Back of Old Baldy

One of the more effective tactical units of the U.S. Army in Korea is the musical combo. Combos are made up of six or seven men; their equipment consists of piano, drums, clarinets, trumpets, saxophones, bull fiddle (with rifles, bazookas, stretchers and ammo boxes in emergencies). Fighting men are likely to find a combo blasting away almost anywhere --at the shower tents just behind Old Baldy, at the medical-clearing stations where the litters are coming in fast, at the rest-area hoedowns helping G.I.s cut an Oriental rug with Korean belles decked out in latest Sears, Roebuck couture. And wherever soldiers find a combo, they keep it busy.

There are eight Army bands in Korea: six in the divisions, one in Pusan and one in Seoul. Until a few months ago, each band had from 65 to 100 men, but recently an order went out standardizing all bands at 42 enlisted men and one warrant officer to bring about "a better utilization of manpower." Even so, each band manages to organize three or four good combos to balance the military marches with plenty of Dixieland, bop and progressive jazz.

Modified Bop. The life of a G.I. musician, even in the rear-line luxury of Seoul, would set his Stateside counterpart bawling for Petrillo. After playing for dances until around 11, he is likely to be up at 6 without even so much as a cup of coffee, bouncing over pitted streets to one of the airfields to play ruffles & flourishes and the General's March for visiting brass. In winter weather, instruments have to be doused with antifreeze, and metal mouthpieces have to be kept in pockets until the last minute. Army bands are not required to play in temperature, of less than 20DEG (though they often do, in contrast to Marine bands, which almos never play in weather colder than their own limit of 32DEG).

When they are working in combos, G.I. musicians are allowed to play the kind of music they themselves prefer. Since most of them are young draftees, musically well educated and hep as any hipster, their soldier audiences are treated to a repertory of numbers and arrangements more advanced than most Stateside bands would play for fear of scaring away cash audiences. But Army audiences also get the tunes they want, though sometimes in experimental arrangements. The tunes they wanted most last week were You Belong to Me, Why Don't You Believe Me?, Dancing on the Ceiling, Wish You Were Here and Jambalaya--a big current favorite.

Arrangers, like spectacled Private David Hillinger, 24, from the University of Michigan, who plays piano or drums in an Eighth Army combo, lean most to the high-speed, modified bop called progressive jazz. Hillinger does most of his arranging from records played by the Armed Forces Radio Service in Seoul and from the latest records and sheet music sent from home; the sheet music supplied to the bands by Special Services tends to be from months to a year late.

On the Line. Playing in a division band is usually a fairly safe job, but not always. During the first days of the war, the 96 members of the 2nd Division band suddenly found themselves almost the only force between division headquarters and the enemy. They put down their music and fought a delaying action with pistols, carbines and machine guns. A few months later, after another such unscheduled engagement, they had to burn their instruments in napalm at Pyongyang to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. When the Communists hit Wonju early in 1951, 2nd Division bandsmen handled most of the ammunition used in the fight, then managed to pick up their instruments and play for the troops that were moving up. Soon afterward, Bandmaster Earl C. Anderson got an order from Tokyo headquarters: bands, it said, should begin playing for the troops on the line. Said Anderson: "When we heard this, we laughed."

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