Hit Kit

One of the biggest song publishers in the U.S. today is the Music Section of the U.S. Army's Special Service Division. Its monthly output runs to 1,000,000 copies. Every month, in its Manhattan offices, it culls and reprints a selection of popular tunes. Within a few weeks every U.S. Army company from North Africa to Guadalcanal is supplied with a new batch of sheet music. A committee of top-flight U.S. entertainers (Fred Waring, Rudy Vallee, Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, Dinah Shore, Kay Kyser, Paul Whiteman, etc.) gladly act as song judges.

Most recent choices: Marching Along Together, I've Heard That Song Before, Comin' In On a Wing and a Prayer, There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere, This Time, I Just Kissed Your Picture Goodnight, Roll Out the Barrel.*

This venture, known as the U.S. Army Hit Kit, was started several months ago by Major Howard Bronson and Captain Harry Salter, a onetime radio musical director. The Special Service Division thought U.S. doughboys ought to have something up-to-date to sing, to provide a substitute for Army bands which are often left far behind the front. The Army has since found the Hit Kit useful in another way. U.S. forces rolling over occupied territory in tanks and jeeps make a friendly impression on native populations by bellowing such tunes as Roll Out the Barrel.

*Neither a U.S. nor a British tune, but Czechoslovakian.

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