At Attlebridge, the evening of 18 Aug, 1944, an enormous audience of 10,000 crammed into a hanger. Serving at Attlebridge was a pilot from a Liberator lead crew, 21-year old Capt John H. Woolnough. 31 years later he recalled the day the Miller Band came to Attlebridge:
The next highlight (in his service career, which had included bombing missions to Germany, occupied France, and in support of the D-Day landings) was when Glenn Miller came to the base. He had the biggest band ever and that sound was something in that hangar! I mean, people were nuts - it was just out of this world! And then to see him later in the club and talk to him was, personally, you know - Cloud Nine! It was the highlight of the whole war. It made my war. So I got the picture with Glenn...and the reason I was able to get it was I had taught photography at photo school and knew the Sergeant that ran the photo lab...I went up to him and said, "How about a picture?" And then he takes the picture of Glenn Miller and me and the Chaplain, and he hands me the camera and says "OK you take one of me". So I took a picture of him and Glenn Miller, so I not only got in a picture, but I was honored to be able to take a picture of him, you see. (In the most unusual studio ever! - Interviewer) Yeah, in the latrine!
Glenn said OK - I went up to him and said, "Hey, my twin brother is a big fan of yours" (I was a big fan too, but I don't know if that was important). "He is in Hawaii and I'd sure like to send him a picture of you and I together - you know, the big sad story!" He was the nicest guy - Glenn just said, "Well OK as long as it's in private where nobody can see us because otherwise they'll mob me just like they did the other day". So I said, "Well, there's the Club Office". He said OK. So we go down there and the door's locked. Oh boy! We stand there for a minute, and the only place left was the latrine. He says, OK, so we go into the latrine - Glenn Miller, and the Chaplain, and the photographer and myself. So we get in there and suddenly discover that a WAC has followed us in - A Lieutenant (either a nurse or a WAC, I'm not sure which) but she was a female either First or Second Lieutenant - kind of a short, frumpy thing, and she screamed "Oh!" threw her hands in the air and went flying out!...She was really embarrassed, and she went out and Glenn had a big smile on his face and he says, "That's the first time I've been rid of her all day. She's trying to get me to audition some Corporal friend of hers, some GI from the hospital or some plae, that sang pretty good, and she's been after me all day long". So we had a big laugh. We got kind of close to him, because of that - he was a real human man, you know. And then we lined him up...and he put his arm around me...having Glenn Miller's arm around me and my arm around him - old buddy buddy, you know! That was a real highlight."
(Extract from an interview of Lt Col John H Woolnough by Charles H Gallagher)
For more about this day and the 466th BG, see the article "466th Bombardment Group and the American Band of the AEF" in the "Uploaded Documents" section of this profile
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