Miles, Morale and Memories: Bob Hope and World War II

Production of "Miles, Morale, and Memories: Bob Hope and World War II" has been made possible by... AM General -- mission ready.

Future driven.

Let's hear for him!

Bob Hope!

[ Cheers and applause ] Thank you very much.

I'm very thrilled to be here on -- Where are we?

[ Laughter ] Good luck, men.

[ Laughter ] What Bob Hope did during World War II, the travel alone -- It's mind-boggling.

We're very thrilled being here.

They were ready to jump at a moment's notice to go where Bob wanted them to go to bring cheers and smiles to the people that were fighting to protect our nation.

We had a lot of fun.

Seeing those stars perform gave a little glimpse of that home that was still back there and ready and waiting for you upon your return.

We consider it a privilege to knock out those programs.

World War II was the greatest period of Bob Hope's life, one has to conclude -- and for good reason.

He encountered some very difficult situations.

He risked his life many times to get to serve those people that were in battle and bring them a piece of home.

I've been robbed.

I think the laughter was something that really, really drove him.

[ Laughter ] [ Dramatic music plays ] The greatest entertainers in America as requested by you, the fighting men of the United States Armed Forces throughout the world.

Your commanding officer of this command performance -- Bob Hope!

[ Applause, "Thanks for the Memory" plays ] If there's one entertainer most associated with lightening America's mood during World War II's dark days, it's Bob Hope.

The fifth of seven brothers, Bob Hope arrived in 1903, British by birth.

He was born in England and came over as a child and had the immigrant experience in Cleveland.

Bob, from the time he was just a little boy, a teenager, was what we would call today probably the class clown.

Growing up in Ohio, Bob Hope was drawn to the theater.

In the 1920s in America, that meant vaudeville.

Stage performers traveled the country performing sketches, comedy routines, and magic, as well as singing and doing improvisation.

Bob Hope was there for the last great years of vaudeville, and that certainly kind of trained Hope in his ability to be onstage, to improvise, to do multiple shows per day, to get used to traveling frequently, and also how to read an audience.

Hope, who became an American citizen in 1920, understood that his vaudeville experience would translate perfectly to Broadway stages and eventually the radio.

By the mid-1930s, during the Great Depression, Bob Hope had added musical and theatrical credits to his rsum.

Hope's big break came in 1938, when he began hosting his own radio show on NBC.

"The Pepsodent Show" Starring Bob Hope.

[ Cheers and applause ] The half-hour program featured everything from Hope's comedy to musical guests.

It was a major hit, making Bob Hope a household name.

The German Wehrmacht rolled over the Polish border.

Bob Hope's World War II storyline began on his way back to the United States, following a family visit to his old home in Eltham, England.

There, Hope introduced relatives to his new wife, Dolores.

The war started for me in 1939.

We heard on the ship's loudspeaker that England was at war with Germany.

When we finally got onshore, we were shocked to find out that Hitler had been marching through Europe.

President Roosevelt promised to keep us out of the war.

So I continued to do my radio show every Tuesday night for Pepsodent.

"The Pepsodent Show," starring Bob Hope.

[ Applause ] Thank you.

[ "Thanks for the Memory" plays ] We bid you all hello And welcome to our show May we present for Pepsodent A guy you ought to know?

Ah, thank you so much By September 1940, American president Franklin Roosevelt knew it was only a matter of time before his nation became involved in World War II.

So he instituted a peacetime draft.

New troops in training felt useless with no war to win.

Morale sagged.

To remedy this, Bob Hope, now a full-fledged radio star on NBC, was encouraged by his producer to take his highly rated national radio show to an Army Air Corps base at March Field in Riverside, California.

I just finished working in a picture.

Hope's first military audience gathered on May 6, 1941.

...thrilled being here... The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was seven months away.

Christian Blauvelt is the author of "Hollywood Victory: The Movies, Stars, and Stories of World War II."

Blauvelt says Bob Hope certainly felt the pressure of performing in front of servicemen.

Bob Hope did not know what to expect when he was going to perform for these men.

He thought, "They don't want to be here.

They probably don't want me to be here either."

