They reached for the sky but found death: The world"s greatest airplane mysteries

THE LAST FLIGHT OF GLENN MILLER – 1944

The music of Glenn Miller lives on… as does the mystery of his death.

The American bandleader was the best-selling recording artist of his day and was stationed in Britain after volunteering for service to entertain Allied troops across Europe.

The loss of Miller would have eclipsed the death of any modern pop star: his band had sold 11 million records, had 70 hits and had set the mood music for a generation.

His unexplained death has encouraged a slew of conspiracy theories about his demise, including accidental death, lung cancer, gunshot wounds and torture by the Nazis.

The official version places the 40-year-old at a small airfield, Twinwood Farm, near Bedford, desperately trying to get to liberated Paris to organise a Christmas concert. 

The weather that December 15 was cold and foggy and there was some doubt that Miller’s Noorduyn “Norseman” C-64 aeroplane would be able to get airborne.

Conditions were so poor that the tall bespectacled man who brought the world Moonlight Serenade and In The Mood apparently quipped: “Even the birds have been grounded.”

Although the single-engine plane managed to take to the skies, the fog around Miller’s death refuses to clear.

Official reports say his plane, with two other people on board, crashed in the English Channel after suffering engine trouble or after its wings iced over. 

It was plausible but, to the shocked troops and to his adoring fans all around the world, the details did not add up.

With in-flight communications at a minimum, there is little on record of the fateful trip. 

The most fanciful conjecture, advanced by a German journalist, had Miller making a successful flight but dying in compromising circumstances in a Parisian bordello.

In 1983, Miller’s younger brother Herb said the chain-smoking Miller could have died in a military hospital from cancer. 

To Herb, the confirmation was in a letter from his brother, which stated: ‘I am totally emaciated, although I am eating enough. I have trouble breathing. I think I am very ill.’

He said that the crash was contrived to give Miller a “hero’s death” but he was unable to locate his brother’s grave.

A more convincing story, which surfaced in 1956, is that Miller’s plane was hit by a bomb jettisoned from a flight of Lancasters returning from an abortive raid on Siegen, in Germany. 

The 139 planes had to drop their bombs in a designated area from 4,000ft but one landed on Miller’s plane.

There was still one more twist left in the legend however. A former US Colonel claimed Miller was a secret agent who spoke immaculate German.

Operation Eclipse was a plan to get the bandleader to Paris to make a series of broadcasts in the hope of ushering a rapid end to the war but it was thwarted by fanatical Nazis who kidnapped, tortured and finally left his body outside a brothel.

The Glenn Miller Trust rubbished the claim in a detailed rebuttal and pointed the myth-makers towards official records, which conclude pilot disorientation or mechanical failure as the likeliest causes of Miller’s death.

They reached for the sky but found death: The world"s greatest airplane mysteries