The Queen wasn't the only visitor to the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, during the Summer of 1944.

Patients were also treated to an outdoor concert by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.

It was one of the famous American band-leader's last performances - he was killed shortly afterwards in a plane crash.

As we recalled (Memory Lane, January 8), the Queen chatted to patients - but because of wartime restrictions, she was presented not with a bouquet of flowers but with an orange.

She expressed her delight and told hospital officials that she would give it to her youngest daughter, Princess Margaret.

Glenn Miller and his 50-strong band, famous for such songs as Chattanooga Choo Choo, String of Pearls, In the Mood and Moonlight Serenade, performed on the hospital lawn.

There was a large audience of patients and staff, as well as some Oxford residents.

The visit was part of a morale-boosting 18-month tour of American bases in Europe.

Miller had persuaded the American military that making the tour would "put a little more spring into the feet of our marching men and a little more joy in their hearts".

He joined the Army Air Corps as a captain and set to work entertaining the troops.

The band had a busy schedule - in one month, it played at 35 different bases and made 40 radio broadcasts.

But the entertainment ended abruptly on December 15, 1944, when Miller boarded an aircraft to fly to Paris for a Christmas broadcast.

The plane never arrived in France and the wreckage was never found.

The band's visit to the Churchill is mentioned in a book, Friendly Invasion by Henry Buckton, which looks at the relationships between the British hosts and their American visitors.

From April 1944 to July 1945, the Churchill was an American military hospital, the 91st General Hospital.

It played a vital role in the months after D-Day, receiving regular trainloads of wounded soldiers.

It admitted 12,751 patients before the site was handed back to the British authorities at the end of the war.

Friendly Invasion, by Henry Buckton, is published by Phillimore & Co, priced £9.99.