December 7, 2021 • 29 mins
As musical instruments go, pianos are pretty amazing -- they're also not particularly easy to move. Clunkiness aside, pianos provide endless hours of entertainment, lightening the mood in even the darkest of times. In today's episode, Ben and Noel explore how the US government and the Steinway company sought to boost wartime morale by literally dropping pianos into the front lines (along with, thankfully, instructions on how to tune them).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you asked always
so much for tuning in. Uh my name is Ben.
That's our super producer, the one and only Mr Max
Williams on the ones and twos of super Production. I
guess and Noel, you're coming. You're coming from a different
place today, Huh, I'm coming in hot. If you hear
(00:49):
like some you know, sirens or like a car crash
or just people screaming, it's because I'm right by an
air conditioning window unit at a rented apartment in Bushwick.
I was on vacation and then it was like, oh no,
we got to record an episode. And then also the
WiFi stopped working. So I'm doing this really like roundabout
way of recording this right now. So uh, my apologies
(01:11):
for any um substandard quality of the audio. It'll still
be the crisp Noel Brown sound you're used to, which
you might hear some extra little goodies in the background,
like my flatmate Scott Um folding up the sheets so
we can get out of here in time for check out.
It's gonna it's gonna sound great. We're hearing you loud
and clear. And you know, one thing the pandemic has
(01:32):
taught me is to think of those extra kind of
unintended sounds or those uh Bob Ross happy mistakes. It's
just another part of entertainment. I think it was Franklin D.
Roosevelt who said entertainment is always a national asset, invaluable
in time of peace, it is indispensable in wartime. Well,
(01:53):
I feel like a national ass hat because of putting
you guys through the ringer with my weird situation. So
thank you for rolling with me um in this In
this episode today, which is as you were alluding to
about wartime, I named my file that I'm recording war pianos.
What does this mean, Ben, What does this mean? Ah? Yes,
war piano Well, as you pointed out my friend before
(02:14):
he started recording, this would be a great band name,
maybe an album name. But this is also a true story.
During World War Two. It turns out the Steinway and
Sons piano company created specially built pianos for US military troops,
(02:34):
and these were called the Victory Vertical. Sometimes they were
literally air dropped into conflicts just to provide a bit
of relaxation. And you know they were made in a
place not too far from where you're staying. They were
made in a factory based in Queens. That's right, the
(02:55):
Steinway and Son's factory in Queens. It was specifically a
factory where they manufacture these specialty pianos that were made
to be sold directly to the US government, you know.
And it's like imaginations can often run wild and ridiculous
history when we see these headlines before we dig deep in,
and in my mind, I I just kind of picturing
(03:15):
the sort of Fellini absurdist version of the story. We're
actually dropping pianos on the enemy, you know, because you know,
when you drop a piano from a great hight, it
makes a really terrifying sound. Also, I found this out
from a documentary. I can't remember exactly where I saw it.
But if you drop a piano and it like you know, survives,
as in it doesn't like completely, the strings don't just
(03:37):
completely you know, break and explode. And I used the
word explode not lightly, because if you are not careful
or if you are not like paying attention, it's almost
it becomes a ticking time bomb because if the the
I believe it's called the string bed or something like that,
the part of the piano where the strings run across.
If that gets cracked, then the piano becomes essentially unsound
(03:59):
structurally on sand down and it can you know, slowly
get to the point where that thing's gonna break. And
when you think happens when it breaks, boom Yeah, yeah,
literal explosion of piano wire and wood and strapnel. So
it could have been potentially a good weapon, but that
(04:19):
is not what we're talking about today. We're talking about
more of a way of uplifting the troops and giving
them a little bit of um, you know, uh, leisure
time or something to kind of like, you know, take
them away from the horrors of war. I like the idea, though,
it's a good point. I like the idea of every
piano being a potentially deadly pinata if you just catch
it on the wrong you know, catch it on the
(04:41):
wrong side of the strings, the wrong side of the strings.
I'm sorry, yes, you're right. It's also uh, there's also
a boon to piano manufacturers. Let's let's dive in. Okay,
so we know that during World War two people were
still people. They a loved music, right and music was
(05:02):
bringing folks together, especially as troops were scattered across the
European and Pacific theater. There's something different here because in
World War One radio wasn't really a thing for the
average person. But in World War Two, by December over
(05:26):
like nine six point two per cent of people owned radios,
and so millions of Americans would gather around and listen
to music, listen to news from the front. This unified people.
They had this massive, amazing effect on morale, and this
(05:48):
is something that government officials recognized. They started thinking about
how to keep the spirits of soldiers up despite the
horrors of war. Expect the idea of morale isn't just
like a pr thing. I mean, it can actually affect
how soldiers behave you know, in the line of duty,
how alert they are, and how you know, behind the
cause they are, because I mean it's when when people
(06:10):
start really feeling despaired or you know, homesick. It can
absolutely affect the way they fight, uh and the efficiency
with which they you know, conduct themselves in the field
of battle. So what was the best way to keep
soldiers morale up was a very important question that the
government had to figure out during World War Two, because
this is also an absolutely unprecedentedly nasty war. It was absolutely, very,
(06:33):
very traumatic for all of these soldiers and their families.
UM Michigan Radio dot org has a fantastic article about
the push to get pianos to the front lines that
talks about a lot of this stuff. Highly recommend checking
that one out. But the government ultimately figured out the
most efficient and powerful and doable way to keep the
(06:55):
soldiers morales up was by essentially shipping them or air
dropping them pianos. But not just any pianos. These were
pianos that had to be specially designed and reinforced uh
so that they could actually be parachuted into conflict zones.
