Wartime USAAF songs

[Fareastdriver]

A song I remember from the sixties went something like this;

Izasuki tower, this is Air Force 801
??cant remember??? my prop has overrun.

Another one:

Give me operations,
way out on some lonely atoll.

There was an LP record done with these songs but I cannot trace it. Has anybody any ideas?

[Shackman]

Itazuke Tower, this is AirForce 801
I'm turning on the downwind leg, my prop is over-run
my coolant's overheated, the gauge says 121
you'd better get the crash crew out, & get them on the run
listen AirForce 801, this is Itazuke Tower
I cannot call the crash crew out, this is their coffee hour
you're not cleared in the pattern, now, that is plain to see
so take it once around, again, you're not a VIP


Oscar ?

The Wild Blue Yonder.

Recorded it onto an old open reel tape deck whilst at Acklington in the 60's - still have the tape but no means of playing it (and suspect tape itself beyonduse anyway!). One of a number of 8 AAF/Korean War records doing the rounds at the time.

[Krakatoa]

Oscar Brand

[merlinxx]

Tis not on Youtube under dear ole Oscar Brand, but One Eyed Reilly, Barnicle Bill etc are there, O and the Para song:ok:

Long ago had my Oscar LPs nicked :{

[Krakatoa]

All revealed on Google

[Fareastdriver]

Fantastic chaps. I can get a CD on Amazon immediately.

[OwnNav]

Google the 1943 song

'Coming in on a wing and a prayer'

[603DX]

In the Summer of 1944, most of the V1 flying bombs aimed at London were roaring over my home in Kent, with hundreds of them falling short and exploding all over the county. This led my mother to flee with me as a 5 year old to Colchester in Essex, to stay for a few weeks with some of her kind friends, in relative safety. There were a number of USAAF bases in the region, and I recall that the Colchester kids were pretty familiar with all of the strangely worded American songs of the time. Playing with them as an innocent from rural Kent, I picked up these songs like a sponge, and sang them proudly back in Mum's friend's home afterwards.

Heaven knows what the grown-ups thought of my piping efforts at songs like:

Roll me over, in the clover, roll me over, lay me down and do it again ....
Mairsie Dotes and Dosie Dotes, and Little Lamsiedivie ....
Chickery Chick, Cha-La, Cha-La, Check-a-La Romey in a Bananika ...To me, these were no stranger than the nursery songs taught in my infant school back in Maidstone, like: "There was a man lived in the moon, and his name was Akin Drum", but I now realise they were pure Americana, some of it rather rude!

[Entaxei]

603DX - we are of an age as they say - my mother used to sing this song around the house at the end of/after the war, but although I always remembered the words, I could never make any sense of it, other than as a nonsense song.

Fast forward to about 5 years ago, sitting in the local with a couple of good friends, then about 79 and 76 respectively, and a question came up about a song they knew from the war, to my amazement they sang ......
"Mares' eat oats and Does' eat oats and little lambs' eat ivy ........."
After all these years, the mystery was solved and I am pleased to pass it on.

We lived at South Ealing and among various memories I still remember the sound of a V1 doodlebug bomb engine cutting out, the silence and then the massive explosion (that one took out an Isolation Hospital and 200 people). Also a few years later we had the Brabazon coming over a number of times landing at LAP on test, so massive it cut out the sunlight.

Re the forces songs, from ATC camps in the 50's I remember some of the verses of the classic 'Two and Forty Virgins went to Inverness' - but of course they cannot be repeated here, but I'll admit that I would like to get a complete recording. Then there was chants like the RAF 'The Pub has no Bar', the American marching chant 'I Knew a Girl from Tennessee'. then of course the RAF version of 'Bye Bye Blackbird' which I would not expect to be printed anywhere, and the Navy's 'All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor'...
and so it goes on ..............

As they say - thanks for the memory!! :ok:

[603DX]

Entaxei:

Purely in the interests of accuracy, you understand, the correct title of the "Inverness" song is "The Ball of Kirriemuir", and believe it or not there are unexpurgated versions of it available on Youtube.

