November 19, 2018 • 43 mins
This show, performed live at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, covers a brief overview of USO history, and then delves into Bob Hope's involvement with the organization, which started in the early 1940s and continued for 50 years.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and we
were recently lucky enough to be the guests of the
National World War Two Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, and
(00:23):
the museum asked us if we would do a show
there about the USO and Bob Hopes work with the
organization to run parallel to an exhibit that they are
currently running about Bob Hope called so Ready for the
Laughter The Legacy of Bob Hope, and that exhibit is
going to run until February. The museum also has its
own podcast about film and World War Two history called
(00:45):
Service on Cellu Lloyd. We'll talk a little bit more
about that at the end of the show. Yeah, I
think Tracy and I would both say that it can't
be overstated how much we absolutely loved our time in
New Orleans. Absolutely, And I spent the day that we
did our show, I spent basically all of the time
I had available at the museum and it was a
(01:06):
great experience. Yeah, that facility is amazing, It is huge,
it is growing, Uh. They put so much incredible care
and love into every exhibit. Uh. And they have just
some amazing pieces that you will not find anywhere else. Uh.
And the city, of course, is in utter delight. I
grew up on the Florida Panhandle, so I had spent
(01:26):
a lot of time there. It was Tracy's first time there.
It was very fun for you to really see the
city for the first time. Uh. And similarly, my husband
has been through there with me before, but not really
for an extended period of time, so it was great
to to watch him and my other friends really explore
it for the first time. I said during one of
the breaks during our show that we don't normally put
(01:47):
on the podcast, that I have not felt so relaxed
and happy in probably five years. The city is just beautiful,
and it has this great culture and amazing food and
a wonderful art scene, and there's just something really magical
about New Orleans. So if you've not been there, highly
encourage it. Yeah, hopefully you too will feel happy and
relaxed in all new ways. But what we're going to
(02:08):
do now is jump into the live show that we
did there at the World War Two Museum, and we
Hope you enjoy. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And the USO
has of course been a huge part of keeping the
military going since its inception, and legendary performer Bob Hope
(02:31):
is closely tied to us O history, so they very
kindly the World War Two Museum asked us come and
talk about these things, which we jumped at the chance
to do because one, I we both are into history too.
I love old Hollywood. Uh Three, It's just kind of
an important story that doesn't always get talked about, although
it is now thanks to again museums just like this.
(02:53):
So tonight we're going to talk about both of those things.
This is a really fun topic for US podcasters too,
because Bob hopes Are career was all in radio and
so in many ways he was working in an audio
medium and then it became something very different as entertainment evolved,
and he ended up with this whole other career. Uh So,
first we're gonna talk with just about a brief overview
(03:14):
of USO history, focused primarily on its founding in its
early years, and then we're going to talk about Bob
Hope's involvement with the organization first and primarily the mediat
part of his stuff that we'll talk about is World
War two related, but we will also include his involvement
in wars that happened after that and and beyond, and
also working back home. And just as a matter of
(03:35):
expectations management, Uh, this is not a comprehensive history of
either of those topics, because you would be here for
two weeks, uh, and probably you're gonna want to go
home and see your loved ones and eat and do
things like that. So, um, we don't want to go
on for days. But hopefully this will provide sort of
a fun supplement one to the fantastic exhibit here at
the museum, and just a fun way to talk about
(03:55):
Bob Hope's dedication to public service, which continues to have
long lasting packed today. Also, we're going to try very
hard not to cry. I make no promises. Um. You know,
Tracy and I both have fathers who have served. I
definitely want you once again thank those of you in
the audience who are veterans for your service. Is one
of those topics that often chokes us up. So race
(04:17):
we're going to try to be grown up and think
about the things that make us not cry. But I
could happen, and I apologize in advance because it will
get ugly. When we're in the studio, we can stop
for a moment, but when we're in front of a
crowd of people, we we kind of gotta keep on.
Usually I'm okay in front of the crowd, but this
one might be the one. I will see you guys
might get the first live breakdown, of which maybe you'll
(04:40):
be into. I don't know you were there when it happened.
Uh So, while the mention of the USO today conjures
images of overseas groups of soldiers being entertained by a
list stars, which is totally appropriate, Initially the organization was
formed to keep the troops state side more occupied. So
in the fall of nineteen forty, the US military draft
(05:03):
was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United States,
as you all know, had not entered World War Two
at this point, but it was becoming increasingly likely in
most people's minds that this was going to happen, and
so over the next several months, more than one million
people enlisted, and that meant that there were suddenly these
huge numbers of soldiers filling military bases, and aside from
(05:25):
their training, they kind of had to sit there on
tenter hooks and wait for this war to happen. General
George C. Marshall had served as a staff officer during
World War One with the first Infantry Division under General Pershing,
and as he saw these bases becoming more and more
populated in nineteen forty and early ninety one, he and
(05:45):
other members of the military leadership recalled some problems they
had seen with servicemen filling up their leisure time. During
World War One, it had been common for people to
basically drink heavily in their downtime. There was a lot
of sexually transmitted disease infection that then had to be
treated by military doctors. Led to a lot you'll see
(06:07):
still propaganda poster reproductions about all of that, and so
General Marshall really felt like a structured system of entertainment
and social services that were designed to fill the troops
leisure time could really cut down someone on some of
the problems they had seen in World War One. And
just as an aside, uh there had been entertainment offerings
(06:29):
for troops during World War One, a number of camps
had what were called liberty theaters, and these were built
by the Commission of Training Camp Activities. And those theaters
were built after General Pershing had allegedly said, give me
a thousand soldiers occasionally entertained to ten thousand without entertainment,
and so in preparation for this likely entry into World
(06:49):
War Two, General Marshall and others were thinking that this
was great to begin with, but there needed to be
a more comprehensive program that offered more than just the
scheduled entertainment though so then at the same time, the
head of the National Jewish Welfare Board had started meeting
in New York with the leadership of other welfare organizations
who had been all providing support for the troops steering
(07:10):
World War One. They were all brain starting ways that
they might be able to serve again if the United
States entered World War Two, and so eventually this led
to their meeting with President Franklin the Roosevelt, and as
a result of that meeting, the President asked the y
m c A, the y w c A, the Salvation Army,
the Jewish Welfare Board, the National Catholic Community Services and
(07:33):
the Travelers Aid Association of America to all combine their
resources to help the soldiers awaiting deployment pass the time,
have a little bit of fun, and get some much
needed social connection while they prepared for what was potentially
a very grim future. I had no idea until you
sent me that line for this that this had been
such a multi organizational effort. Like in my head, it
(07:56):
was something that the Army said we need this, and
then it happened at I had no sense that there
were so many different organizations involved. So on February fourth,
ninety one, the u s O was officially formed through
a congressional charter and the first iteration was called the
United Service Organizations for National Defense, Incorporated. It's not a
(08:17):
government agency, but a private nonprofit working in conjunction with
the US military, and the idea from the beginning was
that people, regular citizens would provide the financial support system
for this organization, and to that end, a wildly successful
fundraising effort started right away. These fundraising fundraising efforts were
(08:40):
incredibly successful. Donations rolled into total more than sixteen million
dollars in the u s o s first year, and
that is sixteen million dollars in nineteen forty one. That's
not adjusted to today's numbers. It would be a massive
number today. Uh. And the message of all of this
was completely clear. This new organization was providing a safe,
(09:01):
wholesome way to keep soldiers station in the states entertained
and occupied. It was better than going to bars or
just roaming around looking for something to do. And it
was also going to help soldiers build and maintain strong
ties to the communities around their bases, because often they
were not near their homes, and the idea was that
when they were shipped off, they were going to have
a deeper sense of connection to their home country. So
(09:23):
both public and private spaces near the military bases became
places that soldiers could go and socialize, or get refreshments
or pick out reading material. All of this under the
USO banner. There were even mobile USO centers that traveled
to the more remote locations and they would take books
and sporting goods and refreshments and film projection setups and
(09:44):
things like that to the people that were farther out. Yeah,
those are pretty amazing. If you ever see a picture
of one, it's like this magical box that just opens
up and entertaining things fly out. Um. They were really
really smartly designed, and things that USO centers were as promised,
kept kept very wholesome. Indeed, there was no alcohol, and
most of the social centers had these unofficial chaperones in
(10:05):
the form of older married women who managed the logistical
needs of the centers, but they also just kind of
kept an eye on things to make sure no one
was behaving poorly or unwholesomely. Uh. There were junior hostesses
present as well. A lot of times you will see
them listed as the true draw of these centers, but
they actually had to pass a screening to make sure
that they were moral, young ladies and not likely to
(10:27):
get any of these soldiers into trouble. Junior hostesses were
supposed to socialize with the men only at the us
O club and not outside of it. That rule was
bent from time to time. That was not a I mean,
any of you who have connections to a family who
maybe had a soldier that was in the military at
this time probably have a story about some romance with
(10:47):
the junior hostess. It was not all in the center,
but that is fine. So the first permanent USO building
was erected in November of nineteen forty one at Fort
Bragg in Fayetville, North Carolina, and that center is still
in to operation. And of course, the United States entered
the war on December seven after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,
and soon the young men who had benefited from the
(11:09):
u s o s hospitality while they were stationed in
the US were sent overseas to fight, and the USO
went with them. The group started to organize camp shows,
and these are the ones that featured a list celebrities
who were volunteering their time and talents to support the
troops and to try to boost morale. Soon the shows
became their own entity, USO Camp Shows, Inc. And that
(11:31):
was a nonprofit organization headed up by the chairman of
the William Morris Agency, Abe Last Vogel. The USO camp
shows were also a huge success in by ninety seven,
there were more than four hundred twenty five thousand shows
performed for troops through the organization. But the success of
the USO actually also caused some minor issues of their
(11:52):
own of its own. So when the short film Mr.
