The night of December 15, 1944, Miller boarded a single-propellor-engine Norseman D-64, which was to fly him to Paris for a band concert.

Meanwhile, a four-engine Royal Air Force Lancaster bomber--one of the hundreds sent to Germany that night by RAF Bomber Command--developed engine trouble over France and was granted permission to return to their base in East Anglia, UK.

Aboard "M Mother" was airman/navigator Fred Shaw. Once the Lancaster was over the Channel, the pilot told the bombardier to jettison their load of 4,000-pound Grand Slam bombs. The bombardier hit the toggle, adding, "Bombs gone!"

Shaw watched as the "stick" of Grand Slam bombs began their 22,000-foot drop into the sea. Then he spotted the Norseman approaching from the northwest.

"I watched the plane flying south," Shaw wrote, "Around it, the sea bubbled and blustered with the exploding bombs. As each bomb burst, I could see the blast wave from it radiating outward. It was obvious the airplane was in trouble, so I watched intently."

"Just before it went out of sight, I saw it flip over in what looked like a spin. Eventually I saw it disappear into the Channel."

(Editor's Comment: Sounds like the blast vibration shattered the Norseman's ailerons.)

"'Dad was an aviation buff, and he knew what Miller's plane looked like,' Shaw's daughter Cheryl Fillmore tells Globe. 'He told me he saw the Norseman at exactly the same time Miller went missing.'"

"The (M Mother's RAF) logbook, along with letters and photos of Shaw and his bomber crew are being auctioned this month by Sotheby's." (See the Globe for April 5, 1999, "Solved! Mystery of Glenn Miller's Death," by John Bell.)