Glenn Miller
Footnote to the wartime mystery
Glenn Miller, the famous band leader, disappeared in December 1944 and it is assumed his plane ditched in the English Channel. A similar mystery attended the loss of Amelia Earhart in 1937. But but why did no one notice that Glenn Miller had vanished for a whole week?
Brits know the story of Emiliano Sala, the Argentinian footballer who came down in the Channel onboard an unregulated and unlicenced plane in 2019. Glenn Miller also took a chance on an opportune quick flight to France. The day: 15 December 1944. The time: about 1.30 in the afternoon. The place: Bedford, England. Reported Missing in Action: 23 December 1944.
One of my old colleagues has moved into a Retirement Home in Bedford England. It is called, locally, The Glen Miller House. In latter 1944, Miller and his 51-member band stayed there at the express wish of General Eisenhower. That word ‘wish’ is deliberate. British troops could not be placed under a foreign command; so, Churchill’s solution to the Supreme Allied Commander was simple: ‘If General Eisenhower would kindly frame his orders as wishes, be sure that his wishes will be treated as orders.’
Eisenhower wished Miller and his band to play for him at the Palace of Versailles on Christmas Day 1944. Yes, Eisenhower took over the Palace of Versailles from the day of the Liberation of Paris in August 1944 until February 1945. Previously, he had commandeered the Dorchester Hotel in London and kept a secret hideout at Telegraph Cottage in Kingston on the outskirts of the capital; and, like Harry and Meghan’s Frogmore Cottage at Windsor, this was no rude bothy but 10 acres of secure luxury. King George VI and the British Royal Family lived on the same rations as common people. Eisenhower dined on take-outs from The States.
So, Miller was under pressure to get himself and his band to France. However, military operations and bad weather delayed their departure twice. When offered the quick fix of a four-seater light aircraft that afternoon of 15 December, he took it in a rush. The band could follow later.
This flight was unregistered and unauthorised and arranged on the phone at short notice. A few people knew what going on and thought of it as a wartime secret. It turned out, days later, that Miller never arrived at his destination. No wreckage was found and no remains.
What about the weather on 15 December? Not good but not too bad at first. Southern England looked the same as Northern France in December – grey, grey, grey, heavy cloud. Further to the east, weather proved much worse. Reconnaissance flights could not take off along the Ardennes front between Belgium and Luxembourg. Had planes got into the air, despite the poor visibility, they might have noticed a large number of German troops gathering on their Front Line.
At 05.30 hours on 16 December, one thousand nine hundred German guns announced the Ardennenoffensive and 400,000 troops bore down on the understrength Americans who were in R&R mode. Well, the war was over wasn’t it?
No one gave much thought to a missing bandmaster for several days. His popular memorial appeared ten years later when the Big Movie for Christmas 1954 came out: it was The Glen Miller Story with James Stewart playing Glenn Miller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glenn_Miller_Story
Stephen Colbourn stevebkk0@gmail.com
15 Dec 2022
