Gibb, I made this note a few years ago. No history of "Johnny, Come Down to Hilo" is complete without it:


General Wilhelm Burgdorf (1895-1945) was Chief of Personnel of the Wehrmacht at the time of his suicide in the Hitler bunker. Even one of his colleagues later described him as a "drunken swine." Burgdorf, who reportedly "had a big chest and a barrel-organ voice," wiled away his last hours drinking and singing in German and English. According to another survivor, "He kept singing a song, 'Johnny come down to Hilo, poor old man,' something like that....Rather catchy sailor's tune, if you like that sort of thing."

See James P. O'Donnell, _The Bunker_ [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978], p. 341-42.

If any comment is conceivable, Burgdorf may have picked up the song from a recording of (presumably) Terry's version.