Hopping about the country." wrote John Steinbeck during his tour of
England, "you hear one thing consistently—Bob Hope is coining or Bob
Hope has been here."
Bob Hope, now back in the States after a tour of Army posts in Britain, Africa and Sicily, has told the folks at home of his trip and how he found the soldiers.
Here is his report, printed here by permission of the New York Herald Tribune and the London Daily Express.
Bob Hope, now back in the States after a tour of Army posts in Britain, Africa and Sicily, has told the folks at home of his trip and how he found the soldiers.
Here is his report, printed here by permission of the New York Herald Tribune and the London Daily Express.
People just don't seem to realize the extent of the sacrifices still
to be made in money and supplies—and lives. I didn't either until I saw
it myself. :
I am just a comedian, but! have seen your boys and I
have seen the work of the enemy, and I want to tell you that the
toughest fight is still ahead,
All of us must get together;, work together, to give those kids the things they need. We must get them home-quickly. Gazette and Bulletin,
Williamsport, Pa., Thursday Morning, November18,1943
Page 12
Page 2 THE STARS AND STRIPES Wednesday, Nov. 17, 1943
(The following is a report from the "Bob Hope" three month tour in E T O.)
This was covered in several state-side papers on November 18, 1943
Bob Hope Tells the Folks About Us
Quit Your Kicking,
He Admonishes
Home Front
Hopping about the country." wrote John Steinbeck during his tour of England, "you hear one thing consistently—Bob Hope is coining or Bob Hope has been here."
Bob Hope, now back in the States after a tour of Army posts in Britain, Africa and Sicily, has told the folks at home of his trip and how he found the soldiers.
Here is his report, printed here by permission of the New York Herald Tribune and the London Daily Express.
By Bob Hope
NEW YORK, Nov. 15—
1 have just spent three months with, your boys, 400,000 of them. We popped in on your sons, husbands and brothers in England, Africa, Sicily, Iceland and Newfoundland. We ate Army chow with them, and
jumped into ditches with them when Junkers came over. We sat on their hospital beds and wondered how they 'could still laugh.
Now I am back home, and I hear people wondering if the end of the war isn't just round the corner. But these in Sicily I heard tired, hard*-fighting kids wondering if one day would ever end.
1 have heard complaints at home about the high cost of living, but I never heard a murmur about the high cost of living on the beachheads of Sicily.
A few months ago I thought this war was a breeze, but you've got to get over there and dodge bombs and get next to those AA guns and see the casualties in hospitals to know what it is all about. I had no idea of what we were getting into when we left New York on a Clipper, but after I got to England we had our first sight of bomb damage in Bristol, and saw what those guys had done to just one town.
Everything Flat'
Flat, everything flat, 1 didn't think it could look like that. We took a train out of Bristol for London.
1 had not expected anybody to meet us, and I hadn't even had time to shave, but when we got to the station a whole special service of the Army fell on us.. Everybody else was there too—Paramount people,
newsreel reporters and Wrens came running up. 1 was half asleep, and said: "How are you?" looking and feeling like a Bing Crosby jockey who found out he was scratched after he won the race.
Our first show was at a bomber base. A bunch of kids were getting ready to go out on a mission. We met a lot of them, and signed autographs.
That is a funny feeling you have when a kid who pilots one of those Flying Forts asks you for your autograph. He is going out to risk his life for you, and he comes up and says: "Can I have your name here?" And you know you should be asking him for his..
That first show was like a Broadway musical try-out. We were testing everything, jokes, songs, our attitude, but we need not have worried. Y-ou have to be terrible to flop in front of boys who were so wildly glad to see anybody from home. What an audience! 1 have been around a long time, but I have never seen anything
like it.
The hospitals, though, were a different story. You really have to work at being a comedian when you see those boys. It wasn't so bad when we did a show for the guys who were able to walk or push themselves outside, but after an outdoor show we'd go into the wards and work for the fellows who couldn't get out.
What kids they are—no complaints, no fuss.
But it was tough getting laughs in those wards. You just can't do your regu'ar routine and have them go into hysterics.
They've been through too much. Most of them didn't smile when we came in, a lot of them didn't even look up. You felt the mood that weighed a million pounds.
'Cheering 'em Up
I'd try to break the ice by going up tn some poor kid covered with bandages and saying: "Did you see my show this evening or were you already sick?" I'd smack my hands together and talk loud just to lift them from that terrible depression. Then Frances Langford and 1 would sing a song and I'd try a few jokes. After
that we would walk around and shake hands and get the kids to tell us about themselves.
