The Mysterious Disappearance of an American Hero – Flight to Eternity

Others members of the crew did not report the incident, he said, because the Norseman was just one of the thousands of aircraft they had seen blown up or go down. Miller’s death was not announced until days later, and at the time no one saw a connection between the two events…It was not until Shaw saw the movie The Glenn Miller Story years later that he checked his logbook and realized that the Norseman may have been carrying the bandleader.

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At 1:45 P.M. on December 15, 1944, world famous bandleader Glenn Miller, then commander of the U.S. Army Air Force Band, boarded a small Norseman airplane at a Royal Air Force base near Bedford, England. By the personal order of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Miller was on his way to Paris to arrange a series of concerts for troops on leave in Europe.

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Miller was apprehensive. The Norseman had no deicing equipment and, in addition, would have to fly perilously close to the surface of the English Channel in order to avoid fog.

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“Where the hell are the parachutes?” demanded Miller as he claimed into the airplane. “What’s the matter, Miller,” mocked his companion, Col. Don Baesell. “Do you want to live forever?”

The door slammed shut, and the Norseman taxied down the runway and took off into the fog.

These were the last recorded moments of Miller’s life. The Norseman never arrived.

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On December 23 miller was officially listed as “missing in flight.” And for 40 years it was assumed that the airplane had gone down in the English Channel, its wing flaps frozen solid in the appalling conditions.

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Then in 1984 ex-RAF navigator Fred Shaw came forward with an astonishing, hitherto unknown, version of that day’s grim events.

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Posthumous Fame: Glenn Miller’s reputation as finest bandleader of his day has been enhanced by the tragedy of his death – a mystery that may now be solved.

Bombs Away

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On the December day that Miller vanished, Shaw was a member of a bomber crew taking part in a mission over Germany. At about 1:30 P.M. the squadron was unexpectedly recalled to base but told to jettison its 4,000-pound bomb load in a designated area of the Channel before landing.

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As the bombardier dropped the bombs, Shaw saw a light Norseman aircraft flying almost directly below. He watched it dip into the waves as the bombs exploded near it just above the water.

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Shaw told his story at a meeting of the South African Glenn Miller Appreciation Society in Johannesburg, where he now lives. Others members of the crew did not report the incident, he said, because the Norseman was just one of the thousands of aircraft they had seen blown up or go down. Miller’s death was not announced until days later, and at the time no one saw a connection between the two events.

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It was not until Shaw saw the movie The Glenn Miller Story years later that he checked his logbook and realized that the Norseman may have been carrying the bandleader.

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Shaw’s story may finally have shattered the bizarre myths that grew up around Miller’s disappearance. One theory held that Miller was a secret agent and had faked his own death; another that Baesell was a black-marketeer who killed both Miller and pilot before escaping in the airplane; a third that Miller, hideously scarred, had survived and was living in secret in a sanatorium.

Image via Wikipedia

Although final proof must await discovery of the wreckage, the truth of Glenn Miller’s story seems simple: British bombs may have accidentally destroyed one of America’s heroes.