 The outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 curtailed Grainger 's overseas travelling . In the autumn of 1940 , alarmed that the war might precipitate an invasion of the United States eastern seaboard , he and Ella moved to Springfield , Missouri , in the centre of the continent . From 1940 Grainger played regularly in charity concerts , especially after the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war in December 1941 ; the historian Robert Simon calculates that Grainger made a total of 274 charity appearances during the war years , many of them at Army and Air force camps . In 1942 a collection of his Kipling settings , the Jungle Book cycle , was performed in eight cities by the choir of the Gustavus Adolphus College from St. Peter , Minnesota . 
