Let there be music at Montford Point Marine camp

During the World War II years, the news media claimed that the “best dance orchestra in the armed services” was based at Montford Point in Onslow County, N.C., a segregated training camp for African-American Marine recruits.

The Montford Point marching band was equally impressive, boosting the esprit de corps.

 

Musical programming at Montford Point was introduced in 1942 by a young officer from Harrisburg, Pa., who was educated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

He was Bobby Troup, a jazz pianist, who came from a musical family that owned and operated a musical instrument retail business.

Although Bobby earned an economics degree, he participated in Penn’s Mask and Whig Club, a collegiate musical comedy troupe that was the pride of the Ivy League.

 

In 1941, Troup composed “Daddy,” a song recorded by Sammy Kaye and His Orchestra. The melody rose to No. 1 on the Billboard chart and was a contender for record of the year.

 

(A second hit song written by Troup was “Snootie Little Cutie,” first recorded by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra with vocals by Frank Sinatra, Connie Haines and The Pied Pipers.)

After his graduation in 1941, Troup enlisted in the Marine Corps. He completed officer training at Quantico, Va., in 1942 and was assigned as one of about two dozen white officers to welcome black Marine recruits at Montford Point, near Jacksonville.

 

Lt. Troup, who ran track and played tennis as a collegian, was assigned as the Montford Point recreation and athletic director. He was also given responsibility for organizing the orchestra and band units. 

(Thanks to his musical connections, Lt. Troup brought in famous entertainers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Bassie to perform at Montford Point.)

 

Performing with Louis Armstrong was Montford Point Marine Sgt. Joe Wilder, who became a renowned jazz trumpeter, composer and bandleader.

 

Military historian Miguel Ortiz reported that one of the first African-American drill instructors to advance through the ranks at Monford Point was Gilbert “Hashmark” Johnson, who served under Lt. Troup.

Johnson said Troup “was a top-notch musician, a very decent sort of an officer, and one who everyone looked up to.” Al Banker, another Montford Point Marine, said “he was just like one of us.”

 Capt. Troup with Pvt. Finis Henderson at Montford Point. Finis was a  professional singer and dancer before enlisting in the Marine Corps.

 

While stationed at Montford Point, Lt. Troup composed the novelty song “Take Me Away From Jacksonville,” which hilariously spoofed the “backwardness” of the community in the 1940s. The tune was embraced as an anthem of sorts by the Montford Point Marines.

 

Promoted in October 1944, Capt. Troup was given command of a company scheduled for deployment to the Saipan in the Pacific theater. Marines flocked to Troup’s company to serve under him, Ortiz commented. “There was a rapid influx of individuals running over each other to go out with that depot company under Capt. Bobby Troup,” Hashmark Johnson recalled.

After the war, Bobby Troup was relieved of active duty but continued in the Marine Corps Reserves until 1954.

He resumed his civilian career in the music business and wrote his most famous song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” in 1946. It was originally performed by Nat King Cole and the King Cole Trio and later recorded by Bing Crosby and by the Andrews Sisters.

 

He continued to write songs for a wide variety of artists, but Troup ventured into acting in films and television programs. He is mostly remembered for playing Dr. Joe Early in the NBC medical drama “Emergency!” (1972-77). 

Julie London, who was Bobby Troup’s wife, also starred in the show as nurse Dixie McCall.

 

Julie London was a multi-talented vocalist and actress. One of her biggest hit songs, “Cry My a River,” written by Arthur Hamilton, was produced in 1955 by Bobby Troup. 

She performed the song in the 1956 film “The Girl Can’t Help It.”

 

Bobby Troup died of a heart attack on Feb. 7, 1999, at age 80. Ortiz said that at Troup’s memorial service, one Montford Point Marine remembered him as an officer who “didn’t recognize color, only soul.”

“More valuable than any three-minute hit song,” Ortiz wrote, “Troup earned the everlasting respect of the Marines he trained and led.”