Jonathan Piper, who manages artifacts and exhibitions at the Museum
(07:15):
of Making Music in Carlsbad, California, which has like a
place I would love to go to. This place also
has uh some several examples of the pianos from this
Victory Vertical project in their collection, and he goes on
to talk about the military legacy of the Steinway and
Sons Company. The president at the time UM had four
sons that were in the military themselves, so he had
(07:37):
actual skin in the game, and the company had um
already kind of shifted their production to building things like
tails and wings and parts you know, for military transport
like gliders and all of that. And because of that,
they already had these parts to kind of bolster these
pianos and make them ready to go to be air
(07:58):
dropped into these very dangerous zones. Yeah, exactly. And this
is part of a larger trend that we see in manufacturing.
During World War Two, majority of US industry shifted to
a wartime economy. It didn't episode about this for car
stuff a while back, you know. Only it's not fair
(08:19):
to say that auto production numbers dropped. They disappeared, and
all the automakers were making stuff for the war. And
of course people at Steinway and Sons are also able
to push their manufacturing base into products that will benefit
(08:40):
the war effort. The thing with this idea of Uncle
Sam saying, hey, make us pianos. We will pay you
a guaranteed amount of money, and we need this many pianos.
The thing that's cool about that is that that could
make the difference between the business staying afloat were going broke.
(09:01):
But there was a catch, because these pianos might need
to be air dropped. So just any normal old piano
is not going to it's not gonna do the deed.
If you ever moved to piano, you know, it's a
(09:21):
pain just when it's on the ground. So not only that,
I mean it's such a it's such a particular piece
of you know, kit that typically there are whole companies
that are devoted to just moving pianos because you have
to handle in a certain way because like I said,
they could be really dangerous if something gets cracked and
literally you know, you can have exploding wires, you know,
(09:42):
coming for you. This is the part of the story
that I find really interesting, like specifically how they kind
of ruggedised, you know, wartime ified these pianos really interesting
and clever, um and specific stuff that you wouldn't necessarily
think unless you were a piano person. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now,
the Steinway Company at this point is already famous for
(10:04):
the high quality of its musical instruments, but these are
these are pretty much works of art, right, They're quite fragile.
You have to be careful with them. So they needed
to figure out how to design a piano that was
super durable and with this, we want to give a
shout out to Atlas Obscure with their excellent article When
(10:28):
the Pianos Went to War by Wennie Lee. This article
also introduces us to Jonathan Piper, who's the manager of
artifacts and exhibitions at that Museum of Making Music over
in Carl's Bad, and he points out that Steinway needed
to not only create a piano that could take a beating,
(10:51):
but they also had to create a piano that was
cheap to manufacture. They hadn't be careful with their materials
because you know, there was a let rationing going on.
There were a lot of shortages, and this is where
we see some of those features they talked about, like
it doesn't have legs because legs would break off when
you drop it from the air. So I think they
used a different kind of glue as well. The list
(11:13):
goes on, Oh, they also don't have ivory keys. That's
where it was a water resistant glue, which makes sense.
They used something that's referred to in the aueb Secure
article as anti insect treatments, which I guess makes sense
because the piano is sort of a cavernous thing where
if you had like insects the guy in there, and
like you know, bread could be a real problem and
it could carry you know, the potentially disease carrying uh insects,
(11:35):
you know, into a area with lots of you know,
infectable humans, even if it's just something like light right
or something like you know, bed bugs. Maybe I'm just
guessing here, but that seems like the reason for that
UM and the keys were covered with celluloid instead of ivory.
And here's some of the little specific details that I
think you're interesting, because you're right, this was obviously an
important thing for the military brass and the idea of
(11:58):
you know, making sure that the morale was up. But
the materials were really precious and they had to be
you know, used to make things like weapons, actual weapons
of war and transport we were talking about, which is
what the sign Way Company was already UM partly had
shifted partly to manufacture, so they needed to use as
little metal as possible in one of these UM specifically
(12:20):
a tenth of the metal that would have been used
in the normal piano. UM. So in order to do that,
for example, the base strings, the really low rumbly strings
on the left side of of the piano um were
wrapped in soft iron instead of copper, for example, and
they were able to reduce the metal in the piano,
(12:41):
not only because it saved them those precious materials, but
also made it where four soldiers could carry the thing.
It was still four and fifty five pounds, but they
had to make it where you know, it was doable
because it would be dropped into a place where within
me intercepted and they have to carry it back to
the base. And they also I believe, like added like
(13:01):
handles on the side that would allow them to do
just that. Yeah. Yeah, and this also has visually it's different.
It has olive green blue and gray paint job instead
of like a classy dark wood finish. It like a
Camo piano. Right essentially, yes, yes, a Camo piano piano
(13:23):
will work on it. So they the this These are
like you said, these are lightweight. They're designed to be
able to move. According to a professor at Eastern Michigan University,
concert pianist Garrick Peterson, who is heading the Victory Vertical project,
these pianos, the Victory Verticals or o g s as
(13:45):
we'll find uh only had about thirty three pounds of metal.
For comparison, a normal upright piano would have about three
hundred pounds of metal, so they cut a lot out right.
I mean, it really is very ingenious the way they
were able to figure out how to do this while
making the thing sound like a Steinway and Sons piano.
(14:06):
You know, yeah, And you know that one of the
only unmusical things about this was the official government name,
which was the Olive Drab Government Issue Field Piano abbreviated
to O G. Alive Drab is I think the most
like I like, you know, uh, it's definitely odd. Olive
(14:28):
drab to me is like the most depressing sounding name
for a color ever. Um. Then I don't know why.
