Amid big-band fame, Glenn Miller also served in the Army

Born in Clarinda, Iowa, Miller’s teenage life is sketchy. He lived in North Platte, Neb.; Grant City, Okla.; and Fort Morgan, Colo., before taking a brief and unsuccessful fling at college.

Perhaps because most of his high school energies went toward the trombone and football, he flunked three of his five classes at the University of Colorado. He still counted college as a success, inasmuch as he met and married a UC coed, Helen Burger.

His military career path was as sketchy as his childhood. He attempted to join the Navy but was turned down. He was accepted by the Army on Oct. 8, 1942. However, December 1942 found him at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Ala., as a special services officer — in the U.S. Army Air Forces.

Major Miller went missing in action on Dec. 15, 1944, but the public wasn’t informed until December 24, 1944 — concurrent, but unrelated, to another event across the English Channel — the Battle of the Bulge.

Purists will note Miller’s fast progression in rank, all the way to major in just two years. That he entered the service as a captain sheds some light. That his first name was Glenn is even more enlightening.

The public was shocked when Alton Glenn Miller walked away from his lucrative band-leading business and joined the military. After all, his band and music tours had already sold war bonds by the thousands of dollars.

The most popular dance-band leader of his time had the answer: “Selling war bonds is not a sufficient show of patriotism for an able-bodied man.”

Miller formed and commanded the 418th USAAF Band in 1943. Operating from the campus of Yale University, the band toured and performed across the country. They also presented a Saturday evening program, “I Sustain the Wings.”

They sold a lot of Chesterfields, but that’s another story.

Even though Miller’s swingy rendition of John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” raised a few Army eyebrows at the outset, the recruiting and morale-building value of his iconic music was never in doubt.

He took his newly-formed 50-piece USAAF band to England in the summer of 1944, where they gave over 800 performances for homesick GIs. Miller’s music was carried by the Armed Forces Radio Network and British Broadcasting Company.

“Next to a letter from home, that (Miller’s music) was the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations,” Gen. Jimmy Doolittle said.

On Dec. 15, 1944, Miller left England for Paris aboard a small Army aircraft. He planned to make travel and logistical arrangements for his entire band to record a performance in Paris to be broadcast on Christmas Day.

Instead, both The New York Times and Greensboro Daily News ran this news item on Christmas Day, 1944: “Major Glenn Miller, director of the USAAF Band, is missing on a flight from England to Paris … no trace of the plane has been found.”

As to what really happened to Glenn Miller continues to be open season for history revisionists.

Glenn Miller’s music defined music for a generation. Fans dated, danced, fell in love and married to tunes such as “In the Mood,” “Sunrise Serenade,” “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and Moonlight Serenade.”

“I grew up with that music, we played it every day on the Wurlitzer juke box in Curry School gym,” World War II Navy Corpsman J.C. White said.

Retired music minister and Air Force veteran Winn White has this perception: “There was no other music or sound like it — easy listening music at its finest.”

Miller felt the same way. “I think a band ought to have a sound all its own,” he said.

For retired accountant and Marine Corps veteran, Ben Craven, Glenn Miller music isn’t history — it’s alive and well — in his family room. Limited Edition, No. 527 with 10 long-plays and Limited Edition, Volume 2, No. 870, with five long-plays, can still make for an enchanted evening.

Jimmy Stewart starred in the 1953 movie, “The Glenn Miller Story.” Miller’s star is in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has a memorial stone in Arlington National Cemetery.