Qualifications

I want to assure my readers that though I am four generations removed from the Greatest Generation, I am qualified to write about World War II. I’ve read all of Winston Churchill’s volumes on the war, William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, dozens of other WWII histories and multiple biographies of all the major players, both politicians and the top brass. I’ve visited several WWII memorial museums, including Churchill’s War Room, the Bayeux Museum (Normandy), the USS Arizona Memorial, the Hiroshima Peace Museum and Dachau. My French-side grandparents lived through the occupation, first under the Italians, then in more brutal circumstances under the Germans, and shared their horror stories with me.

Most importantly, I’ve watched Casablanca, The Bridge Over the River Kwai and The Best Years of Our Lives a dozen times and one of my most cherished possessions is a complete DVD set of Combat! Sgt. Saunders rocks!

My interest in war history is based largely on my firm belief that war is the dumbest fucking activity ever conceived by human beings and an insatiable need to understand how those involved coped or failed to cope with the ultimate absurdity.

Motivations

The findings from a recent Ipsos poll taken before the American election indicate that 80% of the people in the thirty countries surveyed believe our world has become more dangerous. The authors also noted that only 21% of survey participants predicted that a Trump victory “would help make the globe more secure.”

Duh.

As Anne Applebaum noted in an opinion piece in The Atlantic, tensions are now rising in Europe (and all around the world) because Americans were pissed off about the price of eggs.

In addition to the fact that Americans have chosen a government filled with climate-change deniers fully committed to supplanting China as the world’s #1 polluter, what worries me is that there are too many parallels between our time and the 1930s to dismiss the possibility that World War III is right around the corner:

• Global Disruption: Both the 1930s and our period in history were marked by events involving worldwide economic and social disruption: the Great Depression of the 1930s and the COVID-19 pandemic in our time.
• Regional Conflicts: During the 30s Japan invaded Manchuria and eventually all of China; Mussolini conquered Ethiopia; Hitler bullied his way through largely bloodless conquests of Austria and Czechoslovakia; historians would define the Spanish Civil War as the prelude to World War II. We have Ukraine vs. Russia, multiple conflicts in the Middle East, deadly civil wars in Africa, gang violence in Haiti and Mexico and seemingly endless terrorist attacks.
• Major Power Tensions: Relations between the nations who became the Allies and those who formed the Axis gradually soured throughout the 1930s. In our time, similar patterns have emerged in the relationship between the EU countries and Russia and with the U.S. and China.
• The Rise of Authoritarianism: In both eras, these developments triggered severe anxiety among the populace in several countries, igniting a yearning for  “order.” The anxieties of the 30s led to the rise of authoritarians in several countries (Germany, Italy, Poland, Austria, Spain), a development facilitated by industry titans. Today we are witnessing an explosion of anti-democratic movements all over the world with the active support of tech bros and Vladimir Putin, who employ technology to spread disinformation in the style of Joseph Goebbels. Their tactics are straight out of the chaos agent playbook: build fear in the populace and distrust of existing institutions and you open the golden path to power.
• Scapegoating: The far-right leaders of the 30s found convenient scapegoats in Europe’s Jewish population, and antisemitism was common even in the democracies. Though we have not experienced anything close to the horrors of the Holocaust (denied by many on the far right), antisemitism is on the rise (on both the left and right in France), and other minority groups (gays, transexuals, non-whites, immigrants) face persecution in several countries. Gays (and liberals) in the United States began arming themselves in anticipation of Trump 2.0.
• Saber-Rattlers and Weaklings: World War II was ignited by three countries with voracious appetites for territorial acquisitions: Germany, Japan and Italy. Leaders of those countries were confident of success because they viewed the major democracies as weak and reluctant to go to war. Today there are three countries with similar aggressive tendencies (Russia, China and the United States) and weak, unpopular leaders in the democracies. According to the Global Leader Approval Ratings in January 2025, only three out of twenty-five democracies reported satisfaction levels above 50% and two of those leaders are in the honeymoon period.
• The Doomsday Clock: This morning I scanned the news and learned that The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the clock closer to midnight than ever before—to 89 seconds.

Dark times lie ahead, but historical precedents also give us a thin ray of hope.

Though it may seem ironically nostalgic today, the United States emphatically resisted the 1930s trend toward fascism and took a hard turn in the opposite direction. Like all presidents, FDR had his flaws and made several remarkably bad decisions, but his greatest achievement was to build a collective sense of optimism that Americans could meet the many challenges they faced. Instead of exploiting their fears with stories of Haitians eating dogs, he asserted his “firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” More than any other factor, that can-do spirit inspired Americans to survive some very tough times and become the most powerful and (for a while) most benevolent country on earth.

