Bing Crosby WW2 secret weapon

“Stars and Stripes” , London, Wednesday, September 6, 1944, page 4

WAR-KRAFT MUSIC HALL

BING CROONS, NAZIS SWOON – AT LEAST PWB HOPES SO

By Robert Musel 
United Press Staff Writer

While Hitler fooled around with buzz-bombs and pickaback planes the U. S. unleashed a real secret weapon at Germany – Der Bingle. Der Bingle is what the Germans call it. Back home it’s Bing Crosby.

Der Bingle was launched at the Wehrmacht from the studio of the American Broadcasting System in Europe. It was beautiful to see and hear, and experts of the Psychological Warfare Bureau said its effect would be beautiful too.

Der Bingle astounded front-line observers by using reasonably good German. Since he doesn’t speak German, Der Bingle was asked how come. “I don’t do it with mirrors”, he said, “I do it with phonetics”. 

Bing, consulting his phonetic chart, began “Hello German soldiers. Here speaks Bing Crosby. I’ve just arrived from America – the country where nobody is afraid of the Gestapo, where everybody has the right to say and write what he thinks”. Der Bingle, rippling through Teutonic gutterals with complete ease, told the Germans about the constitutional right of pursuit of happiness, adding “I hope sincerely that our rights and freedoms soon will be observed again in your country. That’s what we Americans are fighting for”.

Letting this sink in, Der Bingle signaled Cpl. Jack Russin, pianist of Major Glenn Miller’s band, and said “But I didn’t come here to preach. I came here to sing a few songs”. Bing then sang “Going My Way” from the film of the same name in which he starred, except that the lyrics were cleverly twisted so that the sense of the song was “come with me” – meaning out of Hitlerland and back to the free world.

After that, because many Europeans, such as forced laborers in Germany, understand some French, Bing did “The Last Time I Saw Paris”. His phonetic French was not bad either, but possibly because of the overwhelming effect of using the language for the first time, Crosby seemed to sound a little bit like Charles Boyer. 

A typist passing by asked what was going on.

“Bing Crosby is singing to the Nazis” she was told. 

“What kind of punishment is that?” she asked.

The Very Thought of You-1934

Glenn Miller's Army Air Corp band remembered

This is from “Stars and Stripes”, London, Monday, August 21, 1944, page 2. The headline was "THE KIND OF BRASS WE GO FOR GI FEET TAP OUT HIS PAYCHECK AS MILLER PLAYS IT HOT, SWEET" By Peter Lisagor Stars and Stripes Staff Writer.

A LIBERATOR BASE, Aug. 20 – Maj. Glenn Miller, still scorching his trombone with sweet breaks, has brought his magical arrangements and a 45-man band of GIs to the swing-hungry ETO, and if luck holds he hopes to offer two Continental concerts for an all soldier audience – in Paris and Berlin. In a room marked “Gentlemen” – the only place he could be separated from throngs of idolators and autograph seekers (it was crowded but the jostling was more purposeful) – Miller told how thrilled he was by his present mission. “Gen. Doolittle put it best,” Miller said “when he told us that every soldier over here is bucking for one thing – to get home. He can’t do that until the job is done, so the next best thing is to bring a little bit of home to him. That’s our mission”.

By way of fulfilling it, Miller confines his concerts to the old familiar tunes, each with their thousands of memories for the soldier. “They haven’t heard the new tunes” he explained, “but ‘String of Pearls’, ‘In the Mood’, ‘Cow-Cow Boogie’, ‘Moonlight Serenade’ and ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ remind them of the days and nights they treasured. And the lads eat it up”.

Miller, whose band was tops in the U. S. for three years before he volunteered for the Army, he was over age at the time, used to count the house in civilian life – “every head meant about 60 cents to me” – but now, he says, his reward comes from the eager faces, alive and thankful for the memories. “The best night’s pay I ever got was watching those faces light up when we played,” he said. “I feel now as though I am doing something very worthwhile.”