I think it's just the word drab. Um. But the
thing that's neat too is Steinway. It was such a
legacy brand already at that point, they've been making pianos
before even the metal frame piano became a thing that
(14:49):
wasn't patented until eighteen five. So this is like a
very old company that had that had experienced kind of
making pianos without metal frames, so they were uniquely positioned
to be helpful in this A whole operation. Um Vertical
Horizon getting it's not what it's called. It's called Operation
Victory Vertical, but Vertical Horizon did have a banger two
(15:09):
um back in the early Absolutely. Yes, so these um
this task of getting these pianos and bringing them out
to people fighting on the front falls do something called
the Special Services, which was the entertainment wing of the U. S.
Army Service Forces. Is that like the US or what
(15:30):
they're connecting to. Yeah, like yeah, I believe so. So
the Special Service, Uh, their entire job is to keep
that morale high. So they're the ones who are in
charge of the logistics here. Steinway, when they get this deal,
they go on to make more than three thousand of
these specially designed pianos between nineteen forty one and into
(15:55):
nineteen fifty three. During the Korean War, Uh, they were
dropped into the field by parachute and they would come
with tuning equipment and instructions. And that's kind of weird.
It feels stressful to already be in a battle and say, okay,
now it's time to teach myself to tune a piano.
(16:16):
Everybody be quiet for a second. I will tell you
I don't own an acoustic piano, but I do own
an auto harp, which is similar mechanism like string wise, Um,
you know, it's all of these strings that are connected,
um with these kind of like keys that you have
to tighten with an Allen wrench or like almost like
a ratchet. So you have to have a special wrench
(16:37):
that that you know, even can like turn the thing
to tune it. And then there's so many strings that there,
you know, each one has to be kind of tuned individually,
so it takes a long time and requires quite a
lot of precision, and it's not something that really just
any you know, kind of novice could do. I just
looked up them. My internet came back, by the way,
how about that. UM. I just looked up Victory vertical
(16:57):
pianos for sale, UM, and I found one. It is
twenty thousand English pounds. It is really neat looking. It
is as advertised beent. It is this olive drab. It
looks exactly like a government issue anything. It's a government
issue piano might as well be a freaking pharmacist, you know.
But it just has keys on it and it's got like,
you know the place where the music stand would come
(17:19):
out it looks like it's kind of like ratcheted shut,
almost like a like a window that's got boards on it.
Um and it's got it's an upright piano like you
picture like a honky tonk kind of like barroom piano.
And then it shows on this page the container that
it was actually dropped in. It's not just dropped keys out,
you know, like ready to go. It's in like a
(17:39):
giant wooden packing container. But what a cool group of
photos here because it shows a bunch of army buddies
gathered around the thing with one guy playing and everyone
else just kind of pounding around, leaning leaning on the piano.
I mean it really you can see what an effect
on their moral it had, Like they're very bad and
just kicking it, you know, absolutely, Lee, you know this.
(18:01):
And these weren't all exclusively dropped out of parachutes. A
lot of them were trucked two different USO centers. Uh,
some of them were even on submarines, so they like
imagine installing a piano on a World War Two era submarine,
this piano in the submarine. Yeah, it was actually put
(18:22):
in before the submarine was fully constructed. They kind of
built the piano into the thing. So when the submarine
got decommissioned, they couldn't get rid of the piano without
taking apart the entire boat because, as you can imagine,
space is tight on submarines. I was about to say, yeah,
(18:42):
how do you even that? Seems like the last thing
he'd be willing to sacrifice space for it on a submarine,
and they maybe needed to build a submarine version. Somebody
probably slept on top of the piano. That's a good point.
It's a good point. I love that you're mentioning this
image of people coming together and uh singing right and
(19:07):
playing music. This is a crucial point to acknowledge because
the World War two US Army was a draft army,
meaning people were conscripted, meaning these weren't necessarily career soldiers. Right,
you'd have musicians. You have people who ordinarily we're just
like playing the piano for a living, who got dressed
into the military. So imagine how cool it is when
(19:30):
you know, you and your crew see one of these
pianos getting dropped, and then the guy you know from
Missouri or whatever who plays piano, It's like, oh, I
could go nuts on this for days. That's amazing. Well,
and let's think about it. I mean, back then the
piano really was like the sort of jukebox of its time,
or like think about like you know, the old images
(19:51):
of the Old West with the saloon and the piano player,
like that is where the music came from. This was
like a human you know, juke box, and the pianos
that were shipped as part of this program came with
sheet music, and it would have been like popular tunes
of the time, like like classics, you know, like things
like Chopin or whatever, or like maybe more like ragtime
(20:11):
kind of tunes, but also would have had things like
pimnals like Protestant hymnals or patriotic kind of raw raw
you know, sing alongs uh and and stuff like that
that everyone would have been super familiar with, and that
anyone who would have been a pianist at the time
would have been schooled in music reading most almost definitely.
I mean that was just like part came came with
a territory. It wasn't like there was any free jazz
(20:33):
guys that were sitting down and just kind of like
popping up. But even those guys came from usually very
specific kind of classical roots or you know, academic music training.
