BOOK REVIEW: THE GLENN MILLER CONSPIRACY

GLENN MILLER

The author Hunton Downs of the book ‘The Glenn Miller Conspiracy brings a lot of new information. Mr Down researched for many years to find the truth behind the disappearance of Glenn Miller.

Glenn Miller became famous with his new sound and song like ‘In The Mood’, ‘Chatanooga Choo Choo’ and ‘String of Pearls’. He was by no doubt America’s national hero and the bands’ sound poured out of every jukebox from 1939 to 1944.

Apparently he disappeared on December 15, 1944 flying across the Channel from England to France in a USAAF single-engineUC-64 Noorduyn Norseman plane. This was the official announce from SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces). Miller was just 40 years old. Quite a number of people claimed it was a cover-up

Hunton Downs, a former Colonel in the US Army and a Pulitzer price nominated journalist started to investigate. He managed to find many new evidences which he put into his book: The Glenn Miller Conspiracy and the facts are fascinating to read. It throws a complete different picture on the incident.

During 1944 many plans were hutch to assassinate Hitler to end the war quickly. Everybody knew that the Nazis are losing the war and to end it quicker would safe lives.

Secret negotiation between the Supreme Commander of SHAEF, General Dwight D Eisenhower through US General George C Marshall and Wehrmacht General Gerd von Runstedt began under the code name Eclipse.

Furthermore, somebody had to broadcast to the Germans the real facts of the war and win them over to armistice. The choice fell on Major Glenn Miller of the Army Air Corps. His family came from Germany named Mueller and he could speak fluent German.  As a matter of fact, Miller was already broadcasting secretly from the BBC in London to Germany. The Germans loved his music.

The US intelligence discovered that the Germans were two years ahead in developing an Atom Bomb. This knowledge prompted the US to bring the German scientist to America. The Operation was known as ‘Paperclip’. It was no doubt one of the most daring operations but it was successful. Amongst them was Wernher Von Braun who helped the US to speed up their space race.

The German General Walter Dornberger was in charge of the rocket scientist. Glenn Miller was assigned to pass a secret message on from Eisenhower. The message was to assure the safe transport for them and their family. At the same time it had to be kept secret from the Russians who were closing in on Berlin.

Paris had be liberated and Eisenhower’s headquarter was in the Trianon Palace in Versailles. Downs maintained that from there Miller was flying there. The next movement of Miller are littered with speculation, fragments of evidence and eyewitness reports.

In his book he writes that Nazi espionage network was infinitely superior to that of the Americans. Since there was a leak right from inside the Operation Eclipse failed. The consequences were appalling and the Battle of the Bulge is known for unaccountable savage deaths.

Eisenhower was a main target for an assassination and Hitler’s top man for any dirty tricks was Colonel Otto Skorzeny. He was known to disguise German troops as Americans and got them behind enemies’ line. To succeed with his plan of assassination Eisenhower he needed someone to get them close to him. He received information of the movements of Glenn Miller and started to make plans.

The plan was for Glenn Miller went to Eisenhower and collected the message for Dornberger. He then flew to General von Runstedt’s house near Krefeld to discuss the armistice speech. That speech was to be made before Miller’s historic broadcast over Deutshlandsender. Once that was all done he then went to Dornberger to get the rocket scientists out of Germany.

When Miller arrived in Krefeld he expected to meet General von Runstedt but instead he met Skorzeny due to the efficiency of the Nazi intelligence. From there it was easy. Skorzeny persuaded Miller to accompany him back to Eisenhower. They flew in a captured US plane to Paris. It is not quite clear whether Miller was sedated or beaten unconscious. Whichever, they put him into a Paris brothel The Sphinx. What happened there must have been awful. Skorzeny’s bullies were not able to make Miller to co-operate with them.  The Sphinx was known as a SS hangout and interrogation centre.

Downs was not able to find out more details but eye witnesses confirmed that his body was thrown out onto the streets and US military police picked it up and ‘disappeared’ with it to prevent scandals. 

Downs died in 2010 and cannot be questioned about his findings anymore but his dedicated research is very impressive about the disappearance of Glenn Miller and makes a lot more sense. Although he couldn’t quite find the final truth but the fact that he spent almost 60 years to find as much evidence as he did, should be a credit to him. It definitely gave us a lot more plausible information than previously the disappearance of Miller’s plane over the Channel.

Why is the truth withheld, even nowadays? The Nazis are gone therefore there is no danger there. What is the real reason behind it?

US ARMY AIR FORCE UC-64