That unyielding optimism can be found in the As Time Goes By: World War II Songs. The compilation is largely American-centric, but that’s a good thing given where we are right now. Though the United States in the 1930s and 1940s still had a long way to go to achieve racial harmony and recognize women as equals, the citizenry came together to fight the twin plagues of the Great Depression and World War II (except for a few crackpots like Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin). That kind of unity is hard to imagine in today’s United States, with Americans irrevocably divided over value conflicts and both major parties relying on fear and demonization of the other side to motivate their supporters. Too many American politicians see bipartisanship as treason; compromise has become a dirty word. At this point, leaders capable of bridging the divide and facilitating unity have yet to emerge. The country that forged the United Nations is now one of the greatest threats to world peace and stability.

With only 780 subscribers I hardly qualify as an “influencer,” but I write this piece in the hope that at least a few Americans might learn something by engaging with the music of World War II—that if they truly want to make America great again, they need to choose collaboration over conflict, hope over despair, empathy over confrontation, optimism over pessimism and live up to the official motto of the United States. E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one.

I know it won’t be easy, but y’all need to Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive.

The Collection, The Musicians Strike and V-Discs

As Time Goes By contains a whopping sixty-five tracks; this review will cover “only” twenty-nine and will be split into two parts. In keeping with my intent to examine the wartime experience, I eliminated most of the songs that have nothing to do with the war except for a few that I found weirdly relevant. Some songs appear twice in the compilation, performed by different artists, so I chose my favorite of the two. Though I’ve already covered the songs by The Andrews Sisters, it didn’t feel right to do a World War II music review without them, so I’ve included the relevant songs from that review, making a few minor edits to fit the larger narrative. Most WWII compilations seem to have been assembled by people who believed the Americans won the war single-handedly, but this collection contains some important contributions from the British. For a deeper dive into how music helped the Brits keep those upper lips nice and stiff, I recommend the set Songs & Music of World War II.

In 1940s America, FDR considered music (and baseball) essential to maintaining morale during the war. The patriotic music of the era brims with confidence in eventual victory. Even left-wing folkies like Woody Guthrie joined the fight against fascism—the Smithsonian collection of folk songs of the era is titled “That’s Why We’re Marching.” Of course, many of the songs deal with separation from loved ones, but the melancholy expressed in those songs is tempered by a fervent belief that Johnny will come marching home.

Alas, even FDR couldn’t entirely protect the music industry from the actions of one stubborn union leader.

It is something of a miracle that any compilations of American WWII music exist. When James Caesar Petrillo (emphasis on Caesar) took over as leader of the American Federation of Musicians in 1940, one of his goals involved securing royalty payments for union musicians who performed on recordings but received no compensation from the lucrative profits earned via jukeboxes. Predictably, the major labels told Petrillo to piss off, and in early June 1942 when Petrillo announced the musicians would strike on July 31, the music moguls thought he was bluffing. Surely Petrillo would not deprive the nation of new music during wartime! How unpatriotic! By the time July 1 rolled around and the union leader showed no signs of backing down and turned a deaf ear to FDR’s entreaties to cancel the strike, the labels shifted into panic mode and brought in all their star performers to make as many recordings as humanly possible in thirty days.

When the stockpile of pre-strike recordings started to shrink around mid-1943, the labels began re-releasing older recordings dating as far back as 1925 (!) in a desperate attempt to keep filling the coffers. When they ran out of the old stuff, they decided to simplify the recording process by eliminating the orchestras and supporting their star singers with backing vocalists. The vocalists had been gaining prominence anyway and many big band musicians had marched off to war (voluntarily or not). Combined with wartime travel restrictions that made touring virtually impossible, the strike hastened the end of the Big Band Era (and made it harder for returning soldier-musicians to find work in the post-war period).

Petrillo made one concession with plenty of strings attached. He allowed union musicians to record on V-Discs, a record label created by the Special Services branch of the military assigned with the task of keeping up morale in the ranks by providing entertainment. Many of the era’s most popular musicians recorded V-Discs for the troops, which were mailed to bases and ships in 30-disc sets (reduced to 20 in 1944 due to a shortage of shellac). The recordings often opened with spoken word messages from the artist: “This is Captain Glenn Miller speaking for the Army Air Force’s Training Command Orchestra and we hope that you soldiers of the Allied forces enjoy these V-Discs that we’re making just for you.” V-Discs were enormously popular with the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen—as were the films of the World Series and baseball equipment sent to the front lines.

