Victory at Sea

• This suite is derived from Richard Rodgers’ score to the 26-episode television series Victory at Sea, which first aired on NBC in 1952.  
• Victory at Sea was a broad and thorough overview of WWII from the naval perspective. It was also the first compilation documentary. 
• The score was a collaboration: Rodgers composed the score’s musical themes, and Robert Russell Bennett orchestrated and expanded the material. Bennett was a Broadway orchestrator for the likes of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and George Gershwin. He was also a student of Nadia Boulanger. Bennett also conducted the recording. 
• Rodgers’ song, “No Other Love,” became a hit single from Victory at Sea. Rodgers had originally written the song for Me and Juliet, but the melody was recycled for “Beneath the Southern Cross” in Victory at Sea. 

“If you were approached to do some work for the United States Navy, we’d like your assurance that you wouldn’t refuse to consider it.”

NBC Television executive Pat Weaver, to Richard Rodgers, in 1951 

“Well, of course I wouldn’t refuse to consider an offer from the United States Navy.”

Rodgers, in reply¹

1. “Victory at Sea,” The Library of Congress, accessed April 2, 2021, https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200000023/.