And it turns out that through his unique brand of self-deprecating humor, he won them over instantly.

Hurry up, Professor, or we'll miss the train.

Okay, here's the track, Hope.

Bob Hope brought a troupe of entertainers along with him.

And that was 25 years ago.

Well, that would make you, uh... Exactly 38.

[ Laughter ] The show at March Field was just what the servicemen desperately needed, as they had no war to fight in mid-1941.

This was a pretty depressing time, particularly at the beginning of the war when the United States was on the defensive.

At the end of 1941, 1942, there wasn't very much good news.

I'll never forget those guys, those words, those faces, that laughter.

He didn't invent the concept, but I think he perfected it.

We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin.

The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air, President Roosevelt has just announced.

I was on my way to Lakeside to play a little golf.

Then I heard the president announce, "We're now at war."

December 7, 1941.

The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the Empire of Japan.

The attack on Pearl Harbor united Americans as never before in history.

Following Pearl Harbor, Hollywood recognized the need to support the war effort using its already existing star power.

Say, I have an idea.

What's this?

Why don't you and Bob Hope double up in your lower berth?

Hollywood in the 1940s was a pretty interesting place.

Due to the war, there was a huge boom in the popularity of movies, and Hollywood was turning out movies at a rapid rate.

War-focused films, including "Casablanca" and "Mrs. Miniver," and comedies like "Road to Morocco," starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour.

In early 1941, the United Service Organizations, or USO, was established.

Later that same year, a USO Camp Shows Division was created.

Then in 1942, Hollywood hit another public relations home run in Los Angeles.

I think if there's any venue where an old movie fan today might want to go back in time and be a fly on the wall, it would be the Hollywood Canteen.

Beginning in October 1942, tens of thousands of servicemen began pouring into a one- of-its-kind club staffed by Hollywood's most popular stars.

10 days after the Hollywood Canteen opened, Bob Hope broadcast his "Pepsodent" radio show there live.

Amongst the various services that Hollywood provided during World War II was the Hollywood Canteen.

It was staffed by Hollywood people.

Bette Davis would serve you your coffee, and Rita Hayworth would put food on your cafeteria tray.

And maybe, if you were lucky, Joan Crawford would dance with you.

The Andrews Sisters or Frank Sinatra would entertain there.

Most of the people in Hollywood supported the war, but there was nobody quite like Bob Hope.

We certainly saw a lot of activity from people like Bing Crosby, and many of the big stars also toured around, but Hope was in a class all by himself.

Some of Hollywood's biggest stars would also serve in uniform.

About 6,000 members of the Hollywood film industry ultimately did enlist, including some top stars like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart.

Jimmy Stewart enlisted nine months before Pearl Harbor because he knew that war was inevitable, because he loved to fly.

You know, my own mother was involved with this AWVS -- American Women's Voluntary Service.

What are you going to do now?

Following his early success at March Field, Bob Hope assembled a team of fearless and multi-talented entertainers.

They had to be willing to travel to the front lines to boost the morale of those doing the actual fighting.

How about Mr. Jerry Colonna right here?

Jerry Colonna was Bob Hope's right-hand man in the act.

...in khaki You may think that I'm a bit wacky Joe Colonna is Jerry Colonna's grandson.

His grandfather's legacy of entertaining soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen during World War II is part of his family's fabric.

Scrapbooks, photos, and scratchy old recordings preserve the memories today.

And now, while the professor slips into a straitjacket... What stood out to me was that he was adored by the troops.

He, Bob Hope, Frances Langford, and then somebody that never gets mentioned is Tony Romano, who was the guitar player.

Now, for my next number... Bob Hope was the godfather to my dad.

They were very close with each other.

Bob Hope's troupe was a mixture of performers that he felt would appeal to the troops, most famously Jerry Colonna, the popeyed guy with the amazing voice.

There had to be some music.

He would have a woman singer, most famously Frances Langford.

I'll be seeing you In all the old familiar places Frances Langford was the voice of the group.

It didn't hurt that she was beautiful, too.

I wish that I could kiss each and every one of you So -- [ Cheers and applause ] Do you want to get us trampled to death?

Are you kidding?