Gardinia Jones was produced as a cooperative effort among the
US Office War Information, the USO and Metro Goldwyinmyer Studios.
UH in two. It raised a few concerns with the army.
So this film is described as a documentary and it's
really a promotional piece for the USO. Starring Ronald Reagan.
(12:15):
It's the story of a young man who joins the
war effort and his mother's decision to form a u
s O center. This all sounds fine, it's only thirteen
minutes long, but because the troops in the film were
portrayed as being so excited to enjoy the benefits of
the USO, and these benefits included showers, something that they
had outside of the USO. They did not need to
(12:40):
wait for the USO to come around to have a shower. Uh.
The Army thought this was spaint painting, kind of a
false picture of what military life was like. Yeah, they
thought like both to the troops and the folks back home,
they're like, how grim are they going to think it is?
Even when we're not engaged in any kind of combat.
If all of the men in this movie look like
the tex savery Auga every time, they're like, what a movie?
(13:03):
What I can have some soap that did cause a
little bit of trouble, but it eventually got worked out
and they were able to show it. By the time
the first round of the USO ended in the nineteen forties,
as Tracy said, there had been more than four hundred
twenty five thousand shows and civilian volunteers. UH totaled up
to more than one point five million people over the
course of that time. Its largest number at one point
(13:26):
was seven hundred thirty nine thousand. That was in mid
nineteen forty three, and in nineteen forty four the number
of USO recreational centers maxed out at three thousand, thirty five.
After World War Two, the USO was disbanded and then
formally dissolved in ninety It wasn't long, though, before the
Korean War began in nineteen fifty, and on March seven,
(13:48):
nineteen fifty one, the USO was reformed and reorganized at
the request once again of George C. Marshall, who at
that point was the Secretary of War, and since then
the USO has persisted provide entertainment, comfort, and social services
to soldiers around the globe. In nineteen nine, President Jimmy
Carter signed the u s o's Congressional Charter, which establishes
(14:10):
that the USO remains important in the lives of our
service members even during peacetime. And today, the USO has
its own bipartisan and bicameral Congressional Caucus, and there are
currently more than two hundred USO centers around the world,
all of which are staffed with volunteers. Of course, we
are also going to talk about Bob Hope. The museum
has a wonderful Bob Hope exhibit that is part of
(14:31):
why we're here today. And before we get into his
connection to the us O, this is where we take
a quick break. So many many celebrities have been involved
(14:54):
with the u S O famously over the years, but
none became so closely associated with it as Bob Hope. Initially,
a lot of Hopes work entertaining U S servicemen had
happened on the radio. At that point, he had become
a star as a radio personality, but he he only
started his film career in The main gig that he
(15:15):
had going on was the very popular The Pepsident Show
Starring Bob Hope, which had started running, and his first
performance for an all military audience happened when He took
that radio show, at the urging of his producer, to
March Air Force Base that is known as March Air
Reserve Base in Riverside County, California to record a live show,
(15:36):
and he opened with a joke that would probably not
play today, which was as soon as I got into camp,
I received a ten guns salute, they told me on
the operating table. Uh. There is footage of him delivering
that joke in the exhibit. Yes, it's no shade to
Holly's comedy time, not Bob Hope. I hate to break
(15:56):
it to you. I do different comedy. Yeah, it's one
of those things. I wonder if the same joke would
play as well today when the whole topic is a
little bit more fraud. It's different now. But yeah, you
can see him say it in that exhibit. Do it um.
This show took place in a gymnasium. The gymnasium still
(16:16):
exists today and is now called March Fields Sports and
Fitness Center, and that facility had a plaque added to
its exterior in commemorate the start of Hopes ongoing work
with the troops that happened there, and the plaque reads
on May sixty one, Bob Hope brought his NBC radio
show to the march Field Gym and broadcast his National
(16:38):
Network show from this site. It marked the first time Mr.
Hope had ever performed for military personnel. This landmark broadcast
was the forerunner to the legendary USO shows that have
entertained American troops around the world since ninety three. And
he also started appearing on a radio variety show called
Command Performance on July seven, ninety two that was produced
(17:01):
by Armed Forces Radio exclusively for broadcast to bases uh
and he was also the Pepsident show was also being
broadcast to the troops. But Bob Hope loved hosting Command
Performance because he could be a little more daring and
get away with a little bit more blue humor than
he could with NBC. So it was kind of a
freeing experience in some ways. Yeah, the military audie audience
and the network audience, and very that same summer, we
(17:24):
had a conversation with a friend and former colleague who
had become an Army sergeant about the troops, and the
sergeant suggested that Hope should visit soldiers who were stationed
in Alaska. He went with for this idea. He started
planning the trip almost immediately, and the plan was for
Bob and then uh fellow Pepsidant show radio personalities Frank's
(17:45):
Francis Langford and Jerry Kelowna and guitarist Tony Romano to
all make this trip together. And as this forsome September
departure from San Francisco approach, they actually got news that
inclement weather suggested it would really be better if they can't.
And their schedule was really super tight because Bob Hope,
of course, was already a popular entertainer, and he had
(18:06):
other bookings that he had to do, like for his
radio show to keep it going, and there was absolutely
no way that they could promise him that, yes, you
will be back in time and keep this thing on schedule.
But Hope did not care. He telegrammed the base saying
that they were all packed and ready, and he concluded
his missive with please let us make our trip and
we'll take our chances, and they were soon on right
(18:27):
en route to Fairbanks, Alaska. From there, Hoping, the team
went to nome Unimac Island and Yukon Territory. Troops always
didn't always have advanced noticed that celebrities were coming, and
even if the tour schedule had been announced, there would
have been some surprises. The comedians and musician would sometimes
do impromptu shows for much smaller groups of soldiers when
(18:48):
they ran into them during their travels from one location
to another. This was definitely not glamorous, though it was freezing,
travel could be really dicey and in some cases dangerous,
and they did not have any kind of luxurious accommodations. No.
This is one of those moments where I was doing
the research and and reading about this, and I just
(19:08):
like my respect kind of went off the charts for
all of them, because they really put up with stuff
that I think most celebrities today would scoff at, just
in terms of dealing with really gross, unpleasant moments. Um.
But there was also, as Tracy said, a lot of danger.
So on a flight from Cordova to Anchorage, their plane
lost first its radio and then one of its engines.
It was only lucky enough to make their landing very
(19:30):
hard because when Elmendorf Air Force Base crew found out
what was happening, that this plane had lost communication, they
broke protocol and they turned on their searchlights and they
were not supposed to do that, but that gave the
pilots a visual to guide them in, and Bob was
very aware of how close they came to disaster. He
described later when he wrote about it, that he looked
(19:50):
at Francis and remembered that he had promised her husband
that she would be okay, and that he had begged
him to let her go, and he thought, I've just
walked her into her death. Um. But later on and
he gave inscribed watches to each of those pilots see
him getting choked up. Um that read thanks for my life,
which was something those pilots later reiterated that they went
on to long careers. That was still the scariest flight
(20:11):
of their lives. Man, you didn't tell me that part. Well,
I saved it for now. Despite all the odds and
a series of bad weather issues, Hope was able to
get to Seattle and do his scheduled radio broadcast from
there before turning right around and going back to the
Alaskan tour. And once the trip concluded, despite of all
(20:31):
the freights and the rough rides and the icy cold,
Bob Hope decided that he would be devoting a lot
more time to doing similar trips. He told reporters he
wouldn't be in Hollywood very much after that because he
had some other things to do. And though they had
faced discomforts and those dangerous trips in Alaska, Bob's Little
Troop immediately signed on in ninete to make a trip
(20:51):
to the European Theater and this was their first overseas
tour for the USO. Jerry Colonna was unable to make
the trip due to some scheduling on flicks, and so
Hope brought in a vaudevillian named Jack Pepper in his place,
and Francis Langford Tony Romano both remained with the troop
and they flew out of LaGuardia in the wee hours
of June, headed to newfound Newfoundland, which I always say wrong, uh.
(21:16):
And from there they departed for Great Britain, and they
actually were headed to Great Britain and then they had
to return to Canada due to bad winds. Uh. So
their first performance of the tour was actually completely unscheduled.
They were like, well, we're here, So they performed for
the Royal Canadian Air Force at their command station as
sort of their warm up show for the trip. And
then the next day they once again set out for Europe,
(21:38):
and this time they made their way to London. London
was in really bad shape from the war at this point,
and the performers were immediately struck by the toll that
the conflict had taken on the city. Even small necessities
like soap were not available, in spite of the joke
I made about soap earlier. The schedule was also really
grueling as they traveled all through England. They gave us
(21:59):
an as four shows a day. Anytime that there was
space they could turn into a stage. They really realized
how very desperately their levity was needed, and Hope later
wrote that you would have to be a terrible comedian
not to get a laugh from those audiences. But they
also found this work incredibly challenging, and all of them
tried to keep things very light and entertaining, even when,
(22:23):
for example, they were visiting wounded soldiers in the hospital,
and there were certainly moments when they wanted to break down.
