popular despite their misgivings so permission came to form his big-ass 50 piece band and go to England in the summer of 1944. In his absence other AAF orchestras filled in on the radio program. While in England he continued to broadcast from the BBC and he was promoted to major. His band recorded 20 songs the week of December 3rd 1944 then he went MIA.
On December 15th he was declared officially missing in action. He was flying from an RAF base in England to Paris for a gig. Theories vary. He may have crashed. He may have been shot down by either Germans or the English. German propaganda newspapers said that he died of a heart attack in the arms of a French hooker. In 1985 divers found what they think was Miller's Norseman C-64 aircraft off the coast of France. The most accepted theory is that his plane wandered into a no-fly zone and was accidentally bombed by a British plane dropping it's payload to save fuel.
Chris Valenti requested documents from the Miller files at the Air Force and posted them online here.
After Miller's disappearance, his band continued to play for Allied personnel. They toured Germany well into the summer of 1945. In 1956 Millers estate allowed drummer Ray McKinley to reform the band with the miller name. Today that watered down dance orchestra continues to exist in tribute.
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Multiple updates and corrections:
ReplyDelete• Capt. Miller formed his 50-member dance band in the first months of 1943, over a year before shipping out for the UK. This was the band that made the ISTW broadcasts over NBC each week. The same group, with minor personnel changes, was sent to the UK in June 1944; it was _not_ a newly-formed orchestra.
• After the transfer his US broadcast slot was filled by other AAF orchestras, most notably ones led by conductors Harry Bluestone and Felix Slatkin.
• The aircraft on which he disappeared was a C-64 rather than a C-46.
• Research done subsequent to the publication of this page cast has serious doubt on the dropped-bomb hypothesis. Specifically, the C-64 was positively IDed overhead at a time and place that precludes its being near the RAF drop zone. Second, the C-64's repair records revealed that it had persistent problems with carburetor icing that had been patched but not fully repaired prior to the fateful flight, making mechanical failure the most likely cause of the crash.
All statements can be verified via the Glenn Miller Archives at the University of Colorado.
Also one spelling grumble: the possessive form of "it" is ITS rather than "it's".
Multiple updates and corrections:
ReplyDelete• Capt. Miller formed his 50-member dance band in the first months of 1943, over a year before shipping out for the UK. This was the band that made the ISTW broadcasts over NBC each week. The same group, with minor personnel changes, was sent to the UK in June 1944; it was _not_ a newly-formed orchestra.
• After the transfer his US broadcast slot was filled by other AAF orchestras, most notably ones led by conductors Harry Bluestone and Felix Slatkin.
• The aircraft on which he disappeared was a C-64 rather than a C-46.
• Research done subsequent to the publication of this page cast has serious doubt on the dropped-bomb hypothesis. Specifically, the C-64 was positively IDed overhead at a time and place that precludes its being near the RAF drop zone. Second, the C-64's repair records revealed that it had persistent problems with carburetor icing that had been patched but not fully repaired prior to the fateful flight, making mechanical failure the most likely cause of the crash.
All statements can be verified via the Glenn Miller Archives at the University of Colorado.
Also one spelling grumble: the possessive form of "it" is ITS rather than "it's".
Those two typos are 12 years old. They have aged well.
ReplyDeleteHowever I really like what you had to say about the dropped-bomb hypothesis. That is fascinating! Also that's new information to me about the other AAF orchestras. Great detail.
I corrected some details in the post.