The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy: And Other Tales From Home-Front America in World War II by William B. Breuer

Author:William B. Breuer [Breuer, William B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War II, aVe4EvA
ISBN: 9780471467731
Google: 0mRWcCzyQ4wC
Amazon: 0471234885
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2003-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Jane Froman, America’s most popular songstress, underwent more than thirty operations after miraculously surviving an airplane crash on the way to entertain American troops. (Courtesy of Columbia College)

February 24, 1943. A Western Union boy handed her a telegram. She felt faint, knowing that the next of kin were notified of overseas casualties in this manner.

With trembling hands, Anna opened the yellow envelope and read the message from Washington: “Your daughter Jane Froman has been seriously injured . . . ” The terse message did not disclose that the songstress was in a Lisbon hospital and hovering on the brink of death.

Jane, in fact, was lucky to have survived. Before leaving New York, she and another entertainer, Tamara Swan, had been assigned seats next to each another in the largest compartment. They remained in these seats for the most of the flight but, as the Clipper neared Lisbon, the two women switched places.

When the airplane glided down for what promised to be a routine landing on the Tagus River, it suddenly plunged into the water with tremendous impact. Swan, who was in the seat assigned to Froman, was killed instantly.

Jane’s mink coat, blouse, shoes and stockings were ripped off. She suffered a broken right arm, a compound fracture of the right leg, a left leg nearly severed below the knee, three broken ribs, and a rash of cuts and bruises. Countless tiny bits of metal and wood from the Clipper were embedded in her body.

Froman was one of thirteen survivors afloat in the turgid water with night descending upon Lisbon. Another who escaped instant death was John Curtis Burn, the copilot, who had been hurled near the songstress. Although he had received a fractured spine and a skull fracture, he somehow made his way to Jane and kept her head above water by clinging to a piece of the wreckage.

It was a strange rendezvous, there in the darkness and the icy water. In shock and numbness, they carried on a casual conversation. Burn said that he

A Patriotic Heroine’s Long Ordeal 117

had been a fan of Jane’s for years, but had never expected to meet her adrift in a river.

Despite the idle chatter, both knew they were goners unless rescuers arrived soon. Some forty-five minutes after the crash, a launch fished the couple out of the water, and they were rushed to a Lisbon hospital.

John Burn recalled: “Jane was by far the worst hurt of the survivors, but she didn’t whimper in the water or afterward. In the hospital, she kept telling the nurses to take care of the other survivors. All during the first night, when she was suffering so severely, she kept sending people to see how I was getting along.”

Jane had made her Broadway debut in the hit musical Ziegfield Follies of 1934 with Fanny Brice and a young hoofer named Buddy Ebsen. Meanwhile, she had her first smash record, singing “I Only Have Eyes for You” in her deep, resonant voice. By now, Jane was a national celebrity and was hauling in $1,000 weekly, an imposing salary in the Great Depression era.

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