Francis Langford tells a story about how she kind of
got let outside so she could cry because she was
not holding it together because Bob Hope was insistent that
they could not fall apart in front of these men.
They were there to bring light and to bring laughter,
and not to remind anyone just how dangerous their lives were.
(22:45):
After five weeks in Britain, Hope and the team moved
on to North Africa, which was blisteringly hot but even
they but even more frightening than the heat were the
air raids the German. The Germans bombed the areas that
they were in on several occasions, and at one point
Bob sprained his ankle when they had to run for
cover and he and Francis Langford had to dive into
(23:07):
a ditch. And they next moved to Palermo, where they
performed for massive crowds of sixteen thousand to nineteen thousand
men at a time, often with P thirty eight fighters
in the sky above them in case of a raid,
and just as in North Africa, there were bombings. At
one point they were all trapped in their hotel rooms.
They could not get to a safe place and they
(23:27):
had to just ride this raid out, sitting there in
their hotel, terrified, and later Hope famously wrote about this experience,
after you have listened to a raid for a little while,
you begin to be afraid that just the noise will
kill you. Then after you've listened to it a little
while longer, you begin to be afraid it won't. After
traveling in Italy, the Hope crew went back to North
(23:47):
Africa before returning to the United States after eleven weeks
of touring, and when the tour ended, Hope had so
much to do. He had been asked by a lot
of the troops that he met to reach out to
their families or to their girlfriends back home, and he
followed through on all those requests. He also wrote a
book with ghostwriter Carol Carroll about the tour called I
Never Left Home. Hope donated the money from the book
(24:10):
and that was published in paperback in Juno. He donated
donated that money to the National War Fund. So in
nineteen four Hope put together a trip troupe to tour
(24:34):
the Pacific Theater that included Lankford, Romano, and Kelowna, as
well as new players Patty Thomas and Barney Dean. And
Patty Thomas was a very attractive young woman. One of
the things that Bob Hope would do it's a little
outmoded now, is he would you know, trot a beautiful
woman out on stage and say to the soldiers, this
is what you're fighting for. Uh. And so she was
kind of that person. But because of that, things would
(24:56):
sometimes get uncomfortable on the road with men making unwanted
adv pances, and so often Bob would just step in
and tell the would be suitor that Patty was his girlfriend,
even though that was not the case, just so that
they would leave her alone. The specific tour went on
for six weeks starting on June twenty nineteen, and then
the group head into Australia. While flying into Sydney from Brisbane,
(25:18):
their plane almost went down or one of the engines failed,
and things got so dire that the pilot ordered the
passengers to jettison everything they could. They made an emergency
landing on water, scuffing across the surface and coming to
rest on a sandbar. Bob and his team, rattled, but
dedicated performed their scheduled show that night. Yeah, I don't
(25:40):
think I could have kept it together. Hope also started
writing columns about their travels in war zones that were
then published in the papers. Back home and the Pepsident
Show had hoped that they could do a live show
from one of these uh, one of these locations, But
initially the War Department stopped that idea cold because he
didn't want to give away locations to the enemy. But
Hope did eventually get to broadcast from a naval hospital.
(26:02):
They did more after that, UH, and the conclusion of
the broadcast took a rather serious turn as he turned
off his jokester mode for a little bit and made
very clear to the people back home that the young
men that he was meeting every single day, we're making
very deep sacrifices and really needed support. It became really
common practice for Bob Hope to reach out to troops
who couldn't make it to his scheduled shows. A lot
(26:25):
of times he would load the Federal his fellow performers
into jeeps and then go find these troops wherever they
were out in the field and try to give them
a bit of entertainment. There weren't agents, there weren't assistants.
It was just a handful of comedians and singers making
sure that the men on the front lines felt appreciated
and seen and loved. Yet there are so many stories
(26:45):
of him going, oh, that group tried to get to
us so they couldn't make it. Do you know where
they are right now? And they would literally just run
and go and spend an hour with them, telling them
jokes and trying to lighten their emotional burden. Um, which
is pretty amazing. They're literally you cannot count them. I
don't think we will ever get an accurate account of
how many times Bob Hope performed in the USO because
there are so many of those little moments that were
(27:06):
never recorded or documented. And Hope and company went back
to Europe in though the troops part due to exhaustion
and also the knowledge that the war was finally coming
to a close. We're a little bit less responsive than
they had encountered earlier in the war. Uh, and that
was a little bit of a downer for them. But
also Francis Langford was not there with them. She had
(27:27):
moved on to her own show. There was some Hollywood
drama around that about her moving into another another position.
So instead Bob Hope brought Gail Robbins into the troop
and then halfway through the tour, while the performers were
in Germany, the Japanese surrender was announced on August and
so Hope canceled the remaining dates on the tour and
went home. That actually surprised some people. They thought he
(27:48):
was going to go ahead and finish, because it wasn't
like they went we're done and everyone went home the
next day. But I think it was just they had
reached an exhaustion point where it was just time to
be like, all right, let's just pack this up. Well,
and at that point, because things are headed toward closure,
like the need of can we please just laugh at
something is not quite as high. No, it's probably d
(28:09):
prioritized over how fast can we pack and get out
of here? How how fast can we wrap up every
loose end? And he's wrapping. Bob Hope's work with the
USO during World War Two really cemented his place as
an entertainment icon. He had earned the love of the
troops and the folks back home in the United States,
and the ratings for his show were really never better.
Even after the war was over, he still felt a
(28:31):
deep connection to his work with the military. Hope was
asked by Secretary of the Air Force Stewart Symington if
he would go entertained troops in Berlin who were carrying
out the missions that came to be known as the
Berlin Airlift that is also known as Operation Victuals, which
was running supplies to West Berlin via air after the
Soviets had blockaded road access, and Hope agreed and he
(28:53):
put together a cast from his newly reworked radio show
which was called The Bob Hope Show, and he flew
to Berlin to give a performance which launched a long
running tradition, which was a special Christmas show for the troops.
When the Korean War started in nineteen fifty, Hope immediately
wanted to get involved, and this time he wanted to
take a much larger show, a troop of fifty people.
While General MacArthur initially wanted no entertainment groups larger than
(29:17):
six people and no women entertainers entering the combat zone,
Hope eventually got his way after using his contacts with
the military to help his case. And this time, I
mean it really was huge. We mentioned fifty people, but
there were bands, there were singing groups, there were comedians
of course, there were writers that went on the road
with them to work jokes along the way, and Bob's
(29:37):
brother Jack went along and kind of helped keep everything
running smoothly. Actress and singer Gloria to Haven was the
female lead of the show for the first half of
the tour, and Maryland Maxwell was planned to move into
that role for the second half. And they went first
to Hawaii and then the Quaduline a toll which I
probably pronounced incorrectly, uh guam Okinawa, Tokyo and beyond, and
(29:58):
over four weeks, the singers, dancers, musicians, and comedians gave
a staggering fifty four performances. It's just about two a day.
We mentioned earlier that they were sometimes doing five a day,
but when you think about, uh, how much larger this
show was, and just the logistical nightmare of fifty people
versus five, this was really still pretty impressive. They just
(30:19):
couldn't quite manage five a day because they did not
have that tiny, nimble troupe that they started with. Incidentally,
one of the writers on hope specific tour, Larry Gilbert,
went on to create and produce the series Mash, which
was informed by what he had seen while on tour
through the bases in the Korean War. Hope's involvement with
the USO continued, of course, after the Korean War ended.
(30:39):
He visited basses. He always did his Christmas tours while
continuing his radio, film and television career. That is what
always astounds me. He had he could have just done
the USO stuff, and that's a pretty big full time career.
Yet he also was maintaining his regular at home, non
military involved career. Um. But it did take a bit
of a downward turn for him in a public eye,
(31:00):
at least during the Vietnam War. Yeah, in nineteen sixty four,
Hope in his troop headed to Vietnam for the first
time at the request of the Defense Department, and the
location for this show was a secret. Even Hope and
his colleagues did not know the base locations they were
going to be going to. They first reached Saigon and
when they got to their hotel, there was a crowd outside,
and Hope thought it was a group of people who
(31:21):
were coming to meet him and the rest of the troop.
They had actually stumbled onto a bomb scene because the
hotel across the street had just been hit, and some
reports suggested that Hope might have actually been the target. Yeah,
there was a belief that he was a target because
nobody wanted American troops to have the morale boost that
something like that would provide. And just the year prior,
(31:42):
in nineteen sixty three, President Kennedy had presented the Congressional
Gold Medal in recognition to Hope for his immense service
to the military. But of course, at that point there
was controversy on the horizon because the Vietnam War was
not supported by everyone in the US. Hopes ongoing work
during the war and his friendship with President Nixon meant
that he was not the universally beloved figure that he
(32:04):
had been earlier in his career, and this really represented
a turning point in a shift that had been gradually
gradually happening over a number of years. Hope had been
a young upstart earlier on in his career, and over
time he had become really established. He wasn't a cheeky
young rebel anymore. He was a wealthy, established success. His
(32:25):
jokes in his early career had been really edgy, and
at this point they had become a little more passe
as other up and coming comedians had pushed the envelope
in their own way. His jokes about women I, womanizing
and other topics had become a little dated and trends
of comedy had just moved on to other things. Yeah,
he was always really cagy about how wealthy he had become.
