University of Virginia Library

Band - With Fond Memories

Unlike most institutions which
feature impressive 150-piece
marching bands, the University's
edition consists of a pep band of
twenty or so stout hearted souls, so
dedicated that most remained sober
throughout the Wahoos' dismal 3-7
grid fortunes of last fall.

There was a time, however,
when the band held a much more
glorified position in the hierarchy
of athletics; that is, until that
fateful day in the fall of 1941 when
the bus that carried the band up to
New Haven for the Yale game
burned and all of the colorful
uniforms destroyed.

College Topics leaves the
following dramatic account of that
historic event: "Flames leaped 200
feet into the air, cars were stopped
for a quarter of a mile in either
direction, as the Washington bus,
bearing members of the University
Band, burned to a tangles mass of
twisted wreckage 16 miles north of
Charlottesville.

"According to eye-witness
accounts, the bus was travelling
along at a normal speed, when for
some as yet undetermined reason,
the power ceased and the bus came
to a stop. The driver and several
students went to the rear where a
small stream of smoke was seen
issuing from under the bus. A fire
extinguisher was hastily applied but
seemed ti have little or no effect as
the fire spread rapidly.

"All the passengers were
removed from the bus to a safe
distance. Several cars were stopped
and instructed to hurry to Culpeper
and Charlottesville to summon aid.
However, as was later learned, both
fire departments refused to answer
the call on the grounds that the
scene of the fire was more than five
miles out of the area they are
obliged to serve. Due to the fact
that twenty minutes elapsed
between the time the fire broke out
and the windows burst, it seems
probable that if either of the fire
companies had answered the alarm
much of the equipment might have
been saved. As it was, the flaming
bus, with an estimated 150 gallons
of gasoline in the tanks, presented
such a problem that no one was
able to get near enough to save
more than a couple of suitcases.
The bus and all the other baggage
including the instruments was a
complete loss.

"The fire burned for more than
a half an hour unabated. At one
time the heat became so intense
that it melted through the tar
surface of the road and the molten
metal of the body flowed onto the
road as well as into the cracks made
in it by the tremendous heat. In
this way the bus was partially
welded to the roadbed where it
remained the greater part of the
night."

The University Band did not
reappear until after the War when
more costumes could be purchased,
and since that time it has died a
death of ridicule and apathy. But
there are apparently still some 70
uniforms in mothballs, somewhere.