Petrillo agreed to allow V-Discs as long as the recordings were not sold or used for any commercial purpose and at the end of the war all masters and V-Discs were to be destroyed. Because the United States kept thousands of troops in Europe after the war to stem the spread of Communism, the V-Disc program continued until 1949. The FBI and the Provost Marshal’s Office took Petrillo’s gotchas very seriously, confiscating V-Discs taken home by veterans and sending one guy to prison when they discovered his collection of 2500 V-Discs. Apparently the feds didn’t find them all, because you can now purchase V-Disc collections featuring nearly all the big stars of the era. My guess is that instead of trying their hand at smuggling contraband, some horny GIs substituted V-Discs for Hershey bars as gifts to mademoiselles in their endless search for pussy (Europeans were exempt from prosecution).

FDR again tried to get Petrillo to back down in late 1944 but he refused; a few months later, the last two holdouts (RCA Victor and Columbia) gave into the union leader’s demands and the longest strike in the history of the United States came to an end.

****

The Lights Go Out in Europe While Americans Feel a Draft (1939-1941)

Vera Lynn, “We’ll Meet Again” (1939): When comparing the various WWII collections I applied several criteria, but only one was an automatic knockout: if it ain’t got Vera Lynn, fugghetaboutit.

Born in East Ham at the height of World War I to a working-class family, Vera Welch began singing at the age of seven. Upon turning eleven, she left school to pursue a musical career, adopting her maternal grandmother’s maiden name (Lynn). Vera found plenty of work in troupes and touring bands throughout the 30s, appeared on a few band recordings and made her first solo record in 1936 when she was nineteen.

When Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, the British government launched Operation Pied Piper, sending 1.5 million urban dwellers (children, mothers with infants the disabled) to rural locations believed to be safer. Two days later, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain informed his constituents of the decision to declare war against Germany in a broadcast from the Cabinet Room on Downing Street. According to the Imperial War Museum, “When Britain went to war on 3 September 1939 there was none of the ‘flag-waving patriotism’ of August 1914. The British people were now resigned to the fact that Hitler had to be stopped by force.”

“Resignation” is defined by Oxford Languages as “the acceptance of something undesirable or inevitable” and the example cited in the dictionary is “a shrug of resignation.” If you’re leading your troops into battle, the last thing you want is a bunch of shruggers in the ranks. Fighting for something is far more motivational than fighting against something (a lesson the Democrats failed to learn in the last election). In response to an attack on “sloppy sentimental rubbish” aired over the BBC by soldiers who felt that songs like “We’ll Meet Again” were lowering morale and should be replaced by “something more virile,” Vera argued that “We’ll Meet Again” “was reminding the boys of what they were really fighting for, the precious, personal things rather than the ideologies and theories.”

I would have responded, “Hey, dickhead, virility is what got you into this mess in the first place!” so be thankful I wasn’t around to start a war between the sexes.

I completely reject the notion that “We’ll Meet Again” is sentimental rubbish. It is a song of resilience and hope performed beautifully and empathetically by the woman described by the BBC as “one of the country’s potent symbols of resilience and hope.” When you listen to the song, you get the feeling that Vera is speaking to you and you alone, expressing sincere sadness regarding your imminent departure and genuine optimism regarding your eventual return. Vera had no formal training as a vocalist (the one teacher she attempted to engage described her voice as “unnatural”), which worked to her advantage—what you hear is pure heart and soul.

Vera spent the rest of the war performing on radio, singing to Londoners in the Underground during the Blitz and traveling to danger spots all around the world to entertain the troops. Once France had fallen, most of the world believed Britain was finished, but thanks to Churchill, the RAF and Vera Lynn, the country managed to pull through.

I should mention that the 1939 recording of “We’ll Meet Again” has earned a place in music history as one of the first recordings to use a synthesizer: the Hammond Novachord, played by Arthur Young. On the sour side, I feel obliged to mention that the 1953 version was used as background music for the nuclear holocaust depicted at the end of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.

Eighty-nine seconds . . . shee-it.

Kudos to YouTuber Marlin R. Taylor for posting the original 1939 version and enhancing the listening experience with photos of farewells.

Tony Martin, “The Last Time I Saw Paris” (1940): Hitler’s quick conquest of the Low Countries surprised no one, but the speedy collapse of France shocked the world. It also awakened Americans out of their isolationist slumber, as described in Michael S. Neiberg’s When France Fell:

Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson called it “the most shocking single event of the war.” . . . Veteran diplomat Robert Murphy observed that “never before or since” had one event “so stunned the entire world.” . . . Harold Ickes, the secretary of the interior, confided to his diary that “there is no doubt in my mind that this country is in the most critical situation since we won our independence.” . . . President Franklin Roosevelt said before an emergency joint session of Congress that it represented a major watershed in the history of the world, and one with dire consequences for the security of the United States. These observers were not talking about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the discovery of the horrors of the Holocaust, or the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but the stunning defeat of France in just six weeks in May and June 1940.