(32:47):
He was really smart. He invested in a lot of
things in addition to just making money and entertainment. And
there are so many clips of him on like talk
shows going I'm not as rich as people say. Like,
he really was trying to downplay his wealth, even though
I encourage you all to go home and google his house.
It was built to look like a volcano. Um it
doesn't literally look like a volcano. It's like a shape
(33:09):
style that like a very kind of you know, that
that mid century modern thing. But he wanted to downplay
how wealthy he was, even while living in the most
spectacular home you could imagine. But those jokes that we
talked about that had become passe would often still play
to a military audience who were just eager and thankful
for a lighthearted reminder of home. But even within the military,
(33:30):
there were conflicting views of Vietnam, and that meant that
Hope experienced on occasion some critical reception from military personnel
that he had never dealt with before. And at one
point during a Christmas Eve, show, he mentioned that President
Nixon was doing everything he could to bring the troops home,
and that comment did not go over well. There were
a lot of soldiers in the audience who thought he
was outright lying. Some of them started booing uh, and
(33:53):
to get the crowd back, Hope eventually brought out Connie Stevens,
who was touring with him, to sing She's saying Silent Night,
and the whole crowd kind of going along and it
it fixed the moment, but it was very, very scary
time for him in terms of just like I thought,
I knew what I was doing, and I don't anymore.
And the even in the face of these kinds of moments, though,
Hopes support of the troops never wavered at all. He
(34:15):
knew that the war was really unpopular with a lot
of people, but he also felt like he wouldn't be
able to look at himself in the mirror if he
didn't make an effort to support the deployed personnel from
the U. S. Military. He saw and understood how badly
they needed somebody to just unconditionally care about them, and
in return, he was constantly receiving thousands of letters from
(34:35):
the soldiers who he had entertained sharing personal stories and
saying thanks or asking him to reach out to their
families back home. He really got in the habit of
reviewing his military letters a couple of times a week
with his secretary, and he would dictate personal responses to
as many of them as he could. Yeah, if you
have not been upstairs to the exhibit, there are a
few pieces of mail included there that are wrenching, um
(34:58):
and beautiful. But he his career just the same took
a hit because of his vocal backing of the U.
S involvement in Vietnam. So he faced criticism both at
home and on the road for his conservative stance and
the jokes that he made belittling war protests. But he
still remained so determined and dedicated and energetic about his
involvement with the U. S O. And in some ways
(35:20):
that has really paved the way for other entertainers to
support the military serving in unpopular actions through USO tours.
Some of them have even outright said, I don't support
this war, but I support the troops and I support
the people I'm going to entertain. When Hope was honored
at the Kennedy Center in one segment of the show
featured military personnel he had entertained throughout the years, from
(35:40):
World War to You, Korea and Vietnam, all of them
sharing brief stories about how he had given them a
reprieve from the harsh realities they had been in, and
then closing with the soldiers singing Hope's signature song, thanks
for the Memory, and in a very rare moment where
Hopes like compartmentalization and the comic facade, the sort of
personality that he showed people publicly, that fell away, and
(36:04):
he wept openly at this presentation. I feel like this
is the this is like the movie White Christmas, and
I cry thinking about that. Also, I highly encourage you. You
You can see footage of that event online and if
you don't cry, you might be a robot um. It's
quite moving and it is really lovely. But hops time
(36:26):
with the USO continued after those Kennedy Center honors. His
last overseas tour was during the Persian Gulf War in
and at that point he was eight seven uh and
while his energy had always outpaced almost everyone he worked with,
everyone talked about how like they didn't know how he
kept going. He was just his machine. He basically would
just take cat naps and run on adrenaline for days
(36:47):
and days and days. But those techniques, at the age
of eight seven, we're not really working. They were not
quite enough to keep him from slowing down a little bit.
And this was especially true because he continued to always
add impromptu performance as to his tours to make sure
he reached as many military personnel as possible. So for
all of Hope's work with the troops, over fifty years
(37:08):
of traveling to dangerous and remote locations just to bring
some laughs or some comfort, he was given so many honors,
and we're going to tick through just a few of them.
So in nineteen sixty eight he was given the Savannah
Stayer Award at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.
President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Presidential Medal of
Freedom in nineteen sixty nine. In nineteen seventy one, he
(37:30):
received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
In nine seven, Congress named him an Honorary Veteran. Ninety
seven was big for him, as you will see because
also in n seven, the U. S. Air Force named
a Boeing C. Seventeen Globe Master three, the Spirit of
Bob Hope, and one more thing from seven. The US
Navy named a T A k R three hundred cargo
(37:52):
ship the U s n S. Bob Hope, and that
ship incidentally was constructed here in New Orleans by Avondale Industries.
It is really really sort of astonishing, uh, to think
about all of the work that Bob Hope did with
the USO, and then consider, as I mentioned before, that
those efforts were all in addition to a very full
career as an entertainer, and it is impossible to know,
(38:14):
like I said, how many thousands of performances he gave
for troops, because there were so many done on the
fly that we will probably never know about, sometimes for
a few as two or three guys at a time.
And in a way, he was inventing a lot of
things that are standard elements of comedy today, and a
lot of that was tied into his work with the troops.
While working in vaudeville, he had developed a really rapid
fire style of telling jokes that he honed in these
(38:37):
early U. S O tours, essentially developing stand up comedy. Yeah,
prior to that, I mean you guys have seen vaudeville
stuff where it's like, well, tell the joke and then
we wait for the laugh. And he never waited for
the laugh. He would just keep rolling into the next joke,
which was a completely new way of approaching telling jokes.
And as he moved into TV, he did this unique
thing because he knew he did not want to deal
(39:00):
with the kind of grueling schedule that a weekly show
would entail. So instead, uh, he kind of borrowed that
idea that was born in Berlin in when he did
his Christmas show for the Troops, he essentially created the
idea of a comedy special, which is a huge part
of the comedy industry today. So in the introduction to
one of the books that Holly read while preparing for
(39:21):
this show, Bob Hope, Bo Bob Hope biographer wrote the
following about his long term work with the U s O.
And it seemed like a really good way to close
this out. He wrote, all this had a careerist aspect.
Of course, Hope sincerely loved entertaining the troops and it
fed the patriotic pride of an immigrant who had lived
a classic Horatio Algerias success story. But his Troops shows
(39:44):
also provided him with huge, easy to please audiences, lofty
TV ratings, and boundless good publicity. Still, no cynical view
of his motives can diminish the impact that Hope had
for setting a standard of public service in Hollywood. We
seriously cannot thank the National World Ward Museum enough for
(40:08):
graciously hosting us, and particularly their Public Engagement and Community
Programs coordinator Amber Mitchell, who made sure everything went smoothly,
and she was just an amazing host. The museum was amazing.
Everybody that we worked with was so fantastic. The entire
staff is incredible. Amber really just like is one of
those people that is super relaxed but also super on
(40:29):
top of things, so you feel like you're in great
hands and like nothing is going to slip through the cracks,
and she's just a delight. We also did mention at
the top of the show the museum's new podcast, which
is called Service on Celluloid, and if you like both
film history and military history, uh, it is probably going
to be right up your alley. The show looks at
how World War Two has been portrayed in film from
(40:50):
the nineteen forties right up through modern Cinema, including discussions
of saving Private Ryan Schindler's List, and they actually have
an upcoming episode on the League of their Own Giant
pretty excited about. We're going to include links to that
show on our show page for this episode, so it
will be easy for you to check out. And again,
thank you so much to the World War Two Museum,
and just for the city of New Orleans, because everyone
(41:12):
that came up for meet and greet after the show
was super gracious and they were they wanted to make
sure we had enjoyed the city, and I just couldn't
be affirmative enough about how much we did. Uh. I
have a little listener mail, that is, I won't read
the whole mail, but I want to make sure we
thank this person. Our listener, Marina, who also listens to
a lot of other UH House Stuff Work shows, including
(41:34):
UH Stuff You Should Know and UH Stuff to Blow
Your Mind and the soundtrack show and Savor. Marina sent
us an amazing parcel of delicious things. She's from Germany
and so one she mentioned that our show in particular
shares parts of history that she didn't really get. She
didn't get a lot of American or or certainly British history.
We always mentioned that we want to feature other things
(41:56):
other than that, but that is the easiest and most
accessible history uh info that's usually available to us, so
that does tend to be featured a lot um. But
then she gave us, like I said, an amazing box
of absolutely delicious looking goodies, and I will be sure
as she requested to share those throughout the office. So
thank you, thank you, thank you, Marina. If you would
like to write to us, you can do so at
(42:18):
History podcast at house to works dot com. We can
also be found pretty much everywhere on social media as
missed in History, and you can come to our website
missed in History dot com for every episode of the
show that has ever aired, as well as show notes
on any of the episodes Tracy and I have worked on.
