Being new, I am at loss in responding to the original thread and so I have submitted the same title thread.
The true story on Glenn Miller’s death came from his closest friend and which was written in a 1994 copyright article in Music Trades. I have taken the liberty to copy-paste this article in its entirety in order to bring the matter to a close as a matter of accuracy. Vito Pascucci eventually became owner of Leblanc corp. which originated in France and now based in Wisconsin.
The end of World War II… Looking back with Vito Pascucci. (Leblanc Corp. chairman)
Music Trades
| August 01, 1994 | COPYRIGHT 1994 Music Trades Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.
The time was late 1944, and an American from Kenosha, Wisconsin, Vito Pascucci, was sitting in a Paris hotel waiting anxiously for the arrival of Glenn Miller.
“All these stories about Miller being shot down while on a secret spy mission and the rest of it are pure bunk,” (snip)
“As I heard later, what really happened was this: Miller got a ride to Paris in the small personal plane of a general. The plane got out across the channel and was forced to turn back by bad weather. For some reason, the pilot failed to radio his identification, and British antiaircraft gunners shot the plane down, mistaking it for a buzz bomb.” (snip)
As your article states, All Leon LeBlanc is going on is second hand testimony. "As I heard later, what really happened was this. Where LeBlanc heard that or how isn’t known. It would be different if LeBlanc had more solid evidence like a memo, or at least could say at least who told him. As far as we know, he simply heard the many rumors floating around France right after Miller’s death.
We are sure is that Glenn Miller’s plane never made it to France and that the weather was bad. The first reports simply stated that the weather was the direct cause. It was foggy, it was stormy, and the plane probably went down in the fog. Rumors, which LeBlanc heard, later stated he was actually shot down by friendly fire. Again, there is no direct evidence such as memos or first hand reports. Whenever something like this happens, people find it hard to believe that a famous man could be killed by a simple accident.
There is a log book which would be pretty solid evidence that Glenn Miller’s plane may have been hit by allied planes dumping bombs before landing. However, I don’t believe that there was necessarily an army conspiracy theory to keep the true reason of Glenn Miller’s death a secret from the public.
Back then, radar tracking of planes was in its infancy. Unlike today where we keep close tabs on every flight, most flights were never tracked. It is very possible that the army never knew what happened to Miller’s plane. It took off, it never landed. The army simply assumed that the plane may have went down due to weather since weather conditions were poor. The army probably reported what they simply assumed. The log book didn’t emerge until much later.
The main thing is that Miller didn’t die in a French Brothel, and that the army merely made up the story of the plane accident as a cover up.
navoyosky, sorry to hack your story up, but it shows a copyright and we can’t be republishing copyrighted material here. I hopefully kept some relevant parts.
I’m a musician, I’ve known many musicians, and I can tell you from personal experience that they’re no more skeptical than most people. Maybe less, if you take their level of education and intelligence into account.
I think it has something to to do with the master tradition of teaching: you don’t ask why, you just do, learn, and believe. It’s a profession where subjective judgments often carry the weight of pure fact - they call it passion, and it makes many an artist what they are. If every now and then a Vito Pascucci swears a stupid story is true, is that too high a price to pay?
My next door neighbour who is an elderly gentleman of 84 years has related to me tonight whilst talking of his WW2 Royal Navy experiences, a conversation he had with a Royal Navy wireless operator shortly after Glenn Miller’s disappearance in 1944.
The wireless operator told him in confidence that Miller should have left the UK with his orchestra for France earlier in the day but in fact had left later separately because he was enjoying sexual pleasures in a brothel. On the flight to France the plane carrying Miller got lost in fog and strayed into a bomb dumping area just at the time an RAF plane returning from a failed bombing run over Germany was jettisoning its load, the bombs either hit Millers plane or the concussion from the explosions brought the plane down. The wireless operator said he along with many other had heard Millers plane destroyed but as a news blackout on reporting the real circumstances of Millers death had been imposed they were sworn to silence.
I recall a news story where Miller was flying to France in a Norseman, and the plane strayed into an area of the Atlantic where bombers could dump their loads if their missions had been scrubbed.
The Norseman wasn’t able to operate in as high an altitude as Engish bombers could, and it wasn’t the bombs itself that got the Norseman, rather the shock and splash of the water.
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, Ajer, glad to have you with us. I just wanted to point out that you have “resurrected” an old thread – the prior post to yours was from Sept 2009, almost a year ago. We have no problem with that, and you’ve got some responses, but many of the people who posted in the earlier thread are no longer reading or posting here, so it’s going to be a new discussion rather than a continuation of the old one. Just callin’ it to everyone’s attention.
That is rather unkind and on the face of it a small minded comment considering this account shared with you in this my first post was honestly spoken of by an old tar who lived through and experienced that period of history.
Bit surprised a moderator who I would have thought should encourage debate should offer an opinion and basically put down a the contents of a post.
The bottom line is that it makes no sense. The evidence (as explained in those other threads) is pretty clearly in contrast with the story you heard. We’ve heard variations of it several times and it doesn’t make any more sense by being repeated.
As for the snark, well, that’s part of the personality of this board. If you read some of Cecil’s columns you’ll see that it starts at the top.
It was a rude comment, I guess, but not small minded. You’re hearing the stories of a guy who was an 18 year old at the time Miller disappeared. He had no personal knowledge of what happened. He’s retelling a story which was told to him, and probably was told to the wireless operator before your friend. How many friends of a friend’s friend does it take?
. Let’s start here. How would this wireless operator know that Miller was getting his freak on?
This is possibly the only thing the wireless operator or your 84 year old friend perhaps got correct. And, unless they ever pull up the plane out of the English channel, I doubt we’ll ever know.
So, multiple persons had “heard” MIller’s plane destroyed? How would they have heard? Over their crystal sets? Heard what?. As to all these people being sworn to silence—give me a break. This is the best line ever invented by conspiracy theory believers. I commend them all for never, ever, ever revealing these secrets. Much like the people who really know the shooters of JFK, the actual people behind the WTC.
There is quite a good article about this in “Myths and legends of the Second World War”. Miller could have not left any earlier as the weather had closed in and grounded all normal flights. It was as a favour that a flight on the Norseman was arranged. The favour was from a Lieutenant-Colonel Bassael.
Although the official story was the aircraft icing up, it is also a possibility that jettisoned bombs from returning aircraft swamped the Norseman.
I also wonder about this: “…Since they had never crossed into enemy territory, the crew never reported the plane they had seen go down over the Channel.”
Something unusual happened during their mission. Esp. given the attention to Miller’s disappearance in the days soon afterwards, why wouldn’t they report it then? Worried they’d get into trouble?