That's how music was viewed in those days. Yea. And
by the very end of the war, in total, remember
earlier we said they'd made over three thousand victory verticals
exclusively for the military. They also made others that went
(20:57):
to churches or school so all at all, they made
ballpark five thousand of these things. And you know, these
things are durable, like you were saying, well you can
if you have the scratch for it. Even by one
today we know also that Steinway didn't just make pianos. No,
(21:19):
we talked about earlier on. They were making like things
like gliders, you know, like for paragliders or whatever, and
other bits and parts and stuff that would have made
sense based on their supply chain. But one thing that
absolutely makes sense because if you think about it, what
is a piano if not kind of a coffin with
like strings and keys. Um, it really is. It's gotta
it's got a hinged lid. Um, it's it's a it's
(21:40):
a giant case that houses stuff. Um. So that was
one of the things they made, was coffins. Um, and
then they shipped it to making these victory verticals. And
when you think about the fact that only five thousand
of these things ever existed, I don't think twenty thousand
English pounds that much of a stretch. I mean, this
is absolutely a museum piece. You know, Um, I don't know.
You guys want to pull our pull our coins and
(22:02):
get one from the studio, you know, why don't. Yeah,
we'll put it next to that gigantic, uh gigantic Grandfather
clock that we we use with the quister. So we
owe thanks to Professor Peterson over there at Eastern Michigan
University because he has been so instrumental in telling the
(22:31):
story of a vertical victory piano. I'm not taking it back,
We're leaving it m x uh. And he said that
he had not heard of this story until twent and
he learned about it when he actually got to sit
down with Henry Steinway of the Steinways, the last member
of the family that had been involved in the Steinway company,
(22:54):
and he uh. The way Peterson says is, I sat
down and I just asked him a ton of question
and one of them was tell me something you're really
proud of. And he had no idea that this story existed.
He thought he was the last person on earth to
hear about it, and he started talking to his friends,
other musicians, other professors, other pianists, and no one knew
(23:16):
about it. So thank you Professor Peterson for bringing this
story to the world. Absolutely, and in the story kind
of does uh it's sort of the beginning of a
trajectory of this whole idea of getting music to the troops. Right.
You know, the radio was tough because you're abroad, so
those broadcast signals have to be you know, local and like,
(23:37):
you know, supported by the local regime. So if you're
in a hostile territory, it's harder to you know, I mean,
I guess they could have set up a I'm sure
they did if you think about things like Good Morning
Vietnam later, where they had like, you know, radio for
the troops on base. But this was an easier solution,
as logistically complicated as it sounds. But in the dawn
of recorded music, right um, which was a little bit later,
(24:01):
you started to get, uh, sort of an escalation of
this whole thing, and then something that woul ultimately be easier.
The American Federation of Musicians or a fm UM did
a strike from nineteen forty two to ninety four UM
over Surprise Surprise disputes over royalties. So there was literally
no music being recorded for record labels in the US
(24:22):
during that span of time. And again I know that
radio and theatrollas and things like that recorded music. Sort
of we're happening at the same time, but this was
sort of in the heyday of like people being able
to afford, you know, to have music, recorded music at
the house. So the Army essentially started its own label,
UM got a pass and more like called scabs or whatever.
(24:43):
So they were able to round up some of the
biggest music stars of the UH and created something called
V discs um V standing for Victory and they were
record exclusively for the troops again sort of like the
U s so Vibe in the live you know, show set,
but in recorded music. And then these were shipped overseas.
(25:04):
We actually have a clip here of what one of
those sounded like. Come in in on a wing and
(25:35):
a friend, co man on a wing and a friend.
So there's one motor gone. We can still carry on
man then on a wing and a friend. What a show. Yeah,
(25:59):
we really hit our targets for the night. How we're
saying as we live look below, as our fields over
saying with our pull through afore and our drugs in
the dawn on A and a Friend. Wonderful and what
(26:54):
better way to draw today's episode to a close. No,
I'm always so glad to hear from you, and I'm
so glad that you're having adventures up there in the
Big Apple thinks as well to the one and only
Mr Max Williams thinks the Casey Pegram. And thanks to
Alex Williams who composed not that music you just heard,
(27:16):
but the the soundtrack for our show, which I think
you're hearing now absolutely, which consequently would have become the
sound we will have by this point become the soundtrack
of many of your lives. So Alex Williams reaching out
from beyond now that he's like dead or anything, he's
just not here with us now, he would absolutely have
been the guy in the army who would have been
banging out some awesome tunes on one of those vertical
(27:38):
victory verticals. Alex is an excellent Okay, Max Okay triggered,
Uh No, I've definitely been to like you know then
you you learn an improv guy and um, they're back
pre pandemic times. Hopefully, I think it's coming back. But
there's a venue where you always used to do improv
shows called the Highland in ballroom, and you'll recall that
(27:59):
in the uh little foyer before you go into the
you know, the part where you see did and watch
the show is an upright piano and I remember distinctly
taking Alex to one of those in him playing it
quite loudly for a borderline inappropriate amount. Yeah, yeah, let
me jump in here on that. I remember Alex doing
that all the time, but not at a bar or ballroom,
(28:20):
but at our apartment every single day. The man's best
song in his heart. The man's got a song in
his heart, and springing a step in your right bend
practice does make perfect. But he would have been absolutely
at home in the military sitting at one of these
upright pianos. So Alex here in spirit along with Christopher
Haciots and Eves, Jeff Coats and Ben thank you as well,
(28:41):
and sorry again for any weird bush wicky noises that
you guys may have heard, but we made it through.
It was a little shorter one, but really sweet one.
If you ask well, you know, you know my history man.
I've been recording in across the Pacific and undisclosed locations, etcetera.