So we encourage you come and visit us at missed
in History dot com and you can subscribe to the
(42:38):
podcast on Apple Podcasts, I Heart, radios, app or anywhere
you get your podcasts. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit housetop works dot com
Welcome to steph you missed in history Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and we
were recently lucky enough to be the guests of the
National World War Two Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, and
(00:23):
the museum asked us if we would do a show
there about the USO and Bob Hopes work with the
organization to run parallel to an exhibit that they are
currently running about Bob Hope called so Ready for the
Laughter The Legacy of Bob Hope, and that exhibit is
going to run until February. The museum also has its
own podcast about film and World War Two history called
(00:45):
Service on Cellu Lloyd. We'll talk a little bit more
about that at the end of the show. Yeah, I
think Tracy and I would both say that it can't
be overstated how much we absolutely loved our time in
New Orleans. Absolutely, And I spent the day that we
did our show, I spent basically all of the time
I had available at the museum and it was a
(01:06):
great experience. Yeah, that facility is amazing, It is huge,
it is growing, Uh. They put so much incredible care
and love into every exhibit. Uh. And they have just
some amazing pieces that you will not find anywhere else. Uh.
And the city, of course, is in utter delight. I
grew up on the Florida Panhandle, so I had spent
(01:26):
a lot of time there. It was Tracy's first time there.
It was very fun for you to really see the
city for the first time. Uh. And similarly, my husband
has been through there with me before, but not really
for an extended period of time, so it was great
to to watch him and my other friends really explore
it for the first time. I said during one of
the breaks during our show that we don't normally put
(01:47):
on the podcast, that I have not felt so relaxed
and happy in probably five years. The city is just beautiful,
and it has this great culture and amazing food and
a wonderful art scene, and there's just something really magical
about New Orleans. So if you've not been there, highly
encourage it. Yeah, hopefully you too will feel happy and
relaxed in all new ways. But what we're going to
(02:08):
do now is jump into the live show that we
did there at the World War Two Museum, and we
Hope you enjoy. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And the USO
has of course been a huge part of keeping the
military going since its inception, and legendary performer Bob Hope
(02:31):
is closely tied to us O history, so they very
kindly the World War Two Museum asked us come and
talk about these things, which we jumped at the chance
to do because one, I we both are into history too.
I love old Hollywood. Uh Three, It's just kind of
an important story that doesn't always get talked about, although
it is now thanks to again museums just like this.
(02:53):
So tonight we're going to talk about both of those things.
This is a really fun topic for US podcasters too,
because Bob hopes Are career was all in radio and
so in many ways he was working in an audio
medium and then it became something very different as entertainment evolved,
and he ended up with this whole other career. Uh So,
first we're gonna talk with just about a brief overview
(03:14):
of USO history, focused primarily on its founding in its
early years, and then we're going to talk about Bob
Hope's involvement with the organization first and primarily the mediat
part of his stuff that we'll talk about is World
War two related, but we will also include his involvement
in wars that happened after that and and beyond, and
also working back home. And just as a matter of
(03:35):
expectations management, Uh, this is not a comprehensive history of
either of those topics, because you would be here for
two weeks, uh, and probably you're gonna want to go
home and see your loved ones and eat and do
things like that. So, um, we don't want to go
on for days. But hopefully this will provide sort of
a fun supplement one to the fantastic exhibit here at
the museum, and just a fun way to talk about
(03:55):
Bob Hope's dedication to public service, which continues to have
long lasting packed today. Also, we're going to try very
hard not to cry. I make no promises. Um. You know,
Tracy and I both have fathers who have served. I
definitely want you once again thank those of you in
the audience who are veterans for your service. Is one
of those topics that often chokes us up. So race
(04:17):
we're going to try to be grown up and think
about the things that make us not cry. But I
could happen, and I apologize in advance because it will
get ugly. When we're in the studio, we can stop
for a moment, but when we're in front of a
crowd of people, we we kind of gotta keep on.
Usually I'm okay in front of the crowd, but this
one might be the one. I will see you guys
might get the first live breakdown, of which maybe you'll
(04:40):
be into. I don't know you were there when it happened.
Uh So, while the mention of the USO today conjures
images of overseas groups of soldiers being entertained by a
list stars, which is totally appropriate, Initially the organization was
formed to keep the troops state side more occupied. So
in the fall of nineteen forty, the US military draft
(05:03):
was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United States,
as you all know, had not entered World War Two
at this point, but it was becoming increasingly likely in
most people's minds that this was going to happen, and
so over the next several months, more than one million
people enlisted, and that meant that there were suddenly these
huge numbers of soldiers filling military bases, and aside from
(05:25):
their training, they kind of had to sit there on
tenter hooks and wait for this war to happen. General
George C. Marshall had served as a staff officer during
World War One with the first Infantry Division under General Pershing,
and as he saw these bases becoming more and more
populated in nineteen forty and early ninety one, he and
(05:45):
other members of the military leadership recalled some problems they
had seen with servicemen filling up their leisure time. During
World War One, it had been common for people to
basically drink heavily in their downtime. There was a lot
of sexually transmitted disease infection that then had to be
treated by military doctors. Led to a lot you'll see
(06:07):
still propaganda poster reproductions about all of that, and so
General Marshall really felt like a structured system of entertainment
and social services that were designed to fill the troops
leisure time could really cut down someone on some of
the problems they had seen in World War One. And
just as an aside, uh there had been entertainment offerings
(06:29):
for troops during World War One, a number of camps
had what were called liberty theaters, and these were built
by the Commission of Training Camp Activities. And those theaters
were built after General Pershing had allegedly said, give me
a thousand soldiers occasionally entertained to ten thousand without entertainment,
and so in preparation for this likely entry into World
(06:49):
War Two, General Marshall and others were thinking that this
was great to begin with, but there needed to be
a more comprehensive program that offered more than just the
scheduled entertainment though so then at the same time, the
head of the National Jewish Welfare Board had started meeting
in New York with the leadership of other welfare organizations
who had been all providing support for the troops steering
(07:10):
World War One. They were all brain starting ways that
they might be able to serve again if the United
States entered World War Two, and so eventually this led
to their meeting with President Franklin the Roosevelt, and as
a result of that meeting, the President asked the y
m c A, the y w c A, the Salvation Army,
the Jewish Welfare Board, the National Catholic Community Services and
(07:33):
the Travelers Aid Association of America to all combine their
resources to help the soldiers awaiting deployment pass the time,
have a little bit of fun, and get some much
needed social connection while they prepared for what was potentially
a very grim future. I had no idea until you
sent me that line for this that this had been
such a multi organizational effort. Like in my head, it
(07:56):
was something that the Army said we need this, and
then it happened at I had no sense that there
were so many different organizations involved. So on February fourth,
ninety one, the u s O was officially formed through
a congressional charter and the first iteration was called the
United Service Organizations for National Defense, Incorporated. It's not a
(08:17):
government agency, but a private nonprofit working in conjunction with
the US military, and the idea from the beginning was
that people, regular citizens would provide the financial support system
for this organization, and to that end, a wildly successful
fundraising effort started right away. These fundraising fundraising efforts were
(08:40):
incredibly successful. Donations rolled into total more than sixteen million
dollars in the u s o s first year, and
that is sixteen million dollars in nineteen forty one. That's
not adjusted to today's numbers. It would be a massive
number today. Uh. And the message of all of this
was completely clear. This new organization was providing a safe,
(09:01):
wholesome way to keep soldiers station in the states entertained
and occupied. It was better than going to bars or
just roaming around looking for something to do. And it
was also going to help soldiers build and maintain strong
ties to the communities around their bases, because often they
were not near their homes, and the idea was that
when they were shipped off, they were going to have
a deeper sense of connection to their home country. So
(09:23):
both public and private spaces near the military bases became
places that soldiers could go and socialize, or get refreshments
or pick out reading material. All of this under the
USO banner. There were even mobile USO centers that traveled
to the more remote locations and they would take books
and sporting goods and refreshments and film projection setups and
(09:44):
things like that to the people that were farther out. Yeah,
those are pretty amazing. If you ever see a picture
of one, it's like this magical box that just opens
up and entertaining things fly out. Um. They were really
really smartly designed, and things that USO centers were as promised,
kept kept very wholesome. Indeed, there was no alcohol, and
most of the social centers had these unofficial chaperones in
(10:05):
the form of older married women who managed the logistical
needs of the centers, but they also just kind of
kept an eye on things to make sure no one
was behaving poorly or unwholesomely. Uh. There were junior hostesses
present as well. A lot of times you will see
them listed as the true draw of these centers, but
they actually had to pass a screening to make sure
that they were moral, young ladies and not likely to
(10:27):
get any of these soldiers into trouble. Junior hostesses were
supposed to socialize with the men only at the us
O club and not outside of it. That rule was
bent from time to time. That was not a I mean,
any of you who have connections to a family who
maybe had a soldier that was in the military at
this time probably have a story about some romance with
(10:47):
the junior hostess. It was not all in the center,
but that is fine. So the first permanent USO building
was erected in November of nineteen forty one at Fort
Bragg in Fayetville, North Carolina, and that center is still
in to operation. And of course, the United States entered
the war on December seven after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,
and soon the young men who had benefited from the
(11:09):
u s o s hospitality while they were stationed in
the US were sent overseas to fight, and the USO
went with them. The group started to organize camp shows,
and these are the ones that featured a list celebrities
who were volunteering their time and talents to support the
troops and to try to boost morale. Soon the shows
became their own entity, USO Camp Shows, Inc. And that
(11:31):
was a nonprofit organization headed up by the chairman of
the William Morris Agency, Abe Last Vogel. The USO camp
shows were also a huge success in by ninety seven,
there were more than four hundred twenty five thousand shows
performed for troops through the organization. But the success of
the USO actually also caused some minor issues of their
(11:52):
own of its own. So when the short film Mr.