G**gle it at your peril! And don't whatever you do, join in and sing along with it! Nostalgia has its limits ....

[David Layne]

When I was a child my Father used to sing to me a song that was popular with R.A.F. aircrews. I can only remember the refrain, can anyone help with the rest of it. The refrain goes............


No Flak, No Flak At All,
Plenty Of Searchlights But No Flak At All.


The song was an adaptation of the popular Rugby song "No b...s at all."

[alisoncc]

'Two and Forty Virgins went to Inverness''Two and Forty Virgins went to Inverness'

I always remembered it as "There were four and twenty virgins at a ball in Inverness, and when the ball was over there were four and twenty less. Singing..........".

Other ditties included "An engineer told me before he died..........", "Dinah, Dinah, show us a leg". The Henley boat song "We're all queers together just wait while I go upstairs..... Took a sixpenny bus ride, it was crowded I had to stand, a little boy offered me his seat, so I felt it .............". "Three is for the lily white snoops covered all in blanko, oh oh. Two, two the Royal Air Force. One is one and all alone and evermore shall be so".

One of my favourites was "I am the music man, and come from down your way, and I can play .... What can you play. I can play the big base drum........". Plus the usuals "Lloyd George knew my father, Father knew Lloyd George.........", "Why are we waiting...............", "This is my story this is my song, I've been in this air force too ........ long. So bring out the Romulus, the Remus, Renown, 'cos you can't have the Hood 'cos the bas..... gone down. Chocks away, chocks away".

[PPRuNe Pop]

Mairsie Dotes and Dosie Dotes, and Little Lamsiedivie ....

It is a song written by the great Johnny Mercer

I know a ditty nutty as a fruitcake
Goofy as a goon and silly as a loon
Some call it pretty, others call it crazy
But they all sing this tune:
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?
Yes! Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?
If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey
Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy"
Oh! Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you-oo?
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

Good thread.

[BOAC]

My worn LP of Oscar Brand's 'TWBY' ('won' years ago from a drunken army officer:hmm:) is now 'safely' transcribed to CD and my copy of the Fleet Air Arm song books gives me much education.:ok:(Whether it is beneficial...................)

[603DX]

In the classic Oscar winning movie "Twelve O'Clock High" set at an East Anglian USAAF base during WW2, and starring Gregory Peck, a very evocative a capella piece called "The Whiffenpoof Song" was used most effectively as background music.

This song apparently originated at Yale University around 1900, the lyrics comprising a blend of American and British verses, the latter taken from Rudyard Kipling's work. The gentle, softly sung melody with just the male voices created a heart-wrenching emotional air to the masterly filmed scenes showing the wide open, windswept airfield, and heightened the sense of sadness at the lost young men on the US raids.

The chorus went:

We are poor little lambs
Who have lost our way.
Baa Baa Baa!
We are little black sheep
Who have gone astray.
Baa Baa Baa!

Gentlemen songsters off on a spree
Damned from here to eternity
God have mercy on such as we.
Baa Baa Baa!

[virgo]

I've got a book entitled; "Army Air Force Lyrics" which is described as, "A collection of WW2 US Army Air Force marching songs, poems and parodies to popular songs of the period and the past "

The contents have been collected by a Lt. Col. J.K. Havener and was printed by Aero Publishers (of USA) in 1985. Maybe re-printed ???

There's nothing included about IZASKI tower, probably because the collection ends with VJ day.
If you want any quotations, PM me.

[Firestreak]

I bought a CD of The Wild Blue Yonder on a trip to the States a few years ago, the full song list is

Save a Fighter Pilots Ass
Come and Join the Air Force
Give me Operations
Itazuke Tower
Sidi Slimane
Army Air Force Heaven
Bless 'em All
Glory Flying Regulations (my favourite, still applicable today)
The Goddamned Reserves
Barnacle Bill the Pilot
Fighter Pilot's Lament
I Wanted Wings
The Poor Co-Pilot
Cigareets and Sake
Wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven
Let's have a party.