1 guess the thing that touched me most was one boy who could laugh in spite of his terribly painful wound.
The doctor asked him to show me where that thing had hit him. "That thing" was a piece of flak red hot.
The guy, pointing to his stomach, said: "It went in here," and then, pointing to his 'back, "and the doctor took it out here." When I said: "You have a nice piece of air conditioning there,' he laughed like the devil. I started to laugh, too. but then I had to turn away.
The last show we did in England was at a hospital. We were in the wards and I was finishing by doing a soft shoe dance up and down the aisles. I turned top fast, slipped and went right down on my
wrist. 1 thought those boys in bed would kill themselves laughing. Every doctor in the joint rushed at me.
They hauled out an X-ray machine, took pictures, rubbed me down. 1 thought for a while I'd get a Purple Heart. What I got was a sprained wrist.
A big four-motored bomber took us from England to Africa. We went over to Algiers to do a Red Cross show, and as soon as we got there a Gl ran up and said: "Maj. Hill wants to see you."
Likes Eisenhower
In a few minutes he was ushering us in to see Gen. Eisenhower. 1 try to tell people about-him now, and all 1 can say is, "What a guy!"
He has a voice like Clark Gable's—you know that lone tone register. We asked him to have a picture taken with us, and then he autographed one of his own pictures for me. He told me to select the pose I liked best. I did, and he looked at it and disappointedly said: "Nobody ever takes one 1 like."1 remember he asked if we had done much work for the British and the boys in the RAF. When I told him that we had done quite a bit he said: "I'll consider it a personal favor any time you can do a show for the English boys, because we are fighting together, and we must laugh together."
That General Doolittle is another man you and I can be very proud of. When 1 walked in on him, he looked up and said: "Hello, Jack Benny." I took a chance and said: "Why, hello, General Spaatz." So we spent the
next four hours swapping stories to tell the boys. He has a talent for telling dialect jokes.
But Africa wasn't much of a joke, particularly the mosquitos. Everybody sleeps under a mosquito net, but that's not enough. You wake up with bumps the size of eggs. Those were the only mosquitos I have ever seen that come in with fighter escort.
We flew over to Sicily just three days after the Allies took Messina. Waiting for us was Gen. Patton. "We talked for a while, and I told him all about the trip.
The general asked all of us—Frances, Jack Pepper, Tony Romano and me—for dinner that night, and what an evening we had. Patton is one of the greatest wits 1 have ever met. I never opened my mouth that he didn't top the gag. I was so sleepy when I got home. I wasn't worried about air raids. I sleep just as well under the bed as on top.
1 was just getting into bed when I heard shots. It was the anti-aircraft starting up. Then the bombs began
coming—right next door. Your thoughts go crazy. You begin talking to yourseJf.
Air Supremacy
Finally they quit, and Jack Pepper came up from the shelter wearing nothing but white shorts and a helmet. He said: "I thought we had air supremacy around here." I said: "Maybe we'd better .remind Doolittle that-we have the island." There was also the night when so much flak was thrown up that one pilot said : "It's silly to have a plane; you can get out and walk on the stuff."
After a while we were- flown back to Africa, and another plane took us to England. It was tough leaving. We had done 70 shows in our three weeks. There we were, tired but mighty glad we had come.
I'll always think of Africa as Texas with Arabs. As we got closer and closer to New York a funny empty feeling came over us, a feeling of leaving all the excitement behind, a feeling that from now on life is downhill. Without actually getting into battle we had almost been part of it.
The smallness of the world frightens you—you travel so fast you find yourself suffering from jungle fever and frostbite at the same time.
Knows War's Meaning
For the first time in my life I knew what war meant, and it didn't seem quite real to be whipping down to New York and seeing the Empire State and the Chrysler building and the river again— none of them scarred, none of them touched.
It doesn't seem too real either to be talking to people back home who have not been touched very much. I can't get over the optimism I have found here.
Don't think we've been winning everything. You read in the morning paper;, that 1,000 planes have bombed Germany, and you say: "That's swell." But you ought to see the planes that do not get back, or maybe planes that had to fly into straw piles with broken landing gears. Planes with men dead or half their heads shot away.
People just don't seem to realize the extent of the sacrifices still to be made in money and supplies—and lives. I didn't either until I saw it myself. :
I am just a comedian, but! have seen your boys and I have seen the work of the enemy, and I want to tell you that the toughest fight is still ahead,
All of us must get together;, work to-gether, to give those kids the things they need. We must get them home-quickly.- -
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