Gardinia Jones was produced as a cooperative effort among the
US Office War Information, the USO and Metro Goldwyinmyer Studios.
UH in two. It raised a few concerns with the army.
So this film is described as a documentary and it's
really a promotional piece for the USO. Starring Ronald Reagan.
(12:15):
It's the story of a young man who joins the
war effort and his mother's decision to form a u
s O center. This all sounds fine, it's only thirteen
minutes long, but because the troops in the film were
portrayed as being so excited to enjoy the benefits of
the USO, and these benefits included showers, something that they
had outside of the USO. They did not need to
(12:40):
wait for the USO to come around to have a shower. Uh.
The Army thought this was spaint painting, kind of a
false picture of what military life was like. Yeah, they
thought like both to the troops and the folks back home,
they're like, how grim are they going to think it is?
Even when we're not engaged in any kind of combat.
If all of the men in this movie look like
the tex savery Auga every time, they're like, what a movie?
(13:03):
What I can have some soap that did cause a
little bit of trouble, but it eventually got worked out
and they were able to show it. By the time
the first round of the USO ended in the nineteen forties,
as Tracy said, there had been more than four hundred
twenty five thousand shows and civilian volunteers. UH totaled up
to more than one point five million people over the
course of that time. Its largest number at one point
(13:26):
was seven hundred thirty nine thousand. That was in mid
nineteen forty three, and in nineteen forty four the number
of USO recreational centers maxed out at three thousand, thirty five.
After World War Two, the USO was disbanded and then
formally dissolved in ninety It wasn't long, though, before the
Korean War began in nineteen fifty, and on March seven,
(13:48):
nineteen fifty one, the USO was reformed and reorganized at
the request once again of George C. Marshall, who at
that point was the Secretary of War, and since then
the USO has persisted provide entertainment, comfort, and social services
to soldiers around the globe. In nineteen nine, President Jimmy
Carter signed the u s o's Congressional Charter, which establishes
(14:10):
that the USO remains important in the lives of our
service members even during peacetime. And today, the USO has
its own bipartisan and bicameral Congressional Caucus, and there are
currently more than two hundred USO centers around the world,
all of which are staffed with volunteers. Of course, we
are also going to talk about Bob Hope. The museum
has a wonderful Bob Hope exhibit that is part of
(14:31):
why we're here today. And before we get into his
connection to the us O, this is where we take
a quick break. So many many celebrities have been involved
(14:54):
with the u S O famously over the years, but
none became so closely associated with it as Bob Hope. Initially,
a lot of Hopes work entertaining U S servicemen had
happened on the radio. At that point, he had become
a star as a radio personality, but he he only
started his film career in The main gig that he
(15:15):
had going on was the very popular The Pepsident Show
Starring Bob Hope, which had started running, and his first
performance for an all military audience happened when He took
that radio show, at the urging of his producer, to
March Air Force Base that is known as March Air
Reserve Base in Riverside County, California to record a live show,
(15:36):
and he opened with a joke that would probably not
play today, which was as soon as I got into camp,
I received a ten guns salute, they told me on
the operating table. Uh. There is footage of him delivering
that joke in the exhibit. Yes, it's no shade to
Holly's comedy time, not Bob Hope. I hate to break
(15:56):
it to you. I do different comedy. Yeah, it's one
of those things. I wonder if the same joke would
play as well today when the whole topic is a
little bit more fraud. It's different now. But yeah, you
can see him say it in that exhibit. Do it um.
This show took place in a gymnasium. The gymnasium still
(16:16):
exists today and is now called March Fields Sports and
Fitness Center, and that facility had a plaque added to
its exterior in commemorate the start of Hopes ongoing work
with the troops that happened there, and the plaque reads
on May sixty one, Bob Hope brought his NBC radio
show to the march Field Gym and broadcast his National
(16:38):
Network show from this site. It marked the first time Mr.
Hope had ever performed for military personnel. This landmark broadcast
was the forerunner to the legendary USO shows that have
entertained American troops around the world since ninety three. And
he also started appearing on a radio variety show called
Command Performance on July seven, ninety two that was produced
(17:01):
by Armed Forces Radio exclusively for broadcast to bases uh
and he was also the Pepsident show was also being
broadcast to the troops. But Bob Hope loved hosting Command
Performance because he could be a little more daring and
get away with a little bit more blue humor than
he could with NBC. So it was kind of a
freeing experience in some ways. Yeah, the military audie audience
and the network audience, and very that same summer, we
(17:24):
had a conversation with a friend and former colleague who
had become an Army sergeant about the troops, and the
sergeant suggested that Hope should visit soldiers who were stationed
in Alaska. He went with for this idea. He started
planning the trip almost immediately, and the plan was for
Bob and then uh fellow Pepsidant show radio personalities Frank's
(17:45):
Francis Langford and Jerry Kelowna and guitarist Tony Romano to
all make this trip together. And as this forsome September
departure from San Francisco approach, they actually got news that
inclement weather suggested it would really be better if they can't.
And their schedule was really super tight because Bob Hope,
of course, was already a popular entertainer, and he had
(18:06):
other bookings that he had to do, like for his
radio show to keep it going, and there was absolutely
no way that they could promise him that, yes, you
will be back in time and keep this thing on schedule.
But Hope did not care. He telegrammed the base saying
that they were all packed and ready, and he concluded
his missive with please let us make our trip and
we'll take our chances, and they were soon on right
(18:27):
en route to Fairbanks, Alaska. From there, Hoping, the team
went to nome Unimac Island and Yukon Territory. Troops always
didn't always have advanced noticed that celebrities were coming, and
even if the tour schedule had been announced, there would
have been some surprises. The comedians and musician would sometimes
do impromptu shows for much smaller groups of soldiers when
(18:48):
they ran into them during their travels from one location
to another. This was definitely not glamorous, though it was freezing,
travel could be really dicey and in some cases dangerous,
and they did not have any kind of luxurious accommodations. No.
This is one of those moments where I was doing
the research and and reading about this, and I just
(19:08):
like my respect kind of went off the charts for
all of them, because they really put up with stuff
that I think most celebrities today would scoff at, just
in terms of dealing with really gross, unpleasant moments. Um.
But there was also, as Tracy said, a lot of danger.
So on a flight from Cordova to Anchorage, their plane
lost first its radio and then one of its engines.
It was only lucky enough to make their landing very
(19:30):
hard because when Elmendorf Air Force Base crew found out
what was happening, that this plane had lost communication, they
broke protocol and they turned on their searchlights and they
were not supposed to do that, but that gave the
pilots a visual to guide them in, and Bob was
very aware of how close they came to disaster. He
described later when he wrote about it, that he looked
(19:50):
at Francis and remembered that he had promised her husband
that she would be okay, and that he had begged
him to let her go, and he thought, I've just
walked her into her death. Um. But later on and
he gave inscribed watches to each of those pilots see
him getting choked up. Um that read thanks for my life,
which was something those pilots later reiterated that they went
on to long careers. That was still the scariest flight
(20:11):
of their lives. Man, you didn't tell me that part. Well,
I saved it for now. Despite all the odds and
a series of bad weather issues, Hope was able to
get to Seattle and do his scheduled radio broadcast from
there before turning right around and going back to the
Alaskan tour. And once the trip concluded, despite of all
(20:31):
the freights and the rough rides and the icy cold,
Bob Hope decided that he would be devoting a lot
more time to doing similar trips. He told reporters he
wouldn't be in Hollywood very much after that because he
had some other things to do. And though they had
faced discomforts and those dangerous trips in Alaska, Bob's Little
Troop immediately signed on in ninete to make a trip
(20:51):
to the European Theater and this was their first overseas
tour for the USO. Jerry Colonna was unable to make
the trip due to some scheduling on flicks, and so
Hope brought in a vaudevillian named Jack Pepper in his place,
and Francis Langford Tony Romano both remained with the troop
and they flew out of LaGuardia in the wee hours
of June, headed to newfound Newfoundland, which I always say wrong, uh.
(21:16):
And from there they departed for Great Britain, and they
actually were headed to Great Britain and then they had
to return to Canada due to bad winds. Uh. So
their first performance of the tour was actually completely unscheduled.
They were like, well, we're here, So they performed for
the Royal Canadian Air Force at their command station as
sort of their warm up show for the trip. And
then the next day they once again set out for Europe,
(21:38):
and this time they made their way to London. London
was in really bad shape from the war at this point,
and the performers were immediately struck by the toll that
the conflict had taken on the city. Even small necessities
like soap were not available, in spite of the joke
I made about soap earlier. The schedule was also really
grueling as they traveled all through England. They gave us
(21:59):
an as four shows a day. Anytime that there was
space they could turn into a stage. They really realized
how very desperately their levity was needed, and Hope later
wrote that you would have to be a terrible comedian
not to get a laugh from those audiences. But they
also found this work incredibly challenging, and all of them
tried to keep things very light and entertaining, even when,
(22:23):
for example, they were visiting wounded soldiers in the hospital,
and there were certainly moments when they wanted to break down.