[ Laughter ] Miss Patty Thomas right here.

Miss Patty.

[ Cheers and applause ] Patty Thomas was also part of Bob Hope's World War II troupe known as Bob Hope's Gypsies.

Thank you for the memory "I hope you like my dance."

I hope you like my dance Fella here you've got to meet is here through the courtesy of his draft board.

He's a great guy.

[ Laughter ] A fine guitar player, composer.

And he's a great guy.

His name is Tony Romano.

Come on, Tony boy.

I don't know who's who in Who's Who, baby They obviously got along and they all felt very committed to the mission they were on and what they were doing.

Hope's show had all the elements of a vintage 1920s vaudeville act.

A lot of these sailors sleep in hammocks.

You know what a hammock is.

That's government-issue curvature of the spine.

[ Laughter ] He did a lot of his old vaudeville routines.

He sort of tailored them for Jerry Colonna or Frances.

And he was used to traveling, going from place to place, doing five shows a day.

That was him.

In those early war years, 6-year-old Linda Hope, along with her brother Tony, wasn't sure whether her father was coming or going, but when he was home, it meant family mischief.

You know, I think of -- Our table was a time when we got to really interact a lot with Dad and my mother, and my dad was like a naughty third child at that point.

And all of a sudden, a napkin would come zinging at my face and then you'd say, "Where's that?"

and look over at Dad.

And he was smiling.

And my mother was, you know, giving him the evil eye.

He would always, um, do his monologues before us -- one mainly for my mother's benefit, because she would tell him if she thought something wasn't right or something like that.

You know, it made me laugh.

Show business has come through before, and it will again.

Gee, that's swell.

Bring enough clothes During World War II, American society and Hollywood was really pulling together for the war effort, and even the biggest stars, making some of the biggest salaries in the United States at the time, would be volunteering.

I think it's so important for people to remember a time when this country was incredibly united.

It was a feeling that, "This is my country and I want to protect it, and I want to do what needs to be done."

Bob Hope's efforts were part of a larger project the United States government was working on in 1942, which involved the formation of the Office of War Information.

The OWI sets up the Bureau of Motion Pictures, who are going to regulate Hollywood's portrayal of World War II in theatrical motion pictures.

This meant that during World War II, Hollywood films were being checked for their content and approved by the OWI representatives for how they were showing the war.

At that point in 1942, the war was not going well for the Allies.

However, that didn't diminish the enthusiasm of the entertainment industry.

Not only did Hollywood stars and directors and moguls not want to be left out -- In the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, there was a very strong sense that the U.S. might be invaded.

Like Jimmy Stewart, who flew 20 missions in a B-24 bomber, actor Clark Gable offered to serve in World War II and did, flying in a B-17.

Bob Hope volunteered to fight, too.

However, President Roosevelt had other plans for entertainers such as Hope, Bing Crosby, and Humphrey Bogart.

...a lot of bond drives.

He was so grateful to be an American citizen, and he just felt -- He wanted to enlist, and the president told him that he was much better served doing what he did and to do it for our guys.

Bob Hope was a number-one- rated radio star, but he was also a major motion picture star in the top 10 box office stars.

In 1942, Hope's troupe performed at camps throughout the United States, from California, to the Midwest, and his home state of Ohio.

They started to look forward to this guy Bob Hope, and he had the radio shows, and then when he started taking the radio shows to the different camps as they were preparing for war.

This newfound sense of patriotism elevated the entire art of storytelling in Hollywood.

The movies of the 1940s that Hollywood made are the greatest ever.

You'll be marching there beside me Hollywood by aligning itself so strongly with this vision of America as a place of freedom and that democracy is worth fighting for, and that the Nazis and people like them are worth fighting against.

In early 1943, Bob Hope continued entertaining at bases throughout the United States, extending his reach to the East Coast.

It was then decided that Hope's troupe would head overseas to entertain the troops where the battles were taking place, but there wouldn't be much fanfare about it.

If he slipped somehow in broadcast that he was going to entertain the troops and such and such, it could put them in peril.

President Roosevelt understood the risks that some of America's top entertainers such as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Mickey Rooney Would face.

