Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 28, 2024 20:18:39 GMT 12
From the Press, 4th of December 1956:
ANTARCTIC SONG HIT
U.S. Navy Pilots And Their Dakotas
[From BRIAN O’NEILL, ‘'The Press" correspondent with the United States Navy’s Antarctic Expedition} McMURDO SOUND, Nov. 30.
United States Navy pilots who have to fly overloaded and aged R4-D Dakotas on what they describe as hair-raising missions to the South Pole are singing a new Antarctic song hit. The “VX6 Cannonball,” as the song is called, is indicative of crews’ attitude towards their aircraft, two of which are named after flightless birds.
The ‘‘VX6 Cannonball” is a parody on the old ragtime favourite, “Wabash Cannonball,” whose tune has been borrowed. Two western-style singers recorded it for the sound camera of the National Broadcasting Company, New York. The following are the words:
Listen all my shipmates; I’ll tell a tale to you
About some navy pilots and of the planes they flew.
They flew down to McMurdo for Task Force 43
They didn’t fly an airplane. They flew an R4D.
Chorus:
Listen to the rattle, the rumble and the roar
Going down the runway in a beat-up old R-Four.
You can feel the airframe shaking; see the pilot’s trembling hand.
If he don’t get her airborne, we’ll see the promised land.
A-buckin’ and a-slippin’, down the ice we go,
Everyone lean forward. Good Lord! We’re awful slow!
Throttles through the fire wall, JATO trails you see.
There’s eighteen tons a-ridin’ in this beat-up R4D.
The song has been sung in snatches around McMurdo Sound base streets for the last week, but its first full performance, with Spanish guitar accompaniment, was at 2 a.m. today at a mess hall function attended by members of the base Insomnia Club.
The artists were Bill Cumbie, radio technician in Lieutenant-Commander Conrad Shinn’s R4D and the sixteenth man to stand on the South Pole; and Drake Doty, an Air Force aviation mechanic. Both men are from Florida. Cumbie from Pensacola, and Doty from St. Petersberg.
The two men met last month in Christchurch. Cumbie had his own western band in the United States, and Doty had led a popular dance hall band. They styled themselves the Southern Ramblers, and played over the air for 3ZB and entertained at the Addington railway workshops, the Royal New Zealand Air Force station, Wigram, and the Latimer and Caledonian dance halls.
Lieutenant-Commander Jack Donovan, a pilot with the United States VX6 Air Development Squadron, wrote the words to the song.
ANTARCTIC SONG HIT
U.S. Navy Pilots And Their Dakotas
[From BRIAN O’NEILL, ‘'The Press" correspondent with the United States Navy’s Antarctic Expedition} McMURDO SOUND, Nov. 30.
United States Navy pilots who have to fly overloaded and aged R4-D Dakotas on what they describe as hair-raising missions to the South Pole are singing a new Antarctic song hit. The “VX6 Cannonball,” as the song is called, is indicative of crews’ attitude towards their aircraft, two of which are named after flightless birds.
The ‘‘VX6 Cannonball” is a parody on the old ragtime favourite, “Wabash Cannonball,” whose tune has been borrowed. Two western-style singers recorded it for the sound camera of the National Broadcasting Company, New York. The following are the words:
Listen all my shipmates; I’ll tell a tale to you
About some navy pilots and of the planes they flew.
They flew down to McMurdo for Task Force 43
They didn’t fly an airplane. They flew an R4D.
Chorus:
Listen to the rattle, the rumble and the roar
Going down the runway in a beat-up old R-Four.
You can feel the airframe shaking; see the pilot’s trembling hand.
If he don’t get her airborne, we’ll see the promised land.
A-buckin’ and a-slippin’, down the ice we go,
Everyone lean forward. Good Lord! We’re awful slow!
Throttles through the fire wall, JATO trails you see.
There’s eighteen tons a-ridin’ in this beat-up R4D.
The song has been sung in snatches around McMurdo Sound base streets for the last week, but its first full performance, with Spanish guitar accompaniment, was at 2 a.m. today at a mess hall function attended by members of the base Insomnia Club.
The artists were Bill Cumbie, radio technician in Lieutenant-Commander Conrad Shinn’s R4D and the sixteenth man to stand on the South Pole; and Drake Doty, an Air Force aviation mechanic. Both men are from Florida. Cumbie from Pensacola, and Doty from St. Petersberg.
The two men met last month in Christchurch. Cumbie had his own western band in the United States, and Doty had led a popular dance hall band. They styled themselves the Southern Ramblers, and played over the air for 3ZB and entertained at the Addington railway workshops, the Royal New Zealand Air Force station, Wigram, and the Latimer and Caledonian dance halls.
Lieutenant-Commander Jack Donovan, a pilot with the United States VX6 Air Development Squadron, wrote the words to the song.