Francis Langford tells a story about how she kind of
got let outside so she could cry because she was
not holding it together because Bob Hope was insistent that
they could not fall apart in front of these men.
They were there to bring light and to bring laughter,
and not to remind anyone just how dangerous their lives were.
(22:45):
After five weeks in Britain, Hope and the team moved
on to North Africa, which was blisteringly hot but even
they but even more frightening than the heat were the
air raids the German. The Germans bombed the areas that
they were in on several occasions, and at one point
Bob sprained his ankle when they had to run for
cover and he and Francis Langford had to dive into
(23:07):
a ditch. And they next moved to Palermo, where they
performed for massive crowds of sixteen thousand to nineteen thousand
men at a time, often with P thirty eight fighters
in the sky above them in case of a raid,
and just as in North Africa, there were bombings. At
one point they were all trapped in their hotel rooms.
They could not get to a safe place and they
(23:27):
had to just ride this raid out, sitting there in
their hotel, terrified, and later Hope famously wrote about this experience,
after you have listened to a raid for a little while,
you begin to be afraid that just the noise will
kill you. Then after you've listened to it a little
while longer, you begin to be afraid it won't. After
traveling in Italy, the Hope crew went back to North
(23:47):
Africa before returning to the United States after eleven weeks
of touring, and when the tour ended, Hope had so
much to do. He had been asked by a lot
of the troops that he met to reach out to
their families or to their girlfriends back home, and he
followed through on all those requests. He also wrote a
book with ghostwriter Carol Carroll about the tour called I
Never Left Home. Hope donated the money from the book
(24:10):
and that was published in paperback in Juno. He donated
donated that money to the National War Fund. So in
nineteen four Hope put together a trip troupe to tour
(24:34):
the Pacific Theater that included Lankford, Romano, and Kelowna, as
well as new players Patty Thomas and Barney Dean. And
Patty Thomas was a very attractive young woman. One of
the things that Bob Hope would do it's a little
outmoded now, is he would you know, trot a beautiful
woman out on stage and say to the soldiers, this
is what you're fighting for. Uh. And so she was
kind of that person. But because of that, things would
(24:56):
sometimes get uncomfortable on the road with men making unwanted
adv pances, and so often Bob would just step in
and tell the would be suitor that Patty was his girlfriend,
even though that was not the case, just so that
they would leave her alone. The specific tour went on
for six weeks starting on June twenty nineteen, and then
the group head into Australia. While flying into Sydney from Brisbane,
(25:18):
their plane almost went down or one of the engines failed,
and things got so dire that the pilot ordered the
passengers to jettison everything they could. They made an emergency
landing on water, scuffing across the surface and coming to
rest on a sandbar. Bob and his team, rattled, but
dedicated performed their scheduled show that night. Yeah, I don't
(25:40):
think I could have kept it together. Hope also started
writing columns about their travels in war zones that were
then published in the papers. Back home and the Pepsident
Show had hoped that they could do a live show
from one of these uh, one of these locations, But
initially the War Department stopped that idea cold because he
didn't want to give away locations to the enemy. But
Hope did eventually get to broadcast from a naval hospital.
(26:02):
They did more after that, UH, and the conclusion of
the broadcast took a rather serious turn as he turned
off his jokester mode for a little bit and made
very clear to the people back home that the young
men that he was meeting every single day, we're making
very deep sacrifices and really needed support. It became really
common practice for Bob Hope to reach out to troops
who couldn't make it to his scheduled shows. A lot
(26:25):
of times he would load the Federal his fellow performers
into jeeps and then go find these troops wherever they
were out in the field and try to give them
a bit of entertainment. There weren't agents, there weren't assistants.
It was just a handful of comedians and singers making
sure that the men on the front lines felt appreciated
and seen and loved. Yet there are so many stories
(26:45):
of him going, oh, that group tried to get to
us so they couldn't make it. Do you know where
they are right now? And they would literally just run
and go and spend an hour with them, telling them
jokes and trying to lighten their emotional burden. Um, which
is pretty amazing. They're literally you cannot count them. I
don't think we will ever get an accurate account of
how many times Bob Hope performed in the USO because
there are so many of those little moments that were
(27:06):
never recorded or documented. And Hope and company went back
to Europe in though the troops part due to exhaustion
and also the knowledge that the war was finally coming
to a close. We're a little bit less responsive than
they had encountered earlier in the war. Uh, and that
was a little bit of a downer for them. But
also Francis Langford was not there with them. She had
(27:27):
moved on to her own show. There was some Hollywood
drama around that about her moving into another another position.
So instead Bob Hope brought Gail Robbins into the troop
and then halfway through the tour, while the performers were
in Germany, the Japanese surrender was announced on August and
so Hope canceled the remaining dates on the tour and
went home. That actually surprised some people. They thought he
(27:48):
was going to go ahead and finish, because it wasn't
like they went we're done and everyone went home the
next day. But I think it was just they had
reached an exhaustion point where it was just time to
be like, all right, let's just pack this up. Well,
and at that point, because things are headed toward closure,
like the need of can we please just laugh at
something is not quite as high. No, it's probably d
(28:09):
prioritized over how fast can we pack and get out
of here? How how fast can we wrap up every
loose end? And he's wrapping. Bob Hope's work with the
USO during World War Two really cemented his place as
an entertainment icon. He had earned the love of the
troops and the folks back home in the United States,
and the ratings for his show were really never better.
Even after the war was over, he still felt a
(28:31):
deep connection to his work with the military. Hope was
asked by Secretary of the Air Force Stewart Symington if
he would go entertained troops in Berlin who were carrying
out the missions that came to be known as the
Berlin Airlift that is also known as Operation Victuals, which
was running supplies to West Berlin via air after the
Soviets had blockaded road access, and Hope agreed and he
(28:53):
put together a cast from his newly reworked radio show
which was called The Bob Hope Show, and he flew
to Berlin to give a performance which launched a long
running tradition, which was a special Christmas show for the troops.
When the Korean War started in nineteen fifty, Hope immediately
wanted to get involved, and this time he wanted to
take a much larger show, a troop of fifty people.
While General MacArthur initially wanted no entertainment groups larger than
(29:17):
six people and no women entertainers entering the combat zone,
Hope eventually got his way after using his contacts with
the military to help his case. And this time, I
mean it really was huge. We mentioned fifty people, but
there were bands, there were singing groups, there were comedians
of course, there were writers that went on the road
with them to work jokes along the way, and Bob's
(29:37):
brother Jack went along and kind of helped keep everything
running smoothly. Actress and singer Gloria to Haven was the
female lead of the show for the first half of
the tour, and Maryland Maxwell was planned to move into
that role for the second half. And they went first
to Hawaii and then the Quaduline a toll which I
probably pronounced incorrectly, uh guam Okinawa, Tokyo and beyond, and
(29:58):
over four weeks, the singers, dancers, musicians, and comedians gave
a staggering fifty four performances. It's just about two a day.
We mentioned earlier that they were sometimes doing five a day,
but when you think about, uh, how much larger this
show was, and just the logistical nightmare of fifty people
versus five, this was really still pretty impressive. They just
(30:19):
couldn't quite manage five a day because they did not
have that tiny, nimble troupe that they started with. Incidentally,
one of the writers on hope specific tour, Larry Gilbert,
went on to create and produce the series Mash, which
was informed by what he had seen while on tour
through the bases in the Korean War. Hope's involvement with
the USO continued, of course, after the Korean War ended.
(30:39):
He visited basses. He always did his Christmas tours while
continuing his radio, film and television career. That is what
always astounds me. He had he could have just done
the USO stuff, and that's a pretty big full time career.
Yet he also was maintaining his regular at home, non
military involved career. Um. But it did take a bit
of a downward turn for him in a public eye,
(31:00):
at least during the Vietnam War. Yeah, in nineteen sixty four,
Hope in his troop headed to Vietnam for the first
time at the request of the Defense Department, and the
location for this show was a secret. Even Hope and
his colleagues did not know the base locations they were
going to be going to. They first reached Saigon and
when they got to their hotel, there was a crowd outside,
and Hope thought it was a group of people who
(31:21):
were coming to meet him and the rest of the troop.
They had actually stumbled onto a bomb scene because the
hotel across the street had just been hit, and some
reports suggested that Hope might have actually been the target. Yeah,
there was a belief that he was a target because
nobody wanted American troops to have the morale boost that
something like that would provide. And just the year prior,
(31:42):
in nineteen sixty three, President Kennedy had presented the Congressional
Gold Medal in recognition to Hope for his immense service
to the military. But of course, at that point there
was controversy on the horizon because the Vietnam War was
not supported by everyone in the US. Hopes ongoing work
during the war and his friendship with President Nixon meant
that he was not the universally beloved figure that he
(32:04):
had been earlier in his career, and this really represented
a turning point in a shift that had been gradually
gradually happening over a number of years. Hope had been
a young upstart earlier on in his career, and over
time he had become really established. He wasn't a cheeky
young rebel anymore. He was a wealthy, established success. His
(32:25):
jokes in his early career had been really edgy, and
at this point they had become a little more passe
as other up and coming comedians had pushed the envelope
in their own way. His jokes about women I, womanizing
and other topics had become a little dated and trends
of comedy had just moved on to other things. Yeah,
he was always really cagy about how wealthy he had become.
