The U.S. Air Force (song)
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Service anthem of  U.S. Air Force
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| Also known as | "Off We Go..." |
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| Lyrics | Robert MacArthur Crawford, 1947 |
| Music | Robert MacArthur Crawford, 1938 |
| Adopted | 1947 |
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"The U.S. Air Force" is the official song of the United States Air Force.
Originally, the song was titled "Army Air Corps". Robert MacArthur Crawford wrote the lyrics and music during 1938. During World War II, the service was renamed "Army Air Force", and the song title changed to agree.
In 1947, when the Air Force became a separate service, the song became the "Air Force Song".
(Verse I)
(Verse II)
(Verse III)
(Verse IV)
In 1937, Assistant Chief of the Air Corps Brig. Gen. Henry H. Arnold persuaded the Chief of the Air Corps, Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover, that the Air Corps needed an official song reflecting their unique identity in the same manner as the other military services, and proposed a song competition with a prize to the winner. However, the Air Corps did not control its budget, and could not give a prize. In April 1938, Bernarr A. Macfadden, publisher of Liberty magazine stepped in, offering a prize of $1,000 to the winning composer, stipulating that the song must be of simple "harmonic structure", "within the limits of [an] untrained voice", and its beat in "march tempo of military pattern".
Over 700 compositions were received and evaluated by a volunteer committee of senior Air Corps wives with musical backgrounds chaired by Mildred Yount, the wife of Brig. Gen. Barton K. Yount. The committee had until July 1939 to make a final choice. However, word eventually spread that the committee did not find any songs that satisfied them, despite the great number of entries. Arnold, who became Chief of the Air Corps in 1938 after Westover was killed in a plane crash, solicited direct inquiries from professional composers and commercial publishers, including Meredith Willson and Irving Berlin, but not even Berlin's creation proved satisfactory, although it was used as the title music to Winged Victory by Moss Hart.
Two days before the deadline, music instructor Robert Crawford, a rejected World War One Air Service pilot and professional musician billed as "the Flying Baritone," personally delivered a sound recording of his entry, which proved to be a unanimous winner.
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Wikipedia