Neiberg, Michael S. (2021). When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance (Function). Kindle Edition.

Neiberg barely touched on the equally impactful cultural shock. Americans had engaged in a long love affair with Paris dating back to World War I. During the Roaring ’20s, an average of 400,000 Americans traveled to Paris every year (a period known as the Années folles in France—the “crazy years”). Many American literary figures, artists and performers temporarily relocated to Paris to enjoy the more vibrant artistic atmosphere of Montmartre and the Left Bank. For the well-to-do, the lure of Paris fashion was irresistible.

This Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II composition was written shortly after the Fall of France, and by the end of 1940, six versions found their way to the pop charts. I was delighted when I saw that the compilers had chosen Tony Martin’s take over Kate Smith’s, as I loathe her brassy voice and clumsy phrasing. Tony croons the song in his higher register, imbuing the nostalgic lyrics with Vera-Lynn-like sincerity. Hammerstein’s lyrics are a bit on the weak side, describing Paris as a lady (“romantic and charming”), expressing sadness about her disappearance and filling the rest of the song with cliché Parisian imagery (cafés and trees blossoming in spring). As temporary Parisian Gertrude Stein might have said, “There isn’t much there there,” but Tony successfully conveys the tragic loss of the City of Light in a performance drenched in melancholy.

“The Last Time I Saw Paris” appeared in the film Lady Be Good and won the Oscar for Best Original Song—an honor that raised Jerome Kern’s hackles. He felt (rightly) that because the song was not written for the movie and was published long before it hit the theatres, it shouldn’t have been nominated in the first place. His petition to get the Academy to tighten the rules was successful, but the Academy refused to retroactively rescind the award, which should have gone to . . .

The Andrews Sisters: “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” (1941):

Pearl Harbor was almost a year away when the Andrews Sisters recorded this track on January 2, 1941, but isolationist sentiments in the USA had begun to crumble after Guderian’s tanks made mincemeat out of the French and sent the BEF scurrying to Dunkirk. FDR took advantage of the shift in public opinion to push a peacetime draft through Congress, and on October 29, 1940, Secretary of Navy Frank Knox began drawing the numbers in the military lottery.

Hey! That guy in the back looks like Joseph Goebbels! I imagine he felt pretty comfortable with all those Aryans in the room.

Because many Americans hoped that FDR was telling the truth when he told them “I will not send American boys into any foreign wars” during the 1940 campaign (oops!), conscription was generally considered prudent rather than terrifying. Written by Don Raye and Hughie Prince (who also wrote the Sisters’ previous hit, “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar”) “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” was first introduced in the Abbott & Costello comedy flick Buck Privates, which premiered on January 31. The comedic orientation combined with an upbeat jump blues rhythm and playful lyrics served to reinforce American optimism and confirmed that despite the draft, the Swing Era was still . . . in full swing:

He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way
He had a boogie style that no one else could play
He was the top man at his craft
But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft
He’s in the army now, a blowin’ reveille
He’s the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B

They made him blow a bugle for his Uncle Sam
It really brought him down because he couldn’t jam
The captain seemed to understand
Because the next day the cap’ went out and drafted a band
And now the company jumps when he plays reveille
He’s the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B

A toot, a toot, a toot diddelyada toot
He blows it eight to the bar, in boogie rhythm
He can’t blow a note unless the bass and guitar is playin’ with ’em . . .

Now that they had a few years of recording experience under their girdles, The Andrews Sisters nailed this one. The slight awkwardness you hear in “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar” has vanished completely as the girls put their hearts, souls and boundless energies into their performance. The high-speed harmonies are seamless, and the phrasing is marked by remarkably fluid syncopation. Patty Andrews is absolutely amazing, dropping out of the flow to buzz like a bee and growl like a tenor sax. The dynamics are marvelous, with the sisters raising the energy a notch in the last verse and closing out the song in a glorious crescendo. Bette Midler did a nice job with her cover, but her intent was nostalgic and had no grounding in the reality of the times. The Andrews Sisters were there, living in an America on the verge of massive change and committing themselves to morale-building long before the first American shot was fired. Their version will always have a sincerity and immediacy that can never be matched, which is why it occupies the No. 6 spot in the Songs of the Century (and should have won the Academy Award that Jerome Kern didn’t want anyway).

A big thank you to YouTuber swinginkatz for posting the scene from the film!

You can learn more about Dorie Miller’s heroism here. 

Raise the Stars and Stripes and Break Out the Chastity Belts (1942)

From the Puget Sound Navy Museum: “On December 7, 1941, the Navy at Pearl Harbor planned to hold its baseball championships, involving teams from the battleship USS Arizona (BB 39) and the carrier USS Enterprise (CV 6). Enterprise’s return to port had been pushed back, delaying the ballgame. It would never be played. USS Arizona was sunk by Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and many of the ship’s ballplayers perished.”

Gazing down at the wreck of the USS Arizona in the Pearl Harbor Natural Memorial was one of the most chilling experiences of my life. I spent the rest of the day in my hotel room crying over those 1177 lost souls. There were many deaths on that date of infamy, including the death of American innocence.

Following the lead of American manufacturers who kicked into high gear after Pearl Harbor, the assembly lines in Tin Pan Alley cranked out patriotic songs galore to encourage Americans to rally around the flag. None of the patriotic songs qualify as musical or lyrical masterpieces but they were effective in terms of reminding people whose side they were on.

One of the overriding themes of World War II songs involved the deathly fear of female unfaithfulness (or male insecurity, if you prefer). Male singers wagged fingers at their girls and sang “You better be true to me” while female singers swore a commitment to chastity (sometimes with asterisks attached). In my review of The Andrews Sisters, I noted that lesbian bars sprouted up all over the place during the war and that “Many straight women even went out to the bars for an evening of fun; some of who became regulars and developed temporary lesbian relationships until their husbands returned from the war.” Eight years after the war, a Kinsey study of female sexuality reported that 62% of married women had masturbated, so we can infer that most wartime brides relieved themselves by jacking off rather than risk an affair and wind up pregnant.

What I didn’t know is that both the Axis and the Allies weaponized the fear of infidelity:

To demoralize enemy soldiers, both the Allies and the Axis Powers dropped propaganda over enemy camps. A theme common to both sides was to suggest soldiers’ partners were being unfaithful; for example, German propaganda would suggest that British wives were sleeping with the visiting Americans “while you are away” . . . However, these leaflets were ineffective on soldiers; many even used them as pinups.

And here’s the supporting evidence from The Chariot Journal:

Apparently I’m not the only person in human history for whom sex is the number one life priority. Knock me over with a feather!

Sammy Kaye & His Orchestra, “Remember Pearl Harbor”: This patriotic march was written by Don Reid and Sammy Kaye immediately after the attack and recorded a mere ten days later—and it shows. The tune is a ripoff from Sammy Kaye’s alma mater and the lyrics could have been written by a seventh-grader (“As into line we fall” may be the worst line in music history). I guess Don and Sammy forgot the Maine and remembered the Alamo because it rhymes with “foe.”

It’s important to remember that this is a perspective coming from an ex-American almost eighty-four years after the attack, but even I can admit that the song is a stirring call to arms that Americans needed to help them recover from the shock of a sneak attack and get ready to kick Yamomoto’s ass. Sammy Kaye’s “Glee Club” singers live up to their name, delivering a masculine performance reeking with confidence in eventual victory. The song was an immediate hit on the radio, on shellac and on sheet music (though I find it hard to believe anyone would need the sheet music to figure out the chords or the melody). Best of all, Sammy Kaye demonstrated his patriotism by donating $4000 of the song’s royalties to the Navy’s relief fund.

Thanks again to The 78 Prof for preserving the original on YouTube.

Jimmy Wakely, “There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere”: It may seem strange to us today, but in the first half of the 20th Century, many men wanted to not only serve in the armed forces but show their mettle by volunteering for a spot on the front lines. If you watched season two of Downton Abbey, you may be familiar with this dynamic, but Bob Feller’s story is more relevant in this context.

Bob Feller made it to the major leagues at the ripe old age of seventeen then proceeded to confound batters with his blazing fastball and a curveball that “isn’t human” (according to Joe DiMaggio). In 1941 he led the American League with six shutouts and the majors in wins, strikeouts, innings pitched and walks. Feller appeared in the May 12, 1941, edition of Life, where he was described as “unquestionably the idol of several generations of Americans, ranging in age from 7 to 70. They represent every city, town, and village in the land, speak of him familiarly as ‘Bob’, and talk about him by the hour, with enthusiasm.” (Wikipedia)

“Bullet Bob” was about to sign a new and likely more lucrative contract when he heard the news about Pearl Harbor. He enlisted in the Navy two days later.

Bob was exempted from combat duty because his father was dying of cancer, spending his first year in the military as a physical fitness instructor and occasional pitcher in games sponsored by the Navy. That wasn’t what he had in mind when he enlisted: “I told them I wanted to . . . get into combat; wanted to do something besides standing around handing out balls and bats and making ball fields out of coral reefs.” He became Gun Captain on the USS Alabama and fought in the Battle of Tarawa, the Battle of the Phillippine Sea and the North Atlantic. During his stint, he earned six campaign ribbons and eight battle stars.

