PHS Students Meet Pearl Harbor Survivor

This story was originally posted on the Princeton Regional School District website and is being reprinted with the district's permission. The Princeton High School Studio Band was invited to perform at the 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day in Hawaii, .

Band director Joe Bongiovi shared an amazing story of the Princeton High School Studio Band playing at Pearl Harbor with veteran Allen Bodenlos. Commissioned the night before the attack on Pearl Harbor to start a dance band, Bodenlos was truly the original "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B," which the PHS band honored by playing the eponymous song. Below is the story of the moving encounter with Bodenlos as told by Bongiovi. The band will also play a feature performance for the official Pearl Harbor 70th anniversary commemoration on December 7, 2011, Pearl Harbor Day.

A History Lesson

The Pearl Harbor Rangers gave the Studio Band a private tour of the Arizona Memorial, which, as you can imagine, was very moving.  As we were arriving at the Arizona, one of the 18 remaining survivors from the Arizona was exiting the memorial with his family. We were told by his family that that all 18 are planning to be here on Wednesday.

After he left, the rangers allowed the Studio Band to be on the memorial privately with just two volunteer veterans who briefed our kids on what they were seeing.

Historic Encounter

Later, we performed at Pearl Harbor with the Arizona and Missouri in the backdrop. As were were playing, a Pearl Harbor survivor came in front of the band and stood there for about 10 minutes, tapping his foot.  Eventually someone got the gentleman a chair. He sat directly in front of the band and waved his hands to the music and closed his eyes.  

After listening for about a half hour, he was escorted to an interview. After our performance had ended, he returned from his interview and introduced himself to us: He is Allen Bodenlos.  He is a Pearl Harbor Survivor, but to make it more fitting, he was the Bugle Master of the harbor. He had been commissioned the night before the Japanese attack to start a dance band at the harbor.

He asked me if we played Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" which we had while he was at his interview. I told him that we had played it while he giving his interview and that we ended our performance with "In The Mood" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." He laughed and told me that he was actually the Bugle Boy of Company B, but the song for the Andrew Sisters was written well before he achieved that position.

Encore

He told us he had not heard a band play that type of music that well since he was in high school. Although we were almost completely packed up and the audience had left, I asked him if he would like us to play "In The Mood" for him again. His face lit up and he smiled and said,"Would you?"  Our kids could not get their instruments fast enough to play for him.  It is at this point the news cameras started to take notice of what was happening.

We set up for him and I asked him if he would like to conduct.  He asked me what tempo we played it at, and I told him for right now, it was his band and they would play any tempo he wanted them to. He conducted the entire time.  Immediately afterwards, we played "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" for him again as well.

He then asked if he could take a photo with us, precisely at the time we were asking him the same thing.  At the age of 91, he climbed up the five or six stairs to get the band and thanked and praised them.  He then spent the next hour standing in front of them telling him the stories of being at Pearl Harbor during the invasion and how he survived. It was a very moving day.