President Franklin Roosevelt was very much a man of the 20th century.

He was a movie fan, and he was very interested in how Hollywood would handle things.

The motion picture industry has utilized its vast resources, resources of talent and facilities, in a sincere effort to help the people of the hemisphere to come to know each other.

He wanted Americans to be prepared for a long, hard war.

The patriotic outpouring from Hollywood was sincere.

Only when your country is under attack do you fully appreciate what it is that you might lose.

You know, during the war, our boys in uniform were in every country in the world and on every ocean.

They were in the hardest places to get to and in the biggest cities.

Keeping up their spirit was a tremendous job.

The first trip that they did was in 1942, and they went to Alaska.

And it was Frances, and it was Jerry, and it was Bob.

And they had promised each other that they wouldn't fly at night, only in the daytime.

Then they had to fly back to Anchorage at night, which they all agreed that they would never do.

They lost radio contact with the ground.

The weather was bad.

If you've ever flown over Alaska, there's nothing down there.

You know, there's no -- It's black and they don't know where they are.

The pilot doesn't know where they are and they can't find -- They don't see any lights or anything.

Hope's plane was at 13,000 feet, circling in dense fog, fighting through blowing sleet.

Everyone on board put on parachutes, Apparently another plane flew near them, felt their backwash, and radioed down that they -- "There's another plane up here," you know, because it shouldn't have.

There shouldn't have been a plane there.

That was, like, a near miss.

And so they understood at that moment probably that's the Bob Hope plane.

And so they put up all the searchlights and everything, you know, to light up the sky, to give them something, you know, give them a visual.

And they just followed the lights down and found the landing strip.

I started going to the airport and waving, sometimes confusedly.

I wasn't sure whether he was coming or going.

My mother always said, "You know, he's going because he needs to go.

He has a gift to be able to make people laugh, and he wants to share that gift with all the men and women that are, you know, going to be serving their country."

And she said, "Sometimes they never came home."

And, you know, that was something that we hadn't really thought about -- death and people not coming back.

In 1943, the United States was involved in a two-front war that spanned tens of thousands of miles, from Europe, to the Pacific and China, Burma, India, to Alaska.

It would be the most horrific fighting the world had ever seen.

There wasn't much to smile about if you were on the front lines of the battles.

Morale is a tricky thing.

It evaporates in the boredom of inactivity, but it expands in the hearts and minds of laughing servicemen.

I realized how much laughter means to people and how it can be life-changing.

He's doing hundreds of shows every year for the military, and, remember, he's still doing a weekly radio show and making several films a year in Hollywood.

Radio is impersonal.

He decided that he wanted to make it more personal, and try and go and entertain as many people as he could in person.

Bob brought a whole show.

You know, they did about a 45-minute show.

You know, it was a vaudeville show, essentially.

He brought them a packaged start-to-finish show -- a monologue, there was music, there was dancing, there was patter, and it was a well-thought-out, crafted show that he brought to these people.

[ Laughter ] When those guys heard Bob Hope was coming, they talked to their buddies.

He had Frances Langford with him.

Frances Langford -- I don't know whether you know -- she was a very popular singer at one time, and he did his shtick.

He came out and told a few jokes and things, and all these G.I.s are laying out there on the ground watching them.

And he introduced her.

And, of course, her theme song was "I'm in the Mood for Love."

And so the band started up and she came out there and she says... I'm in the mood for love And some G.I.

out in the crowd, they said, "You came to the right place, baby."

[ Laughter ] I mean, it was little things like that took the -- took the tightness out of the war.

My hand just burned off.

[ Laughter ] Dad was creating a tremendous audience for himself.

He was -- You know, that wasn't lost on him either, the fact that he had fans for life.

These guys didn't forget the respite that he brought to them at a critical time in their lives, and their families listened and his radio shows flourished, and his movies.

In 1943, Bob Hope took aim at Europe.

After getting all their shots, Hope's crew boarded the Pan Am Clipper and departed from New York's municipal airport.

The northern route took the plane via Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, bringing Bob Hope and his troupe into Ireland.

It was then on to London, England, Bob Hope's old home, for shows around air bases in the U.K., including Duxford, home of the American 78th Fighter Group.

