Glenn Miller Declassified

Description

On December 15, 1944, Major Alton Glenn Miller, commanding officer of the Army Air Force Band (Special), boarded a plane in England bound for France with Lt. Col. Norman Francis Baessell. Somewhere over the English Channel, the plane vanished; no trace of the aircraft or any of its occupants was ever found. To this day, Miller, Baessell, and the pilot, John Robert Stuart Morgan, are classified as MIA. In Glenn Miller Declassified, Dennis M. Spring tells the story of musical legend, Glenn Miller, and his military career as commanding officer of the Army Air Force Band during World War II. After a brief assignment to the Army Specialist Corps, Miller was transferred to the Army Air Forces Training Command where he was assigned to build a network of radio production units, base bands, and other musical and entertainment activities. He was soon transferred to the UK to be a house band for the Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme (AEFP) broadcasts and to entertain allied service personnel in the European Theater at live concerts. Later that year, Miller and his band were to be transferred to Paris to expand the AEFP, but Miller never made it. Glenn Miller's disappearance resulted in a number of conspiracy theories, especially since much of the information surrounding his military service had been classified, restricted, or, in some cases, lost. Spragg has gained unprecedented access to his family's archives as well as military and government documents to lay such theories to rest and to prove the lasting legacy and importance of Glenn Miller's life, career and service to his country.

Dennis M. Spragg is Senior Consultant of the Glenn Miller Archive and the American Music Research Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. A vetran broadcasting and media research professional, Spragg is an internationally prominent Glenn Miller historian who has been featured in the 2014 PBS television series History Detectives, a 2014 BBC Radio production, and has published reports in the Chicago Tribute, Denver Post, and USA Today.

Dennis Spragg's examination of the mystery of Miller's disappearance is forensic archaeology at its very best. With the JFK papers released earlier this week, now is the perfect time to look back at one of the most mysterious disappearances of the last century. A masterpiece. * Books Monthly * Interesting and certainly well documented, it illustrates the fast pace of life in wartime England with its mixture of servicemen and civilian population, there was certainly a lot going on. I award the book four stars. * Army Rumour Service *