It's just it's part of the gig and sometimes it
can be fun to record in a new place and
(29:04):
tell a new story. Also thanks to the one and
only Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister, who may
sooner rather than later drop in on our show just
like a victory vertical falling from the sky, but more
like one of these scary exploding types that I mentioned
at the top of the show. Well, you know, we'll
(29:27):
we'll see we'll, we'll we'll cross that root becom when
we get there, only time with We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you asked always
so much for tuning in. Uh my name is Ben.
That's our super producer, the one and only Mr Max
Williams on the ones and twos of super Production. I
guess and Noel, you're coming. You're coming from a different
place today, Huh, I'm coming in hot. If you hear
(00:49):
like some you know, sirens or like a car crash
or just people screaming, it's because I'm right by an
air conditioning window unit at a rented apartment in Bushwick.
I was on vacation and then it was like, oh no,
we got to record an episode. And then also the
WiFi stopped working. So I'm doing this really like roundabout
way of recording this right now. So uh, my apologies
(01:11):
for any um substandard quality of the audio. It'll still
be the crisp Noel Brown sound you're used to, which
you might hear some extra little goodies in the background,
like my flatmate Scott Um folding up the sheets so
we can get out of here in time for check out.
It's gonna it's gonna sound great. We're hearing you loud
and clear. And you know, one thing the pandemic has
(01:32):
taught me is to think of those extra kind of
unintended sounds or those uh Bob Ross happy mistakes. It's
just another part of entertainment. I think it was Franklin D.
Roosevelt who said entertainment is always a national asset, invaluable
in time of peace, it is indispensable in wartime. Well,
(01:53):
I feel like a national ass hat because of putting
you guys through the ringer with my weird situation. So
thank you for rolling with me um in this In
this episode today, which is as you were alluding to
about wartime, I named my file that I'm recording war pianos.
What does this mean, Ben, What does this mean? Ah? Yes,
war piano Well, as you pointed out my friend before
(02:14):
he started recording, this would be a great band name,
maybe an album name. But this is also a true story.
During World War Two. It turns out the Steinway and
Sons piano company created specially built pianos for US military troops,
(02:34):
and these were called the Victory Vertical. Sometimes they were
literally air dropped into conflicts just to provide a bit
of relaxation. And you know they were made in a
place not too far from where you're staying. They were
made in a factory based in Queens. That's right, the
(02:55):
Steinway and Son's factory in Queens. It was specifically a
factory where they manufacture these specialty pianos that were made
to be sold directly to the US government, you know.
And it's like imaginations can often run wild and ridiculous
history when we see these headlines before we dig deep in,
and in my mind, I I just kind of picturing
(03:15):
the sort of Fellini absurdist version of the story. We're
actually dropping pianos on the enemy, you know, because you know,
when you drop a piano from a great hight, it
makes a really terrifying sound. Also, I found this out
from a documentary. I can't remember exactly where I saw it.
But if you drop a piano and it like you know, survives,
as in it doesn't like completely, the strings don't just
(03:37):
completely you know, break and explode. And I used the
word explode not lightly, because if you are not careful
or if you are not like paying attention, it's almost
it becomes a ticking time bomb because if the the
I believe it's called the string bed or something like that,
the part of the piano where the strings run across.
If that gets cracked, then the piano becomes essentially unsound
(03:59):
structurally on sand down and it can you know, slowly
get to the point where that thing's gonna break. And
when you think happens when it breaks, boom Yeah, yeah,
literal explosion of piano wire and wood and strapnel. So
it could have been potentially a good weapon, but that
(04:19):
is not what we're talking about today. We're talking about
more of a way of uplifting the troops and giving
them a little bit of um, you know, uh, leisure
time or something to kind of like, you know, take
them away from the horrors of war. I like the idea, though,
it's a good point. I like the idea of every
piano being a potentially deadly pinata if you just catch
it on the wrong you know, catch it on the
(04:41):
wrong side of the strings, the wrong side of the strings.
I'm sorry, yes, you're right. It's also uh, there's also
a boon to piano manufacturers. Let's let's dive in. Okay,
so we know that during World War two people were
still people. They a loved music, right and music was
(05:02):
bringing folks together, especially as troops were scattered across the
European and Pacific theater. There's something different here because in
World War One radio wasn't really a thing for the
average person. But in World War Two, by December over
(05:26):
like nine six point two per cent of people owned radios,
and so millions of Americans would gather around and listen
to music, listen to news from the front. This unified people.
They had this massive, amazing effect on morale, and this
(05:48):
is something that government officials recognized. They started thinking about
how to keep the spirits of soldiers up despite the
horrors of war. Expect the idea of morale isn't just
like a pr thing. I mean, it can actually affect
how soldiers behave you know, in the line of duty,
how alert they are, and how you know, behind the
cause they are, because I mean it's when when people
(06:10):
start really feeling despaired or you know, homesick. It can
absolutely affect the way they fight, uh and the efficiency
with which they you know, conduct themselves in the field
of battle. So what was the best way to keep
soldiers morale up was a very important question that the
government had to figure out during World War Two, because
this is also an absolutely unprecedentedly nasty war. It was absolutely, very,
(06:33):
very traumatic for all of these soldiers and their families.
UM Michigan Radio dot org has a fantastic article about
the push to get pianos to the front lines that
talks about a lot of this stuff. Highly recommend checking
that one out. But the government ultimately figured out the
most efficient and powerful and doable way to keep the
(06:55):
soldiers morales up was by essentially shipping them or air
dropping them pianos. But not just any pianos. These were
pianos that had to be specially designed and reinforced uh
so that they could actually be parachuted into conflict zones.