In 11 days, the troupe traveled approximately 1,300 miles through Great Britain, performing 5 to 6 shows daily.

Is that my baggage?

How is my baggage?

It's smashing.

From Prestwick, Scotland, Bob Hope and his travel party set out aboard a C-54 aircraft, bound for North Africa and more shows in Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis.

In Bizerte, the entertainers were strafed by German planes.

The pilot turned around to me and said, "You a little nervous?

I said, "Yeah, that's only my third time up."

[ Laughter ] Hope's entertainers performed in front of thousands of American troops, from bases and airfields, to hospitals.

It was then on to Sicily and Italy aboard a B-17 bomber, where the Allies were pushing up through the island of Sicily and into Italy.

Tens of thousands more attended the shows, including British and Canadian soldiers.

Hope's troupe even spent time with famed general George S. Patton in Palermo.

As the Allies advanced, Bob Hope's troupe followed, dodging the same bombs and bullets in Sicily as the combat infantrymen.

Hope returned to North Africa after Italy for more shows and a meeting with General Dwight D. Eisenhower in Algiers.

Anyway, we're very thrilled being here.

We've been touring around for about nine days in Africa.

When I see the old newsreels and I see the troops, the fact that it looks like they were genuinely having a good time, like, they genuinely are appreciating the troops as much as the troops are appreciating them.

If you didn't have that, these guys were just sort of left on their own and their life becomes just a military shade of khaki.

Bob Hope was the morale booster.

It was the fact that he was there, risking his life to give them a moment of -- of laughter, reflection, the good old American spirit.

To me, a Bob Hope show from World War II is like receiving a box of cookies from home that Mom made for you.

It's that little connection with the farm you left to come fight in a foreign land.

More shows in the United States followed in the spring and into the summer of 1944.

Hope's performances extended as far east as Jacksonville, Florida.

The pace was frenetic.

Somehow, Bob Hope was also still making movies in his spare time.

He'd come home from shooting a film and in the evening, he'd meet with his writers and they'd be working on monologues for the camp shows.

It was a nonstop thing, morning, noon, and night, for Bob Hope.

In 1944, Bob and his small group of entertainers were on their second large global tour of World War II, and this tour was of the South Pacific.

The island fight against the Japanese had been a brutal slog, beginning in 1942 at Guadalcanal and into 1944, when some of the worst battles in the Pacific were under way.

Everything has turned completely upside down, and you're shipped off to somewhere and you don't know if you're -- if you're coming back.

And I think that, you know, he had a great appreciation for that and tried to, at least for a short amount of time, bring a sense of normalcy, you know, to their existence.

Hope's troupe spent July and August 1944 entertaining on Pacific islands the rest of the world knew little about, except for occasional newspaper headlines.

Remote islands such as Tarawa, Kwajalein, Enewetak, Bougainville, Munda, Hollandia, Noemfoor, Owi, and Manus.

Audience numbers ranged from 650 on Christmas Island to 48,000 on Guadalcanal.

One day, Bob Hope, Jerry Colonna, Ed Brown, Patti Page, and Frances Langford landed and put on a big show right there, and we must have had over a thousand soldiers there to see it.

What a wonderful show they put on.

Those two women, they sure looked good.

Another Pacific stop came in August 1944 on Banika in the Russell Islands near Guadalcanal.

Somebody told Hope that the Marines of the First Division were stationed near Banika on the depressing tropical island of Pavuvu.

This fellow said, "Could you possibly do an extra show for the First Marine Division?

They've never had a show, and they would really love to see you.

And they're going to invade Peleliu."

On September 15, 1944, the Marines were about to face one of the most horrific battles of the war and needed a morale boost.

Jerry Colonna came in with Bob Hope and you -- They had no landing field, so they had to land in the road.

And I can remember when Jerry Colonna was sitting with his feet outside and he -- And the plane dipped.

They would dip them for probably saying hello or something.

He almost got thrown out of the plane.

And when he was down there, he was joking about it.

He said, "From now on, I'm just going to sit inside till we land."

Well, they had some really good shows that we saw and that was, you know, great entertainment when they did that.

