Hello. Hello welcome to the World War II podcast I'm Angus Wallace.

That was Moonlight in Vermont from the 746 Far East Air Force Band. They recorded that at the end of the war

before the band were broken up and they all went their separate ways. In this episode I'm talking to Jason Bert about his

grandfather Richard. Richard was part of the band based in the Philippines. He brought home that recording you just heard and

squirreled it away to be rediscovered when he sadly passed away.

Jason, thanks for joining me. Before we get to those recordings, let's have a chat about your grandfather.

Richard Bert. How did he, how did he get into the military?

He is drafted into the army in 1943. He's inducted at Fort Douglas over in Salt Lake City and gets sent

down to Camp Kearns for basic training. He had a fortunate meeting there. He had a buddy Max Dalby who was in the band already down there.

Max had gotten his serial number and things of that nature and passed it along to

his CEO in the band and really that's what kind of saved my grandpa

from doing a less desirable job in the Army

because he was slated to be,

he says he was slated to be a Latrine technician

digging holes for somebody to, you know, so yeah.

So Jimi could already play, he could already play what was his instrument, the trumpet.

Yeah, he was a trumpet player.

So, and that's what he did all of his life as a kid.

He wasn't very scholastic or anything like that.

And he knew from a young age that he was just gonna be a musician.

And so he played his trumpet daily. His mom was a piano teacher. So music was his life and he knew that was going to he couldn't even read until high school. So music was going to be for him and the way he describes his basic training was Music was

uh... nobody wanted to stand near him on

...