Jonathan Piper, who manages artifacts and exhibitions at the Museum
(07:15):
of Making Music in Carlsbad, California, which has like a
place I would love to go to. This place also
has uh some several examples of the pianos from this
Victory Vertical project in their collection, and he goes on
to talk about the military legacy of the Steinway and
Sons Company. The president at the time UM had four
sons that were in the military themselves, so he had
(07:37):
actual skin in the game, and the company had um
already kind of shifted their production to building things like
tails and wings and parts you know, for military transport
like gliders and all of that. And because of that,
they already had these parts to kind of bolster these
pianos and make them ready to go to be air
(07:58):
dropped into these very dangerous zones. Yeah, exactly. And this
is part of a larger trend that we see in manufacturing.
During World War Two, majority of US industry shifted to
a wartime economy. It didn't episode about this for car
stuff a while back, you know. Only it's not fair
(08:19):
to say that auto production numbers dropped. They disappeared, and
all the automakers were making stuff for the war. And
of course people at Steinway and Sons are also able
to push their manufacturing base into products that will benefit
(08:40):
the war effort. The thing with this idea of Uncle
Sam saying, hey, make us pianos. We will pay you
a guaranteed amount of money, and we need this many pianos.
The thing that's cool about that is that that could
make the difference between the business staying afloat were going broke.
(09:01):
But there was a catch, because these pianos might need
to be air dropped. So just any normal old piano
is not going to it's not gonna do the deed.
If you ever moved to piano, you know, it's a
(09:21):
pain just when it's on the ground. So not only that,
I mean it's such a it's such a particular piece
of you know, kit that typically there are whole companies
that are devoted to just moving pianos because you have
to handle in a certain way because like I said,
they could be really dangerous if something gets cracked and
literally you know, you can have exploding wires, you know,
(09:42):
coming for you. This is the part of the story
that I find really interesting, like specifically how they kind
of ruggedised, you know, wartime ified these pianos really interesting
and clever, um and specific stuff that you wouldn't necessarily
think unless you were a piano person. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now,
the Steinway Company at this point is already famous for
(10:04):
the high quality of its musical instruments, but these are
these are pretty much works of art, right, They're quite fragile.
You have to be careful with them. So they needed
to figure out how to design a piano that was
super durable and with this, we want to give a
shout out to Atlas Obscure with their excellent article When
(10:28):
the Pianos Went to War by Wennie Lee. This article
also introduces us to Jonathan Piper, who's the manager of
artifacts and exhibitions at that Museum of Making Music over
in Carl's Bad, and he points out that Steinway needed
to not only create a piano that could take a beating,
(10:51):
but they also had to create a piano that was
cheap to manufacture. They hadn't be careful with their materials
because you know, there was a let rationing going on.
There were a lot of shortages, and this is where
we see some of those features they talked about, like
it doesn't have legs because legs would break off when
you drop it from the air. So I think they
used a different kind of glue as well. The list
(11:13):
goes on, Oh, they also don't have ivory keys. That's
where it was a water resistant glue, which makes sense.
They used something that's referred to in the aueb Secure
article as anti insect treatments, which I guess makes sense
because the piano is sort of a cavernous thing where
if you had like insects the guy in there, and
like you know, bread could be a real problem and
it could carry you know, the potentially disease carrying uh insects,
(11:35):
you know, into a area with lots of you know,
infectable humans, even if it's just something like light right
or something like you know, bed bugs. Maybe I'm just
guessing here, but that seems like the reason for that
UM and the keys were covered with celluloid instead of ivory.
And here's some of the little specific details that I
think you're interesting, because you're right, this was obviously an
important thing for the military brass and the idea of
(11:58):
you know, making sure that the morale was up. But
the materials were really precious and they had to be
you know, used to make things like weapons, actual weapons
of war and transport we were talking about, which is
what the sign Way Company was already UM partly had
shifted partly to manufacture, so they needed to use as
little metal as possible in one of these UM specifically
(12:20):
a tenth of the metal that would have been used
in the normal piano. UM. So in order to do that,
for example, the base strings, the really low rumbly strings
on the left side of of the piano um were
wrapped in soft iron instead of copper, for example, and
they were able to reduce the metal in the piano,
(12:41):
not only because it saved them those precious materials, but
also made it where four soldiers could carry the thing.
It was still four and fifty five pounds, but they
had to make it where you know, it was doable
because it would be dropped into a place where within
me intercepted and they have to carry it back to
the base. And they also I believe, like added like
(13:01):
handles on the side that would allow them to do
just that. Yeah. Yeah, and this also has visually it's different.
It has olive green blue and gray paint job instead
of like a classy dark wood finish. It like a
Camo piano. Right essentially, yes, yes, a Camo piano piano
(13:23):
will work on it. So they the this These are
like you said, these are lightweight. They're designed to be
able to move. According to a professor at Eastern Michigan University,
concert pianist Garrick Peterson, who is heading the Victory Vertical project,
these pianos, the Victory Verticals or o g s as
(13:45):
we'll find uh only had about thirty three pounds of metal.
For comparison, a normal upright piano would have about three
hundred pounds of metal, so they cut a lot out right.
I mean, it really is very ingenious the way they
were able to figure out how to do this while
making the thing sound like a Steinway and Sons piano.
(14:06):
You know, yeah, And you know that one of the
only unmusical things about this was the official government name,
which was the Olive Drab Government Issue Field Piano abbreviated
to O G. Alive Drab is I think the most
like I like, you know, uh, it's definitely odd. Olive
(14:28):
drab to me is like the most depressing sounding name
for a color ever. Um. Then I don't know why.