He wants no controversy with Sigmund Romberg and the other long-haired musicians back home who claim the GI will want musical sedatives other than jive after the war. His answer is simply “let them bring that kind of music over here and see for themselves.”

Miller thinks his GI band is better than the one that brought him fame in the States. He has a string section of 20 men – drawn from the Cleveland, Boston and New York Philharmonic orchestras – so called “long-hairs” who, as one of them put it, are delighted because Miller is a real musician and he knows what those boys out there want.”

Five members of the band played with Miller as civilians – among them S/Sgt. Jimmy Priddy on the trombone, M/Sgt. Zeke Zerchy on the trumpet and S/Sgt. “Trigger” Alpert on the bass. Pianist Sgt. Mel Powell was with Benny Goodman. S/Sgt. Hank Freeman was first sax with Artie Shaw, Sgt. Bobby Nichols was a trumpeter with Vaughn Monroe, Sgt. Bernie Privin played trumpet with Charlie Barnet, Goodman and Shaw and Sgt. Carmen Mastren was a guitarist with Tommy Dorsey. One of them, T/Sgt. Ray McKinley, led a well-known band of his own after years on the drums with the Dorsey Bros. and later with Jimmy Dorsey’s crew, and his drum solo is the highlight of the Miller program.

Also in the organization – which is really a complete radio production outfit – are T/Sgt. Jerry Gray, an arranger with both Miller and Shaw in civilian life, who wrote “String of Pearls” and “Here We Go Again” and made the famous arrangements of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” for Miller and “Begin the Beguine” for Shaw; arrangers S/Sgt. Ralph Wilkinson, with Raymond Page and Andre Kostelanetz, and M/Sgt. Norman Leyden, who directed the music for Moss Hart’s “Winged Victory.” Lt. Don Haynes, Miller’s civilian manager, is his Army “booking agent.”

At this base, the heavy bomber group under Col. Luther J. Fairbanks of Burt, Iowa celebrated its 100th mission – and Miller’s band was the big event. In a giant hangar more than 3,000 GIs and their gals weaved and writhed like an agitated sea as Miller and his men went “In the Mood”. This was a Saturday night in Duluth, Atlanta, Portland, Punxutawney, Pa., and 3,000 other places in America, and one look at the sea of faces explained Miller’s “it’s the best night pay I ever got.”

Listen to the 1943 Christmas radio broadcast.

To buy Glenn Miller music CLICK HERE

News of a big band concert in Port Colborne, Canada, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012 with the  Toronto All-Star Big Band. They will take the stage with a joyful Christmas concert.... A Swingin’ Christmas.
The show promises to capture the warmth, joy and magic of the holiday season and feature songs from Bing Crosby, Glenn Miller and other celebrated favorites. The group will also perform a famous rendition of songs from The Nutcracker. Here they play "Jumpin' At The Woodside."

The Toronto All-Star Big Band is renowned for its revival of 1930s and 1940s big band jazz music.
Christmas is “all about happiness and love and joy, and giving,” said the band’s artistic director, Zygmunt Jedrzejek, adding the group’s performance at the Roselawn Centre will be infused with all those things.

While most currently popular tribute bands strive to emulate such groups as The Beatles, Rolling Stones or ABBA, the Toronto All-Star Big Band plays the music of early 20th-century jazz greats as they would have performed it themselves.

“The authenticity, I think, is what draws the people,” he said, adding many still love the music of jazz’s golden era, and the band loves playing it.

Though the Toronto Big Band usually attracts middle-aged and more mature adults, Jedrzejek said he thinks about how to draw younger generations to listen to the tunes of jazz’s golden age. There are many subgenres of jazz, such as swing.

“The idea is, how do we show young people where the tradition started?”
The concert runs from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. To order tickets, please call the Roselawn Centre box office at 905-834-7572. Box office hours are Tuesday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Read the full article by CLICKING HERE.

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