ZIMMERMANN, CHARLES A.  BIOGRAPHY

Every time a film director requires a melody associated with the American Marines, his choice is straightforward: he turns to Charles A. Zimmerman (1862-1916) and his Anchors Aweigh. Zimmerman was a lieutenant at the U.S. Naval Academy and had the habit of composing a march for every class of cadets that graduated from that institution. He wrote Anchors Aweigh for the class of 1906, and it was subsequently provided with a text by a cadet who was also a member of the institute's choir, Alfred H. Miles. In that form it was first performed at the annual football match between the Army and the Marines, before a crowd of thirty thousand in Philadelphia. For the first time in many years the Marines won.