By Walter Kent, Buck Ram and Kim Gannon
It seems impossible to believe that during WWII the song “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” was banned from the BBC airways by controllers who thought the lyrics would be detrimental to the morale of troops overseas. In particular was their concern that such music was “nauseating and not at all in keeping with what we feel to be the need of the public in this country in the fourth year of war.”
In 1943 Bing Crosby recorded the song and it promptly went to the top of the US charts earning Crosby his fifth gold record. Yank magazine noted that Crosby accomplished more for military morale than anyone else of that era.
