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The following is a compilation of many different sources and information by Petra, some she found from on-line web sites, some from books, some translations from German sources and a lot is simply written by herself, including the noticeably "odd" inclusion of her very twisted humour from which everyone distances themselves! (even Petra) That said you can hopefully still learn a lot and have fun? So anyone who is unhappy with the content of this free newsletter or datasheet can ask for a full refund under our standard Policy. A copy of the policy can be purchased for three hundred pounds sterling including P&P from Petra directly

Royal Signals DATASHEET WW2 Songs (No.1)

Vera Margaret Welch and her WW2 Songs

Who the hell is Vera Margaret Lewis (née Welch)? I can almost hear you all saying… Well think of who else you know with this first name, and associated with WW two songs…then under her stage name VERA LYNN (Later Dame Vera Lynn, OBE) was probably Britain's most popular "Wartime" singer, and one name that almost any ex-signaller can associate to, regardless of when they served. This datasheet gives a short history of Vera's career and the words to her most significant songs. Here you will find the Lyrics to the songs, "We'll Meet Again", "The White Cliffs Of Dover", "There'll always be an England" and to the song "Lilli Marlene" in both German and English

At the end of the Vera Lynn story is a link to a datasheet dedicated to an interconnected one to the Origins and German version of the song once known as the "Lied eines jungen Wachtpostens" or in English "The Song of a Young Sentry" but eventually it became known by a name that appears in the Song, "Lili Marlene!"

The Pre-War Years

1917 Vera Margaret Welch was born on 20th of March, 1917, in London's East End, where she later attended the Brampton school while it was still a combined Infant, primary and Secondary School.

1924 Vera Lynn began her singing career at the age of seven, performing in local working-men's clubs

1928 At age eleven, she joined the Madame Harris's "Cracker Cabaret Kids".

1932 (at fifteen) she became a vocalist with the Howard Baker Orchestra.

1935 Proved a key year for Vera's development; then she made her first radio broadcast on the BBC from the Astoria Ballroom, Charring Cross Rd., together with the Joe Loss Orchestra (her first song that evening was Red Sails in the Sunset). She was also hired in 1935 as a vocalist by Charlie Kunz. She also made her first recordings, both with Kunz on the Rex label (See list of her Rex recordings below) and also anonymously for the Crown label (an exclusive label for F.W.Woolworth's).

Lynn's Casani-club Orchestra (Charlie Kunz) recordings with Rex Label.

October, 1935 her first commercial record I'm In The Mood For Love.

November, 1935 Sailing Home With The Tide

December, 1935 Thanks A Million

May, 1936 Heart Of Gold

August, 1936 A Star Fell Out Of Heaven

August, 1936 Crying My Heart Out For You

September, 1936 It's Love Again.

October, 1936 Did Your Mother Come From Ireland ?

December, 1936 Have You Forgotten So Soon ?

December, 1936 Everything Is Rhythm(selection)

January, 1937 When My Dream Boat Comes Home

March, 1937 Goodnight, My Love

March, 1937 All Alone In Vienna

1937 She joined with Ambrose's orchestra and remained with them almost exclusively until 1941.

The War Years

1939 She clearly remembers the day the War was declared, as she was at her father's Birthday tea party.
She wrote:

We were in the garden, my mother and father and myself, and I think my brother was with me because it was my father's birthday.
We were there having tea and saying happy birthday and all that, but at the same time we had the radio on, listening and waiting for any news to come through.
One was expecting it but it still came as a bit of a shock. Everyone was hoping it was going to be alright.
But you know, we can't say we were too shocked or terribly surprised because it was in the wind really that something might happen.
There was this feeling of uncertainty. You think 'Well, what is going to happen now?'
One didn't stop to think about a blitz. We didn't think about anything like that at that point. But as far as myself, personally, I did think that I was just beginning to become known.
I'd been broadcasting for a few years and making records (with the Ambrose band) and I was beginning to become quite well-known here in England.
The first thing I thought of was 'Oh well, bang goes my career.'
I thought 'There won't be anything that I'll be able to do if there is going to be a war on. I shall be either in the army or in a factory, doing something like that.'
The thought that entertainment was going to be such a vital means of keeping peoples' morale up, well I never thought about that at all at the time.
Everybody had to sign on. I went and signed on expecting to go into the army or do something in the services. I was ready to do whatever they wanted me to do, like everybody else. But I was told 'No, you will be much more useful if you carry on entertaining.'
I thought, 'What kind of entertaining will we be doing with all the theatres closed?' You think of all the worst things that could happen. But on the whole most of the theatres kept going throughout the war.

