Issue 38.13
Music is important to humans from the cradle to the grave. Time in the military is no exception. From our first days in the military, we sang songs. On a long march was an especially good time to sing. Anyone in a flight or platoon could start singing and all of the rest of the guys would chime in. Of course, being in the Air Corps, we would often sing “Off we go into the wild blue yonder” and “Here’s a toast to the host of the men we boast, The Army Air Corps”. I think everyone’s favorite that we sang most often was “Let me call you sweetheart”. All through training and then in combat, we sang songs. Occasionally, while yet gaining altitude going over the channel on the start of a mission, we would sing a song over the intercom. The military always had some poets who would make parades for popular songs. We had parodies for all of the popular songs. To the melody of “I’ll walk alone” we sang “I’ll bomb Cologne, With my Mickey and my Gbox to guide me and with ten tenths coverage to hide me, I’ll bomb Cologne”. To the melody of “The battle hymn of the republic”, we sang “Oh, when the war is over, we will all enlist again. Oh, when the war is over, we will all enlist again. Oh, when the war is over we will all enlist again. We will like hell we will.
Second verse. We were only, only foolin’ (three times). We were like hell we were. There were many great songs that came out of the war years but in my opinion the best song from those years was a German song, entitled “Lilly Marlene”. The first line went “Underneath the lamp light by the barracks gate”. That was very popular on both sides of the English Channel perhaps because it was such a sad song.
We Americans had our own radio station in England which was known as the American Forces Network. One person owned a radio so we would all gather around and listen to the disk jockey, Johnny Mercer, sing his theme song and then spin the best and latest records. We even borrowed a song from the RA F about “I’ve got six pence”.
In the evenings when not flying a mission, we could listen to German radio and hear “Lord Haw Haw” give his propaganda. On one of his broadcasts, he said “We welcome Lt. Parnell’s crew and we hope you see the Luftwaffe in days to come”. He even listed the names of the crewmen. He always played the latest American hits.
There was a song that all soldiers sang. One of about twenty verses went “The biscuits in the army, they say are very fine. One rolled off the table and killed a pal of mine. Oh I don’t want no more of Army life, Hey Ma, I wanna go. Where the heck do ya wanna go? Gee Ma I wanna go home”.
Of course we listened to the big bands but Glenn Miller was there in the U.K. until he got killed. One of our favorite singers to listen to was the English songstress, Vera Lynn. She had a live hour long program on the BBC every Tuesday at 4 PM. Once when we were coming home from a mission at the right time, and were over the channel, Wally, our radio operator tuned her in and put her on the intercom so the whole crew could listen to her golden voice singing songs like “There’ll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover (someday just you wait and see)” and “We’ll Meet Again (don’t know where, don’t know when).”