After departing from RAF Twinwood Airfield in Bedfordshire, UK, a single-engine aircraft carrying trombonist and bandleader Glenn Miller goes missing over the English Channel. Miller was traveling to France for a congratulatory performance for American troops in Paris.

Miller, the biggest star on the American pop-music scene in the years immediately preceding World War II, set aside his brilliant career right at its peak in 1942 to serve his country as leader of the USAAF dance band.

General James Doolittle of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), hero of the daring “Doolittle Raid” on mainland Japan and later the unified commander of Allied air forces in Europe in World War II, offered the following high praise to one of his staff officers in 1944: “Next to a letter from home, Captain Miller, your organization is the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations.”

It would be difficult to overstate the magnitude of Glenn Miller’s success in the years immediately preceding America’s entry into World War II. Though he was a relatively unspectacular instrumentalist himself—he’d played the trombone in various prominent orchestras but never distinguished himself as a performer—Miller the bandleader came to dominate the latter portion of the swing era on the strength of his disciplined arrangements and an innovation in orchestration that put the high-pitched clarinet on the melody line doubled by the saxophone section an octave below.

This trademark sound helped the Glenn Miller Orchestra earn an unprecedented string of popular hits from 1939 to 1942, including the iconic versions of numbers like “In The Mood” (1939), “Tuxedo Junction” (1939) and “Chattanooga Choo Choo” (1941), as well as Miller’s self-penned signature tune, “Moonlight Serenade” (1939). 

The Glenn Miller Orchestra played its last-ever concert under Miller’s direction on September 27, 1942, in Passaic, New Jersey, and shortly thereafter, Miller entered the Army. After nearly two years spent stateside broadcasting a weekly radio program called I Sustain The Wings out of New York City, Miller formed a new 50-piece USAAF dance band and departed for England in the summer of 1944, giving hundreds of performances to Allied troops over the next six months before embarking on his fateful trip to France on this day in 1944.

In fact, his first airfield concert, was at the 306th Bomb Group at Thurleigh on July 14, 1944. 3,500 men sat on the dirt floor, on the wings of planes and on the lofty
beams overhead with the opening song being “Moonlight Serenade”. Miller and his USAAF Band often played at the Corn Exchange in Bedford.

The wreckage of Miller’s plane was never found. His official military status remains Missing in Action.

At the Twinwood Museums, there is a Glenn Miller Exhibit in the original RAF control tower. It was one of the stops on the 5-day tour that 21 members of the 306th BGHA took in August, 2022.

December 15, 2023