And you knew when you walked out there that you're playing for 15,000 kids, that a lot of those guys, you'd never see again.

Roughly 60% of those who attended the Pavuvu show would be dead or wounded in the coming weeks during the horrific fight on the island of Peleliu.

When Dad was in the South Pacific, he liked to do everything the way the troops did it, and he didn't really want any special attention and special fuss made over him.

It wouldn't be just one show.

It would be one show, and then there'd be a lot of other activities.

He would go to the mess halls and, you know, they all did.

Hope and his team had logged some 30,000 miles and 150 shows alone in the summer of 1944.

The reality of Bob Hope's impact on lifting morale across the Pacific and Europe became apparent when his office back home in Toluca Lake, California, began receiving, on average, 38,000 letters a week from service members who saw him perform.

More letters poured in from family members back home in the United States, who impatiently waited to hear whether Bob Hope had encountered their son, brother, or husband overseas.

"November 27, 1944.

Dear Bob Hope, I know you get plenty of fan mail, but this may be a little different.

In August, I received a letter from my son, Private Edward Andrew Stumpf -- Andy, a Marine then at the little island of Pavuvu in the Russell Islands in the Solomons group.

It said, "This morning we saw Bob Hope, Jerry Colonna, Frances Langford, and Patty Thomas.

They flew right over us in these little cub airplanes and landed.

They really put on a show.'

Soon after this letter was written, this boy was killed in his first battle at Peleliu.

He was only 19.

And I can never thank you enough for having brought him those two hours of fun.

Gratefully yours, his mother, Mrs. A.A.

Stumpf."

The bottom of the letter is a comment saying, "I just want you to know what you meant to my son on the last day of his life."

He had trouble dealing with a lot of these letters and didn't want to revisit them.

During their global travels, the reality of the war hit Hope's troupe hard as they visited wounded Americans at hospitals closer and closer to the front lines.

Every girl in this chorus is greater than Pavlova ever was to boys who watched them from stretchers, wheelchairs, beds, and crutches.

Every person that went with him was told, "Do not let your emotions get in the middle of what you're doing.

You're here to be their girlfriend or their wife, sweetheart, whatever they need you to be.

And they don't want to see pity, and they don't want to see all the things that you might be feeling."

A lot of them had to take leave for a few minutes to gather themselves together and then come back.

"If you have any tears when we go into hospitals, get them out before you go into that hospital.

You go in there to cheer those guys up."

He would tell you sometimes, you know, about the guys in the -- in the hospital ward and, you know, the difficulty of seeing that and then finding out, you know, an hour or two later that one of the fellas that you'd just talked to has passed away.

Now, imagine that you're in a hospital, maybe, like, hundreds of miles from your nearest friend or family member... how isolating that would be.

If a Hollywood star suddenly comes and visits you, you know, you know that person.

It's almost like a friend visiting you.

He would say that sometimes you weren't getting much of a response and you didn't know if you were helping or hurting, you know?

Was he hearing you?

You're not always gonna get the response that you're hoping for.

If you're seeing someone who's gravely ill or been wounded, you know that leaves an impression.

I think he was very fortunate to be good at compartmentalizing.

And when he was in his entertainment mode, that was what his focus was.

Bob Hope had amazing interpersonal skills.

He would remember people's names, and it seemed like he was completely familiar with the soldiers' circumstances.

He was amazingly in control of his emotions and of his feelings.

And every now and then, you would see a little crack.

I think just bringing that little bit of taste of home, and you can see it in the faces of the soldiers when you see the films that it really did matter.

I want you to meet our crew here.

I know you're gonna... Often as part of Bob Hope's routine, he'd do homework on the local haunts where he was going to perform.

He also made time to kid around with any generals and officers who watched the show with their troops.

[ Cheers and applause ] If they were lucky enough to be in a place where there was sort of a local watering hole, he would find all of these things out and then he would include it.

It's my pleasure to welcome you and your troops... He would oftentimes like to get the generals up on stage with him, putting them on the hot seat, so to speak.

Colonel Robertson's birthday.

It's a thrill to be here.

We cut that in?