I think it's just the word drab. Um. But the
thing that's neat too is Steinway. It was such a
legacy brand already at that point, they've been making pianos
before even the metal frame piano became a thing that
(14:49):
wasn't patented until eighteen five. So this is like a
very old company that had that had experienced kind of
making pianos without metal frames, so they were uniquely positioned
to be helpful in this A whole operation. Um Vertical
Horizon getting it's not what it's called. It's called Operation
Victory Vertical, but Vertical Horizon did have a banger two
(15:09):
um back in the early Absolutely. Yes, so these um
this task of getting these pianos and bringing them out
to people fighting on the front falls do something called
the Special Services, which was the entertainment wing of the U. S.
Army Service Forces. Is that like the US or what
(15:30):
they're connecting to. Yeah, like yeah, I believe so. So
the Special Service, Uh, their entire job is to keep
that morale high. So they're the ones who are in
charge of the logistics here. Steinway, when they get this deal,
they go on to make more than three thousand of
these specially designed pianos between nineteen forty one and into
(15:55):
nineteen fifty three. During the Korean War, Uh, they were
dropped into the field by parachute and they would come
with tuning equipment and instructions. And that's kind of weird.
It feels stressful to already be in a battle and say, okay,
now it's time to teach myself to tune a piano.
(16:16):
Everybody be quiet for a second. I will tell you
I don't own an acoustic piano, but I do own
an auto harp, which is similar mechanism like string wise, Um,
you know, it's all of these strings that are connected,
um with these kind of like keys that you have
to tighten with an Allen wrench or like almost like
a ratchet. So you have to have a special wrench
(16:37):
that that you know, even can like turn the thing
to tune it. And then there's so many strings that there,
you know, each one has to be kind of tuned individually,
so it takes a long time and requires quite a
lot of precision, and it's not something that really just
any you know, kind of novice could do. I just
looked up them. My internet came back, by the way,
how about that. UM. I just looked up Victory vertical
(16:57):
pianos for sale, UM, and I found one. It is
twenty thousand English pounds. It is really neat looking. It
is as advertised beent. It is this olive drab. It
looks exactly like a government issue anything. It's a government
issue piano might as well be a freaking pharmacist, you know.
But it just has keys on it and it's got like,
you know the place where the music stand would come
(17:19):
out it looks like it's kind of like ratcheted shut,
almost like a like a window that's got boards on it.
Um and it's got it's an upright piano like you
picture like a honky tonk kind of like barroom piano.
And then it shows on this page the container that
it was actually dropped in. It's not just dropped keys out,
you know, like ready to go. It's in like a
(17:39):
giant wooden packing container. But what a cool group of
photos here because it shows a bunch of army buddies
gathered around the thing with one guy playing and everyone
else just kind of pounding around, leaning leaning on the piano.
I mean it really you can see what an effect
on their moral it had, Like they're very bad and
just kicking it, you know, absolutely, Lee, you know this.
(18:01):
And these weren't all exclusively dropped out of parachutes. A
lot of them were trucked two different USO centers. Uh,
some of them were even on submarines, so they like
imagine installing a piano on a World War Two era submarine,
this piano in the submarine. Yeah, it was actually put
(18:22):
in before the submarine was fully constructed. They kind of
built the piano into the thing. So when the submarine
got decommissioned, they couldn't get rid of the piano without
taking apart the entire boat because, as you can imagine,
space is tight on submarines. I was about to say, yeah,
(18:42):
how do you even that? Seems like the last thing
he'd be willing to sacrifice space for it on a submarine,
and they maybe needed to build a submarine version. Somebody
probably slept on top of the piano. That's a good point.
It's a good point. I love that you're mentioning this
image of people coming together and uh singing right and
(19:07):
playing music. This is a crucial point to acknowledge because
the World War two US Army was a draft army,
meaning people were conscripted, meaning these weren't necessarily career soldiers. Right,
you'd have musicians. You have people who ordinarily we're just
like playing the piano for a living, who got dressed
into the military. So imagine how cool it is when
(19:30):
you know, you and your crew see one of these
pianos getting dropped, and then the guy you know from
Missouri or whatever who plays piano, It's like, oh, I
could go nuts on this for days. That's amazing. Well,
and let's think about it. I mean, back then the
piano really was like the sort of jukebox of its time,
or like think about like you know, the old images
(19:51):
of the Old West with the saloon and the piano player,
like that is where the music came from. This was
like a human you know, juke box, and the pianos
that were shipped as part of this program came with
sheet music, and it would have been like popular tunes
of the time, like like classics, you know, like things
like Chopin or whatever, or like maybe more like ragtime
(20:11):
kind of tunes, but also would have had things like
pimnals like Protestant hymnals or patriotic kind of raw raw
you know, sing alongs uh and and stuff like that
that everyone would have been super familiar with, and that
anyone who would have been a pianist at the time
would have been schooled in music reading most almost definitely.
I mean that was just like part came came with
a territory. It wasn't like there was any free jazz
(20:33):
guys that were sitting down and just kind of like
popping up. But even those guys came from usually very
specific kind of classical roots or you know, academic music training.
That's how music was viewed in those days. Yea. And
by the very end of the war, in total, remember
earlier we said they'd made over three thousand victory verticals
exclusively for the military. They also made others that went
(20:57):
to churches or school so all at all, they made
ballpark five thousand of these things. And you know, these
things are durable, like you were saying, well you can
if you have the scratch for it. Even by one
today we know also that Steinway didn't just make pianos. No,
(21:19):
we talked about earlier on. They were making like things
like gliders, you know, like for paragliders or whatever, and
other bits and parts and stuff that would have made
sense based on their supply chain. But one thing that
absolutely makes sense because if you think about it, what
is a piano if not kind of a coffin with
like strings and keys. Um, it really is. It's gotta
it's got a hinged lid. Um, it's it's a it's
(21:40):
a giant case that houses stuff. Um. So that was
one of the things they made, was coffins. Um, and
then they shipped it to making these victory verticals. And
when you think about the fact that only five thousand
of these things ever existed, I don't think twenty thousand
English pounds that much of a stretch. I mean, this
is absolutely a museum piece. You know, Um, I don't know.
