Legendary bandleader Glenn Miller disappears over the English Channel | December 15, 1944 |...

After departing from an airfield outside London on December 15, 1944, a single-engine aircraft carrying trombonist and bandleader Glenn Miller goes missing over the English Channel. Miller was traveling to France for a congratulatory performance for American troops that had recently helped to liberate Paris.

Miller, the biggest star on the American pop-music scene in the years immediately preceding World War II, set aside his brilliant career right at its peak in 1942 to serve his country as leader of the USAAF dance band. General James Doolittle of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), hero of the daring “Doolittle Raid” on mainland Japan and later the unified commander of Allied air forces in Europe in World War II, offered the following high praise to one of his staff officers in 1944: “Next to a letter from home, Captain Miller, your organization is the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations.”