We did that earlier.

Remember?

He grabbed a quick kiss from Hedda Hopper.

Oh, yes, that's right.

He got it.

That's right.

He did.

[ Laughter ] The brass -- they loved it.

You know, he wasn't cruel, but he would take the opportunity, you know, to take them down, you know, a peg or two in front of the enlisted people.

He always liked to talk to the generals, get their feeling about how things were going and what was happening and what the guys were going through.

When he got there, he would make sure that the troops, the regular troops, were up front.

A nice girl can... You can.

[ Laughter ] That's a lie, and I can prove it.

[ Laughter ] Well, it was here yesterday.

I've been robbed.

One of the things that Linda Hope has always told me is how difficult it was to communicate during World War II.

And soldiers were giving these very small pieces of paper, very thin -- they were called onion skin -- with small pencils and small envelopes.

And that's what they had to write notes back to their family with.

Tens of thousands of letters began arriving in California, addressed to just "Bob Hope at Paramount Studios" or sent only to "Bob Hope in Hollywood."

Bob had entertained a soldier in some location in the Pacific or in Europe, and then a few months later, a letter would come to Bob from their parent who said, "My son died the next day in a battle."

He literally went to the ends of the earth to be able to be there.

I never forget those guys.

I've received thousands of letters from them and their relatives, and, believe me, I've treasured all of them.

There was a letter they were reading from a soldier that said, you know -- just to his wife -- and he said, "Hope shows here.

It was great.

Everybody was wonderful.

Jerry Colonna was very funny.

I'm really hoping I can get his autograph."

And at the bottom of the letter is my grandfather's autograph.

It was life.

It was their lives.

So often, American servicemen and women in Europe or on some Pacific islands would ask Bob Hope to call their parents when he returned to the United States or hand-deliver a letter to their family.

Bob Hope did both.

I think he loved the surprise of it and the knowing what it meant to the guy.

Knowing that his mom got a letter hand-delivered by Bob Hope was a huge thing and a big talking point for the young man.

You know, they would give him phone numbers that he would write down on scraps of paper, on matchbooks, you know, "Can you call so-and-so when you get back and just tell them you saw me and I'm okay"?

And he would take all of these things and he would do it and he would take days, you know, after he got back to make all these phone calls.

"September 17, 1942.

Mr. Bob Hope, I want to take the opportunity and write you these few lines and thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing what I asked you to do for me -- by calling my wife up in L.A. and giving her the message I sent through you... that one call made her happy."

"October 14, 1944.

Dear Bob, it was really grand of you to call my mother and pass on your lasting cheer to my family.

It eased their minds considerably.

I could have asked no man nothing more..." Bob Hope's longtime secretary, Marjorie Hughes, read many of the letters and realized their importance early on.

They needed to be preserved.

When they write to Bob, they're jokesters.

You know, they want to tell him jokes, too.

They're not writing him tales of misery and how unhappy they are and how horrible it is and how hard life is.

Somewhere in the Pacific.

"October 15th, 1944.

Dear Bob, I am writing you this letter for myself and my gang.

My 'gang' is the whole U.S. Army.

We really think you are a great guy and you sure have done more for the boys than all the rest of them put together.

You are everybody's favorite because you can take it and you can give it."

She spent just endless hours going through these letters, picking out the ones that she thought he should see.

I think she had a sense that he was doing something really important.

Some of the letters Hope received in California were gut-wrenching and stood out.

This letter from Harriet Petersen... is so touching to me because she received a letter from her husband.

By the time she received his letter, she'd already buried him.

He'd been killed.

His body was brought back.

She'd put him in the ground.

And then she gets a letter from him that he wrote a day or two before, you know, he was killed.

And what he talked about in the letter was that Bob Hope and his troupe was here and the show and went on and on about the show and how funny it was and how great it was and everything.

And she wrote to Bob to tell him this.

"I'm writing to you because my husband was one of the soldiers you brought a little of home to in Sicily.

It was the only entertainment he had during his nine months of active service overseas, and now will never see any other."

And at the end, she even says, "I don't know why I'm telling you this, but you seem like a friend."

