75 years ago, king of swing vanished over English Channel
WASHINGTON — The news broke most places on Christmas Day 1944, crammed onto front pages amid the blaring war headlines: Glenn Miller was missing.
The legendary American big band leader, whose music cheered the warweary and thrilled a generation, had vanished over the English Channel while flying from Britain to France.
He had been missing for 10 days, and for part of that time no one realized he was overdue.
Seventy-five years ago this month, in one of the strangest episodes of World War II, the U.S. military “lost” Maj. Glenn Miller, the king of swing and one of the biggest stars of his era.
It took four days before top officers discovered that Miller, without authorization, had hitched a ride on a small plane with a friend and a 22-year-old pilot, had flown into foul weather and probably crashed, according to historian Dennis Spragg.
Based in England, Miller was going to France to arrange for his Army Air Force band’s move to Paris, now that the allies had shoved the Germans back during World War II.
A missing-aircrew report was filed for the plane Dec. 16 when it did not radio its arrival, Spragg said. But military officials did not know that Miller was aboard and considered the report routine. “Nobody connects it with Miller,” he said.
Plus, the report was eclipsed by the gigantic German attack the same day that began the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium and France.
It was only when Miller failed to meet his band in Paris a few days later that people realized he might be missing.
“When Glenn wasn’t there to meet us, I knew something was wrong,” recalled Carmen Mastrin, a guitarist in Miller’s band, according to Geoffrey Butcher’s history of the band’s war years. “He had gone on ahead to make arrangements for us and I knew he would accomplish what he started to do.”
Spragg said after one top U.S. staff officer was briefed, he exploded: “How the hell did we lose Glenn Miller!”
It was a monumental embarrassment, as well as a tragedy.
Miller had been the top bandleader in the United States for years, and the Army Air Forces band he put together abroad in 1944 may have been the best big band ever assembled, Spragg said.
Staffed with the best musicians in the service, it was “a juggernaut entertainment machine,” he said.
Miller’s recordings of pieces such as the jazzy, foot-stomping “In the Mood” and the romantic “Moonlight Serenade,” along with “American Patrol,” “A String of Pearls” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” made up the soundtrack for a generation and became embedded in the
American music psyche.
“Between ’38 and ’42 he had ... more charted stuff than anybody in history,” Spragg said.
The single-engine aircraft in which he was a passenger had left an air base near Bedford, England, on Dec. 15 about 1:45 p.m. Miller was accompanied by an acquaintance, Lt. Col. Norman Francis Baessell, and the pilot, Flight Officer John R.S. Morgan, according to Spragg’s 2017 book “Glenn Miller Declassified.”
Morgan had filed a flight plan but probably didn’t know he would have the famous Miller as a passenger, Spragg said in a telephone interview. Miller, for his part, was a VIP. He was supposed to stick to the military’s regularly scheduled passenger transports, and keep the brass informed of his whereabouts.
But the English weather had grounded scheduled flights, and Miller was in a hurry to get to Paris. Baessell had a plane and a pilot and was also in a hurry to get to France. He offered Miller a ride.
The War Department, after realizing that Miller was missing, investigated for six days and notified Miller’s wife, Helen, in Tenafly, New Jersey, on Dec. 23.
An official announcement on Christmas Eve made most papers on Christmas.
Alton Glenn Miller was a musical giant of his day, with a status like that of the Beatles for a later generation. And his loss was akin to the sudden deaths of John Lennon, Michael Jackson or Prince.
Miller joined the Army in 1942.
He formed a 50-piece Army Air Force Band, took it to England in the summer of 1944 and gave hundreds of performances, according to author Jeffrey Benton. He was often joined by other stars of the time, including Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore.