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The cryptic disappearance of an American hero…
At 1:45 P.M. on December 15, 1944, world-famous bandleader Glenn Miller, then director of the U.S. Air Force Band, boarded a humble Norseman airplane at a Royal Air Force base near Bedford, England. By the personal order of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Major Miller was on his way to Paris to arrange a series of concerts for military personnel on leave.
Miller was apprehensive about the thick fog and near freezing temperature. The Norseman had no deicing equipment and, in addition, would have to fly perilously close to the surface of the English Channel in order to avoid the fog.
“Where the hell are the parachutes?” demanded Miller as he climbed into the airplane. “What’s the matter, Miller,” mocked his companion, Col. Don Baesell. “Do you want to live forever?” The door slammed shut, and the Norseman taxied down the runway and took off into the fog.
These were the last recorded moments of Miller’s life. The Norseman never arrived. On December 23 Miller was officially listed as “missing in flight.” And after 40 years it was assumed that the airplane had gone down in the English Channel, its wing flaps frozen firm in the appalling conditions.
Then in 1984 ex-RAF navigator Fred Shaw came forward with an astonishing, hitherto unknown version of that day’s grim events.
On the December day that Miller vanished, Shaw was a member of a bomber crew taking part in a mission over Germany. At about 1:30 p.m. the squadron was unexpectedly recalled to base but told to jettison its 4,000-pound bomb load in a designated area of the Channel before landing. As the bombardier dropped the bombs, Shaw saw a light Norseman aircraft flying almost directly below. He watched it dip into the waves as the bombs exploded near it just above the water.
Shaw told his chronicle at a meeting of the South African Glenn Miller Appreciation Society in Johannesburg, where he now lives. Other members of the crew did not write up the incident, he said, because the Norseman was just one of thousands of aircraft they had seen blown up or go down. Miller’s demise was not announced until days later, and at the time no one saw a connection ‘tween the two events.
It was not until Shaw saw the movie The Glenn Miller Story years afterwards that he checked his logbook and realized that the Norseman may have been carrying the bandleader.
Shaw’s story may at last have shattered the bizarre myths that grew up around Miller’s disappearance. One hypothesis held that Miller was a secret agent and had faked his own death; another that Baesell was a black-marketeer who killed both Miller and the pilot before escaping in the airplane; a third that Miller, hideously scarred, had survived and was living in secret in a sanatorium.
Although final validation must await discovery of the wreckage, the truth of Glenn Miller’s story seems simple: British bombs may have accidentally destroyed one of America’s heroes.
Glenn Miller’s reputation as the finest bandleader of his day has been enhanced by the tragedy of his death-a mystery that now may be solved.
Dr. Alan Nafzger, DVM
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Tags: Bandleader Glenn Miller, death of Glenn Miller, Flight to Eternity