There was another song Oscar Brand did around that timethat I haven't heard for years:-

'Charlotte the Harlot the cowpunchers Whore
The Pride of the Prarie, the Girl we adore'

Very Amusing

[Giglamps]

The noticeboard outside (presumably) Liverpool Docks read - it may still read - "MERSEY DOCKS & HARBOUR BOARD". It is alleged that this was improved by a handwritten line beneath that read...... "And liddle lambsie divie..."

[SomeGuyOnTheDeck]

I've seen several variations on this, but it seems to be genuine:

Don't give me a P39,
with and engine that's mounted behind.
You'll tumble and roll,
and dig a big hole.
Don't give me a P39.
The P-39 had rather unforgiving handling characteristics, amongst its other problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P-39N.jpg

[BOAC]

OB's version is

Don't give me a P38
- the props they counter-rotate
She'll ???? and spin
and auger you in
No! don't give me a P38

......................at which point I would need to play it again, Sam

EDIT to say the memory cell returns slowly to life

[Wind Sock]

I always remembered it as "There were four and twenty virgins at a ball in Inverness, and when the ball was over there were four and twenty less. Singing..........".

Other ditties included "An engineer told me before he died..........", "Dinah, Dinah, show us a leg". The Henley boat song "We're all queers together just wait while I go upstairs..... Took a sixpenny bus ride, it was crowded I had to stand, a little boy offered me his seat, so I felt it .............". "Three is for the lily white snoops covered all in blanko, oh oh. Two, two the Royal Air Force. One is one and all alone and evermore shall be so".


Another one: "Oh Sir Jasper do not touch me"

I remember all these from Air Training Corps days especially from all those long coach ( or train ) trips to Summer Camp or to a day's Air Familiarisation somewhere or other.

By contrast I had also been in the Boy Scouts and picked a few songs there too. It is interesting that although some of the favourite Scout songs were a bit "risque" they were nowhere near to the knuckle as some of the ATC songs.

Maybe it was the influence of the church or something.

[BOAC]

Merlinxx - just seen your post

('won' years ago from a drunken army officerhttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/yeees.gif) - er - you weren't in the army eons ago, were you - gulp:eek:

[Firestreak]

From the top:-

GIVE ME OPERATIONS

Don't give me a P38,
The props they counter rotate,
They're scattered and smitten
From Burma to Britain
Don't give me a P 38

CHORUS

No, give me operations,
Way out on some lonely atoll
For I am too young to die,
I just want to grow old.

Don't give me a Peter Four O,
It's a hell of an aircraft I know,
She's a ground looping bastard,
Your'e sure to get plastered,
Don't give me a Peter Four O

CHORUS

And don't give me a P 39,
The engine is mounted behind,
She'll tumble and spin and she'll auger you in,
Don't give me a P39

CHORUS

Don't give me an 86D,
With rockets, radar and a/b,
She's fast I don't care,
She blows up in mid air,
Don't give me an 86 D

CHORUS

And don't give me an F84,
She's just a ground loving whore,
She'll whine and she'll wheeze,
And head straight for the trees,
Don't give me an F84

:}

[2 TWU]

Itazule Tower, this Air Force 801
I'm turning on the downwind leg, my prop has overrun,
My coolants overheated, the gauge says 121,
You'd better get the crash crews out and get them on the run.

Now listen Air Force 801, this is Itazuke Tower,
I cannot call the crash crew out, this is their coffee hour,
You're not cleared in the pattern now, that is plain to see,
So take once around again, you're not a VIP.

Itazuke Tower, this is Air Force 801,
I'm turning on my final, I'm running on one lung,
I've got to land this Mustang, no matter what you say,
I've gotta get my charts squared up before that judgement Day.

Now listen Air Force 801, this is Itazuke Tower,
We'd like to let you in right now but we haven't got the power,
We'll send a note through channels and wait for the reply,
Until we get permission back just chase around the sky.

Itazuke Tower, this is Air Force 801,
I'm up in pilot's heaven and my flying days are done,
I'm sorry that I blew up, I couldn't make the grade,
I guess I should have waited till the landing was Okay'd