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A plumber\u2019s daughter, Vera Margaret Welch was born on March 20, 1917, in London\u2019s blue-collar East Ham neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She took her stage name from her grandmother\u2019s maiden name. She started singing in social clubs at age 7 and dropped out of school by 11 when she started touring with a traveling variety show. By 17 she was a band singer, and at 21 \u2014 when the war started \u2014 she was a known performer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She married band musician Harry Lewis in 1941, and he went on to manage her career. They had one daughter, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lynn appeared in a handful of films: \u201cWe\u2019ll Meet Again\u201d (1942), playing a young dancer who discovers her singing voice; \u201cRhythm Serenade\u201d (1943), in which she played a woman who joins the Women\u2019s Royal Navy and organizes a nursery in a munitions factory; and \u201cOne Exciting Night\u201d (1944), a comedy about a singer who is mistakenly caught up in a kidnapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Lynn is best remembered for her work during the war, she also had success during the post-war years. Her \u201cAuf Wiedersehen Sweetheart\u201d in 1952 became the first record by an English artist to top the American Billboard charts, staying there for nine weeks. Lynn\u2019s career flourished in the 1950s, peaking with \u201cMy Son, My Son,\u201d a No. 1 hit in 1954.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After staying away from the business for years, she had a 1970s comeback single \u201cDon\u2019t You Remember When\u201d and even covered Abba\u2019s \u201cThank you for the Music,\u201d but fans still really wanted to hear the wartime classics. Lynn was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1975.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the years that followed she continued to support veterans\u2019 causes and raise money for research on cancer and cystic fibrosis. She set up her own charity for children with cerebral palsy, and was a forceful advocate for her causes. She played an important part in a 1989 campaign to win a better pension deal for World War II widows, and until 2010 was actively involved in various veterans charities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On occasion, Lynn delighted fans by taking up the microphone again. She sang outside Buckingham Palace in 1995 in a ceremony marking the golden jubilee of VE Day. In recent years, Lynn lived a quiet village life in Ditchling, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She did make fleeting mini-appearances, particularly when veterans were involved. During ceremonies last year to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, she recorded a message that was played to a ballroom full of veterans on a ship sailing to France to mark the event. Tears flowed as Lynn spoke. When she was done, thunderous applause rattled the windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The veterans remembered her many appearances, and the fact that she traveled to Burma to entertain the troops, one of the few entertainers to make the difficult journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burma veteran Tom Moore, who won the hearts of the nation when he walked 100 laps of his garden in the days before his 100th birthday to raise money for the National Health Service during the pandemic, described her death as a \u201creal shame.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another veteran, Mervyn Kersh, told The Associated Press that he remembered her beauty and her voice. But more importantly, he remembered a message that resonated with troops far from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe sang songs which expressed feeling, with lyrics which were very meaningful for me and, everyone I knew, as they expressed the sentiments and hopes of a generation from the disaster of Dunkirk, the Blitz, North Africa and the long wait until Normandy,\u201d Kersh said. \u201cI am very sorry to learn that she has gone, but thankful for the 103 years she gave us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n