(32:47):
He was really smart. He invested in a lot of
things in addition to just making money and entertainment. And
there are so many clips of him on like talk
shows going I'm not as rich as people say. Like,
he really was trying to downplay his wealth, even though
I encourage you all to go home and google his house.
It was built to look like a volcano. Um it
doesn't literally look like a volcano. It's like a shape
(33:09):
style that like a very kind of you know, that
that mid century modern thing. But he wanted to downplay
how wealthy he was, even while living in the most
spectacular home you could imagine. But those jokes that we
talked about that had become passe would often still play
to a military audience who were just eager and thankful
for a lighthearted reminder of home. But even within the military,
(33:30):
there were conflicting views of Vietnam, and that meant that
Hope experienced on occasion some critical reception from military personnel
that he had never dealt with before. And at one
point during a Christmas Eve, show, he mentioned that President
Nixon was doing everything he could to bring the troops home,
and that comment did not go over well. There were
a lot of soldiers in the audience who thought he
was outright lying. Some of them started booing uh, and
(33:53):
to get the crowd back, Hope eventually brought out Connie Stevens,
who was touring with him, to sing She's saying Silent Night,
and the whole crowd kind of going along and it
it fixed the moment, but it was very, very scary
time for him in terms of just like I thought,
I knew what I was doing, and I don't anymore.
And the even in the face of these kinds of moments, though,
Hopes support of the troops never wavered at all. He
(34:15):
knew that the war was really unpopular with a lot
of people, but he also felt like he wouldn't be
able to look at himself in the mirror if he
didn't make an effort to support the deployed personnel from
the U. S. Military. He saw and understood how badly
they needed somebody to just unconditionally care about them, and
in return, he was constantly receiving thousands of letters from
(34:35):
the soldiers who he had entertained sharing personal stories and
saying thanks or asking him to reach out to their
families back home. He really got in the habit of
reviewing his military letters a couple of times a week
with his secretary, and he would dictate personal responses to
as many of them as he could. Yeah, if you
have not been upstairs to the exhibit, there are a
few pieces of mail included there that are wrenching, um
(34:58):
and beautiful. But he his career just the same took
a hit because of his vocal backing of the U.
S involvement in Vietnam. So he faced criticism both at
home and on the road for his conservative stance and
the jokes that he made belittling war protests. But he
still remained so determined and dedicated and energetic about his
involvement with the U. S O. And in some ways
(35:20):
that has really paved the way for other entertainers to
support the military serving in unpopular actions through USO tours.
Some of them have even outright said, I don't support
this war, but I support the troops and I support
the people I'm going to entertain. When Hope was honored
at the Kennedy Center in one segment of the show
featured military personnel he had entertained throughout the years, from
(35:40):
World War to You, Korea and Vietnam, all of them
sharing brief stories about how he had given them a
reprieve from the harsh realities they had been in, and
then closing with the soldiers singing Hope's signature song, thanks
for the Memory, and in a very rare moment where
Hopes like compartmentalization and the comic facade, the sort of
personality that he showed people publicly, that fell away, and
(36:04):
he wept openly at this presentation. I feel like this
is the this is like the movie White Christmas, and
I cry thinking about that. Also, I highly encourage you. You
You can see footage of that event online and if
you don't cry, you might be a robot um. It's
quite moving and it is really lovely. But hops time
(36:26):
with the USO continued after those Kennedy Center honors. His
last overseas tour was during the Persian Gulf War in
and at that point he was eight seven uh and
while his energy had always outpaced almost everyone he worked with,
everyone talked about how like they didn't know how he
kept going. He was just his machine. He basically would
just take cat naps and run on adrenaline for days
(36:47):
and days and days. But those techniques, at the age
of eight seven, we're not really working. They were not
quite enough to keep him from slowing down a little bit.
And this was especially true because he continued to always
add impromptu performance as to his tours to make sure
he reached as many military personnel as possible. So for
all of Hope's work with the troops, over fifty years
(37:08):
of traveling to dangerous and remote locations just to bring
some laughs or some comfort, he was given so many honors,
and we're going to tick through just a few of them.
So in nineteen sixty eight he was given the Savannah
Stayer Award at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.
President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Presidential Medal of
Freedom in nineteen sixty nine. In nineteen seventy one, he
(37:30):
received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
In nine seven, Congress named him an Honorary Veteran. Ninety
seven was big for him, as you will see because
also in n seven, the U. S. Air Force named
a Boeing C. Seventeen Globe Master three, the Spirit of
Bob Hope, and one more thing from seven. The US
Navy named a T A k R three hundred cargo
(37:52):
ship the U s n S. Bob Hope, and that
ship incidentally was constructed here in New Orleans by Avondale Industries.
It is really really sort of astonishing, uh, to think
about all of the work that Bob Hope did with
the USO, and then consider, as I mentioned before, that
those efforts were all in addition to a very full
career as an entertainer, and it is impossible to know,
(38:14):
like I said, how many thousands of performances he gave
for troops, because there were so many done on the
fly that we will probably never know about, sometimes for
a few as two or three guys at a time.
And in a way, he was inventing a lot of
things that are standard elements of comedy today, and a
lot of that was tied into his work with the troops.
While working in vaudeville, he had developed a really rapid
fire style of telling jokes that he honed in these
(38:37):
early U. S O tours, essentially developing stand up comedy. Yeah,
prior to that, I mean you guys have seen vaudeville
stuff where it's like, well, tell the joke and then
we wait for the laugh. And he never waited for
the laugh. He would just keep rolling into the next joke,
which was a completely new way of approaching telling jokes.
And as he moved into TV, he did this unique
thing because he knew he did not want to deal
(39:00):
with the kind of grueling schedule that a weekly show
would entail. So instead, uh, he kind of borrowed that
idea that was born in Berlin in when he did
his Christmas show for the Troops, he essentially created the
idea of a comedy special, which is a huge part
of the comedy industry today. So in the introduction to
one of the books that Holly read while preparing for
(39:21):
this show, Bob Hope, Bo Bob Hope biographer wrote the
following about his long term work with the U s O.
And it seemed like a really good way to close
this out. He wrote, all this had a careerist aspect.
Of course, Hope sincerely loved entertaining the troops and it
fed the patriotic pride of an immigrant who had lived
a classic Horatio Algerias success story. But his Troops shows
(39:44):
also provided him with huge, easy to please audiences, lofty
TV ratings, and boundless good publicity. Still, no cynical view
of his motives can diminish the impact that Hope had
for setting a standard of public service in Hollywood. We
seriously cannot thank the National World Ward Museum enough for
(40:08):
graciously hosting us, and particularly their Public Engagement and Community
Programs coordinator Amber Mitchell, who made sure everything went smoothly,
and she was just an amazing host. The museum was amazing.
Everybody that we worked with was so fantastic. The entire
staff is incredible. Amber really just like is one of
those people that is super relaxed but also super on
(40:29):
top of things, so you feel like you're in great
hands and like nothing is going to slip through the cracks,
and she's just a delight. We also did mention at
the top of the show the museum's new podcast, which
is called Service on Celluloid, and if you like both
film history and military history, uh, it is probably going
to be right up your alley. The show looks at
how World War Two has been portrayed in film from
(40:50):
the nineteen forties right up through modern Cinema, including discussions
of saving Private Ryan Schindler's List, and they actually have
an upcoming episode on the League of their Own Giant
pretty excited about. We're going to include links to that
show on our show page for this episode, so it
will be easy for you to check out. And again,
thank you so much to the World War Two Museum,
and just for the city of New Orleans, because everyone
(41:12):
that came up for meet and greet after the show
was super gracious and they were they wanted to make
sure we had enjoyed the city, and I just couldn't
be affirmative enough about how much we did. Uh. I
have a little listener mail, that is, I won't read
the whole mail, but I want to make sure we
thank this person. Our listener, Marina, who also listens to
a lot of other UH House Stuff Work shows, including
(41:34):
UH Stuff You Should Know and UH Stuff to Blow
Your Mind and the soundtrack show and Savor. Marina sent
us an amazing parcel of delicious things. She's from Germany
and so one she mentioned that our show in particular
shares parts of history that she didn't really get. She
didn't get a lot of American or or certainly British history.
We always mentioned that we want to feature other things
(41:56):
other than that, but that is the easiest and most
accessible history uh info that's usually available to us, so
that does tend to be featured a lot um. But
then she gave us, like I said, an amazing box
of absolutely delicious looking goodies, and I will be sure
as she requested to share those throughout the office. So
thank you, thank you, thank you, Marina. If you would
like to write to us, you can do so at
(42:18):
History podcast at house to works dot com. We can
also be found pretty much everywhere on social media as
missed in History, and you can come to our website
missed in History dot com for every episode of the
show that has ever aired, as well as show notes
on any of the episodes Tracy and I have worked on.
So we encourage you come and visit us at missed
in History dot com and you can subscribe to the
(42:38):
podcast on Apple Podcasts, I Heart, radios, app or anywhere
you get your podcasts. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit housetop works dot com
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