1939 She was also voted Forces Sweetheart
It was a newspaper that ran the Forces Sweetheart competition when the first batch of boys, the British Expeditionary Force, went to France at the end of 1939. I suppose they thought they would give them something to think about and they ran this competition.
I was really surprised. I couldn't believe it. I know I had been broadcasting and I had good fan-mail, but that they voted me above the American singers and anyone else in this country was quite a surprise to me.

In 1939, she married Ambrose's clarinet and tenor sax player Harry Lewis, who also became her manager. Vera became the most popular British singer during the war.

1940 She went solo, and with the help of producer Howard Thomas, launched her own BBC radio series entitled "Sincerely Yours". Introducing each programme with the signature tune "Wishing", she attempted to become the musical link between the girls "back home" and their men overseas, by reading out personal messages and singing sentimental favourites such as "Yours", "We'll Meet Again" and "The White Cliffs Of Dover". Her popularity increased so much in those first war years, that one comedian was heard to remark: "The war was started by Vera Lynn's agent!". Her morale-building ballads were extremely popular with servicemen of all branches (see the Naval treatment she got in the picture below). She toured all the camps in the UK, between 1941 and 1945, and after D-day also in France, Holland, and Belgium, Sicily, Greece and North Africa and eventually Germany.

1944 She appeared in her own armed forces stage revue and toured with ENSA as far away as Burma and even risked the dangers (for a Londoner) of appearing at Blackpool as the Poster from Monday 7th of August 1944 below proves.

Figure 1 Poster (Monday August 7th 1944) and Vera Lynn gets a WW2 Force's Salute

She also made three wartime films.

"We'll meet again" (1942)
"Rhythm Serenade" (1943)
"One Exciting Night" (1944).

The Post-War Years

1945 Retired… After the war ended, she retired, assuming that no one would want her singing in case it reminded them of the war, but the forces in Occupied Germany made it clear they wanted her to visit them and bring a touch of home with her. During her Tour of the German camps, she got the idea for a song for the Boys that had (for the time) a daring title ''Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart'', remembering that Fraternization with the local "Fräuleins" was strictly "Verboten!" as was any hint that a British serviceman might even consider having a German Girlfriend.

1947 She returned to show business touring and hosting a new radio program.

1948 Her newly signed record label, Decca, promoted her in the U.S. during the musicians' strike in the US, and she captured a U.S. Top Ten hit for herself with ''You Can't Be True, Dear.''

1952 She also hit number one on the U.S. charts with her ''Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart'', and thus became the first British artist to get to the top of the US charts.

1954 She scored her first and only British number one with ''My Son, My Son'', but this was not because her WW2 songs were not up to No. 1 standard, but simply that the idea for a UK chart (note, not a "top ten", but "top twelve") was first conceived and introduced by Melody Maker at end of October 1952!

1970 She was awarded the OBE.

She continued performing through the nineteen-seventies, singing at Variety Club fundraisers, etc., and only started cutting back on public appearances during the mid nineteen-eighties and started to save her performances for nostalgic occasions organized by bodies such as the Burma Star Association at London's Royal Albert Hall, and special shows to mark the 50th anniversaries of the outbreak of World War II, the D-Day landings, and VE Day…

1975 She was made Dame Vera Lynn.

2000 In a nationwide poll named her personality of the preceding century, and mementoes of her were encapsulated in a time capsule for opening in the year 3000.

Today (September 2003) she is eighty-six years old, and still attends charity functions, and appeals, etc. lending her name "Vera Margaret Lewis (née Welch)"?, no sorry "DAME VERA LYNN", to numerous appeals, charities and functions.

The Forces Sweetheart, who lives in Ditchling, Sussex, devotes much of her time to good causes, particularly to ex-servicemen and women's charities. She has become a vice-patron of several memorial campaigns, such as calls for a memorial in Whitehall to remember the contribution of Women in the War, and in Southampton for a memorial to the Spitfire..

We'll Meet Again 1939

Words and Music by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles

In Wartime Britain this was Vera Lynn's song. (as said Britain did not have "pop" charts till November 1952, but you can be certain if there had of been one in the war years this would have been No. 1 for many weeks running. It and "White cliffs of Dover" are considered THE wartime hits of WW2.

In the USA and Canada, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians took it to a peak Billboard position No. 24 in 1941. Kay Kaiser also got to No. 24. with it, and Benny Goodman got a No. 16 hit wit it in 1942.