You guys want to pull our pull our coins and
(22:02):
get one from the studio, you know, why don't. Yeah,
we'll put it next to that gigantic, uh gigantic Grandfather
clock that we we use with the quister. So we
owe thanks to Professor Peterson over there at Eastern Michigan
University because he has been so instrumental in telling the
(22:31):
story of a vertical victory piano. I'm not taking it back,
We're leaving it m x uh. And he said that
he had not heard of this story until twent and
he learned about it when he actually got to sit
down with Henry Steinway of the Steinways, the last member
of the family that had been involved in the Steinway company,
(22:54):
and he uh. The way Peterson says is, I sat
down and I just asked him a ton of question
and one of them was tell me something you're really
proud of. And he had no idea that this story existed.
He thought he was the last person on earth to
hear about it, and he started talking to his friends,
other musicians, other professors, other pianists, and no one knew
(23:16):
about it. So thank you Professor Peterson for bringing this
story to the world. Absolutely, and in the story kind
of does uh it's sort of the beginning of a
trajectory of this whole idea of getting music to the troops. Right.
You know, the radio was tough because you're abroad, so
those broadcast signals have to be you know, local and like,
(23:37):
you know, supported by the local regime. So if you're
in a hostile territory, it's harder to you know, I mean,
I guess they could have set up a I'm sure
they did if you think about things like Good Morning
Vietnam later, where they had like, you know, radio for
the troops on base. But this was an easier solution,
as logistically complicated as it sounds. But in the dawn
of recorded music, right um, which was a little bit later,
(24:01):
you started to get, uh, sort of an escalation of
this whole thing, and then something that woul ultimately be easier.
The American Federation of Musicians or a fm UM did
a strike from nineteen forty two to ninety four UM
over Surprise Surprise disputes over royalties. So there was literally
no music being recorded for record labels in the US
(24:22):
during that span of time. And again I know that
radio and theatrollas and things like that recorded music. Sort
of we're happening at the same time, but this was
sort of in the heyday of like people being able
to afford, you know, to have music, recorded music at
the house. So the Army essentially started its own label,
UM got a pass and more like called scabs or whatever.
(24:43):
So they were able to round up some of the
biggest music stars of the UH and created something called
V discs um V standing for Victory and they were
record exclusively for the troops again sort of like the
U s so Vibe in the live you know, show set,
but in recorded music. And then these were shipped overseas.
(25:04):
We actually have a clip here of what one of
those sounded like. Come in in on a wing and
(25:35):
a friend, co man on a wing and a friend.
So there's one motor gone. We can still carry on
man then on a wing and a friend. What a show. Yeah,
(25:59):
we really hit our targets for the night. How we're
saying as we live look below, as our fields over
saying with our pull through afore and our drugs in
the dawn on A and a Friend. Wonderful and what
(26:54):
better way to draw today's episode to a close. No,
I'm always so glad to hear from you, and I'm
so glad that you're having adventures up there in the
Big Apple thinks as well to the one and only
Mr Max Williams thinks the Casey Pegram. And thanks to
Alex Williams who composed not that music you just heard,
(27:16):
but the the soundtrack for our show, which I think
you're hearing now absolutely, which consequently would have become the
sound we will have by this point become the soundtrack
of many of your lives. So Alex Williams reaching out
from beyond now that he's like dead or anything, he's
just not here with us now, he would absolutely have
been the guy in the army who would have been
banging out some awesome tunes on one of those vertical
(27:38):
victory verticals. Alex is an excellent Okay, Max Okay triggered,
Uh No, I've definitely been to like you know then
you you learn an improv guy and um, they're back
pre pandemic times. Hopefully, I think it's coming back. But
there's a venue where you always used to do improv
shows called the Highland in ballroom, and you'll recall that
(27:59):
in the uh little foyer before you go into the
you know, the part where you see did and watch
the show is an upright piano and I remember distinctly
taking Alex to one of those in him playing it
quite loudly for a borderline inappropriate amount. Yeah, yeah, let
me jump in here on that. I remember Alex doing
that all the time, but not at a bar or ballroom,
(28:20):
but at our apartment every single day. The man's best
song in his heart. The man's got a song in
his heart, and springing a step in your right bend
practice does make perfect. But he would have been absolutely
at home in the military sitting at one of these
upright pianos. So Alex here in spirit along with Christopher
Haciots and Eves, Jeff Coats and Ben thank you as well,
(28:41):
and sorry again for any weird bush wicky noises that
you guys may have heard, but we made it through.
It was a little shorter one, but really sweet one.
If you ask well, you know, you know my history man.
I've been recording in across the Pacific and undisclosed locations, etcetera.
It's just it's part of the gig and sometimes it
can be fun to record in a new place and
(29:04):
tell a new story. Also thanks to the one and
only Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister, who may
sooner rather than later drop in on our show just
like a victory vertical falling from the sky, but more
like one of these scary exploding types that I mentioned
at the top of the show. Well, you know, we'll
(29:27):
we'll see we'll, we'll we'll cross that root becom when
we get there, only time with We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
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your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
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