After he was discharged at the end of the war, Bob was feted by Clevelanders at a civic luncheon. Speaking about his service, he brushed off the notion that he deserved to be called a hero: “The real heroes didn’t come home.”

And that, my friends, is the theme of “There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere”:

In this war with its mad schemes of destruction
Of our country fair and our sweet liberty
By the mad dictators, leaders of corruption
Can’t the U.S. use a mountain boy like me?
God gave me the right to be a free American,
And for that precious right I’d gladly die.
There’s a Star-Spangled Banner waving somewhere,
That is where I want to live when I die.

Though I realize I’m crippled, that is true, sir,
Please don’t judge my courage by my twisted leg.
Let me show my Uncle Sam what I can do, sir,
Let me help to bring the Axis down a peg.
If I do some great deed I will be a hero,
And a hero brave is what I want to be.
There’s a Star-Spangled Banner waving somewhere,
In that heaven there should be a place for me.

No, our country boy was not a suicidal maniac. He was willing to sacrifice himself so that others may live.

War sucks, period. In retrospect, one could argue that World War II might have never taken place had the Allies acted more forcefully in response to Hitler’s violations of the Versailles Treaty, but it’s equally likely that Hitler would have found a way around such obstacles—and I doubt if any form of sanctions or diplomacy would have stopped the Japanese in their quest to dominate the Asian continent. World War II is remembered as a “good war” because it was a fight against pernicious evil—a clear case of “it’s either them or us.” Bob Feller was one of over one hundred thousand men who volunteered immediately after Pearl Harbor because they knew their country was in danger and felt a sacred obligation to do something about it. It is true that most of the men who fought on behalf of the United States were draftees, but most accepted their fate and embraced the wisdom of Sgt. Saunders: “We have a job to do.”

And our leaders have a more important job—to do everything they can to prevent war so no one has to make the ultimate sacrifice.

“There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere” struck a chord with Americans, selling over a million copies and making it the best-selling country hit of the WWII era—but alas, it was not Jimmy Wakely who earned those honors but another country singer by the name of Elton Britt. Elton’s version was so popular that FDR invited him to the White House to perform the song for him. I have no idea why the compilers ignored the obvious choice, but I am going to exercise my veto powers and go with Elton Britt:

Kay Kyser & His Orchestra, “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”: Y’all might think that this atheist might go ape-shit about a song praising the lord. WRONG! Anyone stuck on the battlefield has the inalienable right to choose any practice, philosophy, lucky charm or substance that eases their fear, steels their courage or gives them greater odds of survival. Like many of the GIs, I would have been happy with the cigarettes the army thoughtfully included in the ration boxes but if my buddy beside me in the trenches wanted to call upon Jesus to help him get through the ordeal, that would have been a-okay with me!

By this time, you have likely put two and two together and figured out that one of the most unusual aspects of 1940s music is that it was common practice to release multiple versions of a song performed by different artists in close proximity to one another, with nearly all of them making the charts. This particular song was recorded by The Merry Macs (#8) and The Jubalaires (#10), but only the version released by the Ol’ Perfessor of the Kollege of Musical Knowledge topped the charts.

Kay Kyser was enormously popular throughout the late 30s and 40s—as a band leader with a comedic bent (featuring cornetist and comedian Ish Kabibble), a game show host and a movie star. His ebullient personality radiated positivity and gave Americans plenty of reasons to smile during challenging times with songs like “Three Little Fishes” and Johnny Mercer’s  “Strip Polka.” The band’s repertoire included ballads, dance numbers and several patriotic songs like this one.

The song’s origins and truthfulness have been debated over the years. Most analysts agree that the incident depicted in the story occurred during the attack at Pearl Harbor on the USS New Orleans and that the “sky pilot” who uttered the phrase “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” was LTJG Howell M. Forgy. What is not true is the claim that the sky pilot manned a gun when the properly-trained gunners went down. According to the cleric himself, “The boys were getting dog-tired. All I did was slap them on the backs and smilingly say, ‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, boys.’”

Whether Kay Kyser could smell bullshit a mile away or felt uncomfortable opening the song with blood and gore, he certainly strengthened the positive vibes by eliminating the opening verse from the Merry Macs’ take:

Down went the gunner, a bullet was his fate
Down went the gunner, and then the gunner’s mate
Up jumped the sky pilot, gave the boys a look
And manned the gun himself as he laid aside The Book, shouting . . . 
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition . . .

Kyser replaces the verse with a well-designed introductory passage that begins with horns and reeds painting images of darkness then rising in a multi-octave crescendo to reach the light. The only reference to the cleric’s alleged battlefield skills in Kyser’s version is “For a sonofagun of a gunner was he,” which could be interpreted symbolically. Although I loathe the angelic female chorus, the male singers in the “Glee Club” strike the right tone of faith and confidence. Frank Loesser’s composition is quite catchy, a perfect opportunity for a sing-a-long and intensely inspiring for those in need of a big jolt of martial spirit.

Spike Jones, “Der Fuehrer’s Face”: No one in my family tree served in World War II. My Irish grandfather had emigrated to America years before but retained his Irish citizenship until after the war (and there was no way in hell he was going to fight for the Brits). My grandfather in Nice had no army to join and was too young anyway. So when I asked my dad if he knew any World War II songs, I didn’t expect much—but he remembered a tune he’d heard from one of his buddies whose dad served in the war and then became a lifer stationed at the Presidio:

Whistle while you work
Hitler is a jerk
Mussolini bit his weenie
Now it doesn’t work

An internet search yielded a few variations in the closing couplet: “Mussolini is a meanie/And the Japs are worse,” “Mussolini is a weenie/And Tojo is a jerk,” and “Eenie meanie Mussolini/Tojo’s out of work.” Obviously there was a market for songs that ridiculed the fascist leaders.

Walt Disney and the Warner Brothers capitalized on this opportunity, though for different reasons and under different circumstances. Disney was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1941 due to low attendance and poor reviews of Fantasia (?!#@) and a severe hit to revenues from wartime Europe that led to layoffs which in turn led to a strike. He was saved when the U.S. Army occupied his headquarters after Pearl Harbor (no shit!) and various branches of the government convinced him to produce propaganda films.

For Harry Warner, the effort was personal, given his Jewish origins. “Harry was a religious man with strong moral convictions. Harry believed that he could promote the causes of ‘racial and religious tolerance and justice’ through his films.” Brother Jack had no such convictions, was more interested in bedding starlets than fretting about Hitler and resisted Harry’s urgings. Jack caved after Pearl Harbor, and the Warner Brothers enlisted their Looney Tunes characters (mainly Bugs and Daffy) to destroy the myth of Hitler’s invulnerability.

Spike Jones released “Der Fuehrer’s Face” shortly before the complementary Disney cartoon featuring Donald Duck hit the screens on January 1, 1943. You can view an audio-enhanced version of the cartoon on YouTube, but the Spike Jones version is superior due to Spike’s use of the raspberry. Pffft!

When der Führer says we is de master race
We heil (pffft) heil (pffft) right in der Fuehrer’s face!

Glenn Miller Orchestra featuring Tex Beneke and Marion Hutton, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree”: The Andrews Sisters’ rendition also appears in the compilation, but I’m going with Glenn Miller for three reasons:

1. The lyrics are explicitly war-related.
2. The Glenn Miller version covers the perspective of both genders, setting up a healthy battle of the sexes.
3. Glenn Miller’s troupe is clearly the better band.

Let’s get straight to the battle!

In this corner . . . from Fort Worth, Texas . . . he’s the voice you hear on “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” (zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo) and the lead tenor sax soloist on “In the Mood” and “String of Pearls” . . . ladies and gentlemen, Tex Beneke!

In the other corner . . . from Fort Smith, Arkansas . . . the all-American girl discovered by Glenn Miller at the age of seventeen . . . so young that Glenn and his wife Helen became her legal guardians so she could perform in nightclubs . . . sister of the star of stage and screen, Miss Betty Hutton . . . Marion Hutton!

Tex takes Round 1, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee with his smarmy voice reeking of male entitlement!

Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
Anyone else but me, anyone else but me, no, no, no
Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
Till I come marching home

Don’t go walking down Lover’s Lane with anyone else but me
Anyone else but me, anyone else but me, no, no, no
Don’t go walking down Lover’s Lane with anyone else but me
Till I come marching home

I just got word from a guy who heard from the guy next door to me
The girl he met just loves to pet and it fits you to a tee
So, don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
Till I come marching home

Marion launches a furious comeback in Round Two, delivering sucker punch after sucker punch, and knocks Ted out of the ring! In a stirring display of emotional intelligence, she graciously pulls him back onto the canvas!

Don’t give out with those lips of yours to anyone else but me
Anyone else but me, anyone else but me, no, no, no
Watch the girls on the foreign shores, you’ll have to report to me
When you come marching home<

Don’t hold anyone on your knee, you better be true to me
You better be true to me, you better be true to me<
Don’t hold anyone on your knee, you’re getting the third degree
When you come marching home

You’re on your own where there is no phone and I can’t keep tabs on you
Be fair to me, I’ll guarantee this is one thing that I’ll do
I won’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but you
Till you come marching home

The winner . . . by technical knockout . . . Marion Hutton!