Ironically Vera Lynn's version made it to the USA charts (made No. 29) in 1954, and there are Nuclear Associations (Mushroom clouds rising on screen) to "We'll meet again!" after it appeared on the soundtrack of the Peter Sellers film "Dr. Strangelove" in 1964.

Figure 2 London 1944, a soldier just back from the front with a German Luftschutz Helmet trophy gets some refreshment at a Canadian Voluntary "Forces Welfare" Canteen.

Royal Signals .. London 1944, a soldier just back from the front with a German Luftschutz Helmet trophy

We'll Meet Again 1939 (Lyrics)

We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day

Keep smiling through
Just like you, always do
Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away

So will you please say hello
To the folks that I know?
Tell them I won't be long

They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singing this song

We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day

Sung once more to end with combined singing of Vera and Audience…

We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know… etc., etc.

White Cliffs of Dover 1941-1942 (Variations)

AKA There'll Be Bluebirds Over, (The White Cliffs Of Dover) was Vera Lynn's best remembered song of the War years, Words were written by Nat Burton and the Musical score by Walter Kent Several Cover Versions, often Competing for sales at the same time made the US Top 20: The UK did not have a "Charts" till 1952, so there was no actual way of comparing sales and defining a "hit"

Kay Kyser and His Orchestra (No. 1 in 1941 and into 1942)
Glenn Miller (No. 6);
Kate Smith (No. 9);
Sammy Kaye (No. 11);
and Jimmy Dorsey (No. 15).

White Cliffs of Dover 1942 (Lyrics)

There'll be bluebirds over - the white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, - - just you wait and see
There'll be love and laughter - and peace ever after
Tomorrow - - when the world is free

The shepherd will tend his sheep
The valley will bloom again
And Jimmy will go to sleep
In his own little room again

There'll be bluebirds over - the white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, - - just you wait and see
The shepherd will tend his sheep
The valley will bloom again
And Jimmy will go to sleep
In his own little room again

There'll be bluebirds over - the white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, - - just you wait…and see!

There'll Always Be An England (Lyrics)

I give you a toast, ladies and gentlemen.
I give you a toast, ladies and gentlemen.
To this fair dear land we love so well
Where dignity and freedom dwell.
Though worlds may change and go awry
While there is still one voice to cry - - -

There'll always be an England
While there's a country lane,
Wherever there's a cottage small
Beside a field of grain.
There'll always be an England
While there's a busy street,
Wherever there's a turning wheel,
A million marching feet.

Red, white and blue; what does it mean to you?
Surely you're proud, shout it aloud,
"Britons, awake!"
The empire too, we can depend on you.
Freedom remains. These are the chains
Nothing can break.

There'll always be an England,
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me.
words & music: Parker & Charles

But Vera's Career was not all smooth sailing (as maybe many people's memories may have over the years have subsequently come to believe), then at the time a lot of people were unhappy with the Songs Vera sang and saw them as potentially demoralising, and creating defeatist talk or could lead to a surrender mentality… as the Newspaper Article reporting on questions in Parliament from the time below shows…

Crooners under fire for lowering morale

Westminster, 7 March 1944

Female crooners on the BBC were attacked today in the House of Commons when Lord Winterton (Con) claimed: "They remind one of the caterwauling of an inebriated cockatoo. I cannot believe that all this wailing about lost babies can possibly have a good effect on troops who are about to endanger their lives." The parliamentary secretary to the minister of information, Mr Thurtle, said that the government would not interfere with the BBC. "I do not think a certain amount of crooning is likely to have a serious effect on the British Army," he said.

Figure 3 Signed 1960 Photo of Vera Lynn who the 1944 Newspaper called…

Royal Signals .. Signed 1960 Photo of Vera Lynn

"Vera Lynn: number one crooner".

I have left off the Song that was known by both sides of the war, particularly the soldiers of the Afrika Corps, and those of Monty's 8th Army, and was sung by so many singers that it is easy to forget what and how it became a hit on both sides at the same time. Then this is so complex it needs dealing with in a separate datasheet.

See the data sheet on the song "Lili Marlene"

Figure 4 Any Remarks?, Drop Petra a Letter (A postcard from about 1917)

Royal Signals .. A postcard from about 1917

If you have any comments about this Datasheet, inputs or events for the Newsletter, please Contact Brian, Keith or myself via the respective royal-signals.org.uk email addresses below.

Thank you for your interest.