"BOY!"

The fledgling Air Corps (founded 1909) has never had an official song. Publisher Bernarr Macfadden last year offered $1,000 for an appropriate ditty. Last week the prizewinner, officially approved by Major General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Corps, was published by Carl Fisher, Inc. Its author-composer, Baritone Robert Crawford. The tune of The Army Air Corps* was catchy, martial. The words (first verse):

Off we go into the wild blue yonder,

Climbing high into the sun;

Here they come zooming to meet our thunder,

At 'em boys, Give 'er the gun!

Down we dive spouting our flame from under

Off with one helluva/- roar!

We live in fame

Or go down in flame

BOY! Nothing'll stop the Army Air Corps!

A pilot with more than 900 hours who flies his own plane to concerts, ponderous, thick-thatched Bob Crawford was born in the Klondike. He once cornered the Fairbanks lemon market, earned enough as a surveyor on the Alaska Railroad to get to Princeton (Class of 1925). He worked his way, led the Orchestra, became president of the Glee Club, wrote songs for the Triangle Club and sang in its shows.

After graduation he made music his living. A true though truant Alaskan, Baritone Crawford flew back there for a series of concerts in 1932. At Fairbanks many an oldtimer recalled how as a lad of 7 he used to go among the miners passing his fur hat, singing the only song he knew, In the Good Old Summertime.

*Copyright 1939 by Carl Fisher, Inc., New York.

/- "For radio use substitute 'ter-ri-ble.' "

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