Alas, television had yet to extend its reach to the recording studio, so you’ll have to listen to the replay.

Harry James Orchestra featuring Helen Forrest, “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You”: As two other artists covered this song before Pearl Harbor, it was obviously not written with the war in mind, but few songs capture the yearning and angst of separation as well as this one. Irving Berlin declared that this song written by Frank Loesser and Jule Styne was the one song written by other composers that he wished he had written. After poring over the sheet music, I wish I had written it—Jule Styne’s beautiful, floating melody with a fair share of naturals is sung over a rich chord progression that employs imaginative out-of-key chording in the oh-so-subtle transitions. I can’t wait to play it when I reunite with my piano!

During this transitional period in the Big Band Era, Harry James was nearly as popular as Glenn Miller. His style is quite distinctive; all he has to do is blow one note and you know it’s Harry James. In reading Peter J. Levinson’s bio Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James, I learned that he owed his technical prowess to his father, who demanded daily practice and refused to allow little Harry to go out and play until he learned the composition of the day. Harry started playing with big bands at fifteen and over the years developed his unique tone, one I would describe as sinuous, captivating and downright sexy.

Helen Forrest was known as “the voice of the name bands,” having performed with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Harry James. She had an exceptionally tough childhood, and after she knifed her stepfather when he tried to rape her, her mother sent her off to live with Helen’s piano teacher, who encouraged her to chuck the piano and take up singing. After completing her stints with Goodman and Shaw, she got in touch with Harry James and told him she would gladly work for him under the condition that she be allowed to sing full songs rather than limiting her performance to a single chorus or verse (a common practice in the Big Band era). Harry agreed to her terms and wrote some beautiful arrangements with Helen in mind. Her performance on this song is top-notch, as she navigates the gorgeous but tricky melody with aplomb and imbues the lyrics with the pain of separation:

All our friends keep knocking at the door
They’ve asked me out a hundred times or more
But all I say is, “Leave me in the gloom”
And here I stay within my lonely room

‘Cause, I don’t want to walk without you, Baby
Walk without my arm about you, Baby
I thought the day you left me behind
I’d take a stroll and get you right off my mind
But now I find that
I don’t want to walk without the sunshine
Why’d you have to turn off all that sunshine?
Oh, Baby, please come back
Or you’ll break my heart for me
‘Cause, I don’t want to walk without you
No, siree

Helen was also a very attractive woman, but Harry James had already found his future mate while filming Springtime in the Rockies:

Frank Powolny, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Vera Lynn, “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover”: The lyrics were written by an American who had no idea bluebirds did not exist in England. Before Vera Lynn recorded the definitive version in 1942, the song was first recorded by a slew of Americans . . . first the Glenn Miller Band . . . then Kay Kyser . . . then Kate Smith . . . then Sammy Kaye … then Jimmy Dorsey (whew!). Every one of those renditions made the Top 20.

What that tells us is that Edward R. Morrow’s reporting from London during the Blitz triggered intense empathy for the Brits all across the U.S.A.

By the time Vera Lynn released her take, the Blitz had passed into history. It ended in May 1941 when Hitler decided to end his rotten deal with Stalin and needed the Luftwaffe for Barbarossa. Given the timing, the song morphed into a moving tribute to the RAF, who deserved all the tributes the Western world could supply.

I’ll never forget the people I met
Braving those angry skies
I remember well as the shadows fell
The light of hope in their eyes

And though I’m far away
I still can hear them say
Thumbs up
But when the dawn comes up

There’ll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow
Just you wait and see

There’ll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow
When the world is free

With apologies to the Yanks, this lovely song was tailor-made to showcase Vera Lynn’s eternal resilience and her staunch belief in a brighter future.

*****

The Allies found themselves in a pretty tough spot during the first half of 1942. Japan continued to rack up victory after victory, Hitler launched a second invasion of Russia (necessary because the usually meticulous Germans forgot to supply winter clothing to their troops during the initial push), the United States had to ramp up production while trying to shape millions of very green recruits into a credible fighting force and the first reports of Nazis gassing Jews reached the West. Some good news trickled in as the year progressed with the American victory at Midway in late spring; toward the end of the year, the Russians seemed to be holding their own at Stalingrad and Australian troops supported by British naval forces gave the Allies a much-needed victory at El Alamein. The fighting would only get more intense in 1943, and music would play a large role in keeping up morale on the battlefronts and in the homelands.

I’m happy to report that my job with the EU has become a bit more manageable, and unless Trump invades Greenland in the next few days, I will break my oath to never publish a review on Super Bowl Sunday and post Part Two next week.

Until we meet again . . . cheers!

Click here to go to Part Two