In 1938, Liberty magazine sponsored a songwriting contest to provide the Army Air Corps with a theme song. The more than 600 entries included submissions by Irving Berlin and Meredith Willson, but the prize-winning one came from little-known composer and amateur pilot Robert Crawford (1899-1961). His song, "Off we go into the wild blue yonder," became the official song of the Army Air Corps. Its melody is a familiar, festive creation, almost recognizable from its first three notes, with their jubilant upward leap. Thereafter, the theme gloriously rises until those three notes are heard again, after which the proudly joyous character is briefly tempered by a downward turn. The melody is given again, but now features a slight change, which leads to the resolute, ecstatic close that seems to emerge from nowhere. In fact, it is an outgrowth of the central part of the melody, the portion bracketed by those three opening notes. The song's middle section maintains much of the same joyous mood, and the main theme returns to close out this energetic song. With its memorable, patriotic text ("We live in fame or go down in flame...Nothing'll stop the U.S. Air Force"), this song is rightly regarded as a classic.

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