The Disappearance of Glenn Miller (#96)

Have you ever heard of Glenn Miller?

He was a trombonist, composer and bandleader who was hugely famous in the 1930s, as famous as Elvis would later be. I associated the name with a big band and remembered my grandparents playing his music at Christmas, and I imagined he was a Santa-like figure who died in bed in his 80s surrounded by family….But the truth is far more tragic than that.

Glen Miller was in his late 30s during the latter stages of World War II. He joined the army, but he was not drafted. People wanted to do their duty, and the young musicians had been drafted so it made sense for Glenn Miller to follow them. The band were hugely popular, Miller was very famous…Joining up only made the fans love him all the more as they could relate to him.

Miller went on to form a 50 piece army band. They arrived in England to perform at concerts in the summer of 1944, performing at up to 800 concerts! That must have meant several concerts a day and the concerts were so important in terms of boosting morale. Imagine rationing and life in the army, and how tough recent years had been for the public and soldiers alike. The performances were in hospitals so wounded civilians and soldiers could watch, and nowhere was out of bounds, including aircraft hangars. As an American, Glenn Miller had the concerts broadcasted at home too so he was having a big effect on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, some US aeroplanes painted the titles of the songs onto their aircraft!

This has hopefully set the scene for where Glenn Miller was in summer 1944. The plan for December 1944 was to leave England to entertain soldiers on leave in Paris. The tide had turned in France so going to Paris was more viable than it had been. On 15th December, Miller was due to be in Paris to arrange the final details for a show, but his flight was cancelled due to the horrendous weather. Historically, this would be one of the worst winters on record.

The flights being grounded should have indicated that it was not a good idea to travel to Paris, but Glenn Miller was determined to find another plane to get him there. Over the years it has been questioned why he was so desperate to get there, but he was dedicated to boosting morale and giving the soldiers that escape and fun for a few hours.

Miller was one of the soldiers like everyone else, but he was also a VIP world-famous celebrity whose movements were always known by the US military and he had to follow their transport plans for him. If his plane didn’t fly, he didn't fly at all. Despite this, when an acquaintance (also in a hurry to get to Paris) who had a plane and pilot offered him a seat onboard, he took up the offer. They took off from Bedford on the afternoon of December 15th 1944.

It was a small, unusual plane with a small engine and they flew into the fog, to disappear over the Channel, never to be seen or heard from again. No one knew this flight had gone ahead and Glenn Miller was not meant to be on a plane. It took a few days to realise he was missing.

The plane was reported missing on 16th December but it was not connected to Miller. Not only that, but it was not big news, as Germany began the Ardennes offensive on that day, deliberately hoping the poor weather would disadvantage the allies. The small, missing plane was not getting any attention.

The first sign that Miller himself was missing was his failure to meet his band in Paris. The US military top brass were informed and were not happy. Quite famously, one of them bellowed, “How the hell did we lose Glenn MIller?” This was hugely embarrassing for them. How did no one notice that he did not get on a flight with his band members, or did not book accommodation to stay on in London when his flight was cancelled?

On Christmas Eve, Miller’s wife was told he was missing. He had been in constant contact with his wife, but a few days without contact was not unusual, so she had been getting on with things for a week without knowing what had happened. On Christmas Day 1944, the newspapers worldwide broke the news that Glenn Miller was missing and the effect in the USA was devastating.

Glenn Miller and his band were helping people to cope with the war and giving them hope. To find out on Christmas Day that their hero was missing was a big blow.

What could have happened to the flight? The man who owned the plane was Norman Baesel. His pilot was a 22 year old inexperienced man called John Morgan. Perhaps Morgan wanted to please his boss, or was promised something…. We can only conjecture that he was pressured into flying when an older, more experienced pilot could have said it was not a good idea to fly that day. It’s difficult to imagine that this type of conversation did not take place but only those men know, and they disappeared into the fog.

The flight plan would have taken them along the protected plane route across the English Channel. The RAF saw the plane at 2:37pm and that’s the final time it was seen. The most likely explanation of what happened is probably true. A young pilot and bad weather, combining to make him confused and disorientated. He could have crashed into the sea because he didn’t know how low he was, and it is supposed that the three occupants would have been killed on impact. The plane and bodies were never found. It may not be an interesting theory to some, but it is the likely outcome.

Other possibilities have been suggested. The next one was once considered viable although it has since been quashed. An RAF navigator came forward decades later with a theory. He was a part of 138 bombers on the 15th December 1944 who had been on the way to Germany when they received a message to turn around due to the poor weather, and due to the danger posed by the bombs they were instructed to drop them at sea. The navigator said he saw a plane that could have been Glenn Miller’s and conjectured that the plane was hit by a bomb, or the pilot panicked and crashed due to the bombing.

The headlines about British bombs possibly killing Miller would have been embarrassing and catastrophic. Lying and saying that the plane had crashed could have been seen as the best option. But the navigator’s theory was discounted due to the bad weather. The navigator was considered reliable, but how could anyone have seen a plane? It was also discovered that the timings of the bombings did not match with the sighting on the flight path at 2:37pm. These two factors undermined the theory completely.

The next theories are more outlandish. Firstly, was Glenn Miller a spy, assassinated due to his secret German alliance. Someone was bound to suggest it over the last 70 years.

However, the craziest theory is the next one. What if Glen Miller survived the plane journey, arrived in Paris, headed to a brothel and then died of a heart attack?

The theory doesn’t explain what happened to the aircraft and the other two occupants, or what happened to Miller’s body. Hiding a body or transporting it to the USA is all too complicated and would have been discovered at some point along the journey or in the time since. This was a theory reported in a German newspaper in 1997, decades after the event, and it was based on a rumour. Unfortunately this theory won’t die a death and people insist on believing it.

There is a memorial in New Haven, Connecticut, for Glenn Miller where his family and fans can pay their respects.

An historic aircraft recovery society is raising money to discover Glenn Miller’s plane and they think it could have been discovered in 1987. A fisherman caught a piece of plane in his net and he dropped it back in the sea, however he did note the coordinates of his location. Suspecting it to be a historical artifact, the fisherman did not know if it was ethical to move it from the sea as it might be considered to be a war grave. The jurisdiction of the Channel is also unclear, and do family wishes come into play as well (the son of Glenn Miller had been in touch with the society in support of recovering the aeroplane). The most recent update is the attempt to raise the $40,000 required to locate the aeroplane, from about 2017 onwards.

That is the story of Glenn Miller’s disappearance and the tragic Christmas of 1944.