And it was important to her, I think, to tell him how much he meant, you know, to these people.

And it's -- That's the most moving letter that I ever read.

This is Bob Hope, thanking you for those letters to "Command Performance," Armed Forces Radio, Los Angeles, USA.

When you look at the film and you hear how he does his shows and you see, you know, sort of the behind the scenes, he's, you know, walking and talking with the guys.

He's signing pictures.

He's joking with them.

He was -- He was a friend.

How are you?

Thank you, Colonel.

Thank you very much.

Very happy to be here.

Where the hell are we?

Anybody know?

[ Laughter ] I think that almost everyone from Hollywood who was involved in the war effort was extremely sincere and genuine.

Well, we've been up in England for five weeks, and before that, we were in the States.

You know the States.

That's where Churchill lives.

We really had a great, uh... [ Laughter ] Well, he doesn't exactly live there.

He just goes back once in a while to deliver Mrs. Roosevelt's laundry.

[ Laughter ] I can only ask you to imagine how our forces felt when a little bit of the United States was brought halfway around the world to them.

They joked and laughed and rested, and it made you feel good to see them.

They were all at ease in the civilian sense.

[ Applause ] Frances, look at that crowd.

Isn't that nice?

Oh, yeah.

Beautiful floor lamp you have on there.

[ Laughter ] So many forces all combined to make Dad who he was and to have the impact that he did.

I'm in the pink.

You're in the pink?

Yeah, and the blue one's in the laundry.

Yeah.

[ Laughter ] Isn't that a beautiful thing?

Well, it's just they have a sprinkling system there that flies over the entire island.

Little thing we just worked out.

[ Laughter ] Overseas in war zones, Bob Hope's team faced similar dangers as the troops he was entertaining, especially in the Pacific, where the fighting was not far from the troupe's actual performances.

They were very close to the front lines, and there's actually a few photos of them in legitimate foxholes that they had to jump into because the bombing was so close.

With his troupe, he encountered some very difficult situations.

He risked his life and the lives of the Gypsies many times to get to serve those people that were in battle.

The old saying in World War II, "Loose lips sink ships," also applied to Bob Hope's entertainment troupe.

It's my pleasure to welcome you and your troupe.

Some locations could not be disclosed because they were going to be having military action in and around the area soon.

Sometimes he didn't even know that he was going to the South Pacific or he was going to Europe.

I don't know how far in advance they knew what the next stop was or how far in advance that the guys that were there knew they were coming.

These little tiny planes -- it felt like, I think, to them every half-hour to refuel or do something.

It wasn't like it is today, you know, where you fly in, you do the show, you fly home.

Those military planes were not, you know, comfortable seating.

Lots of times, cargo on there at the same time.

Bob Hope has just returned from an extended trip, where he entertained our front-line troops far from home.

We saw all our boys really doing a sensational job over there.

Just getting to Europe -- and especially the Pacific -- had its challenges.

In the South Pacific, if something goes wrong, you don't have a lot of options.

They're over water, you know, 90% of the time.

These airplanes did not have pressurized cabins.

It could be very cold.

And, you know, you could really be in danger of a mechanical failure at any point.

I want to tell you -- we left California just the other night and whipped right across the stuff.

Oh!

All that water.

I've never seen so many chasers in my life.

What a place.

Most airplanes that you would fly commercially at that time could only hold, like, fewer than 20 people.

[ Engine sputtering ] On August 15, 1944, Hope and his lineup of entertainers again came close to another disaster.

This time, they were on their way from the Pacific island of New Caledonia to Sydney, Australia, aboard a PBY Catalina, a plane designed, fortunately, with the ability to take off and land on water.

They lost an engine, and the plane was losing altitude.

Fortunately, the pilot was able to spot a lake.

And he was able to keep the plane aloft long enough to land on this lake.

I think felt that he was meant to do this and he was gonna do it and when it was his time, it was his time.

It skipped twice and came to rest on a sandbar.

We were starting to sink when we saw a small raft rowing towards us.

We had to throw a little stuff overboard.

We had a little scotch on for medicinal purposes, and we had to toss that over.

And we had to -- then we had to toss the cigarettes over we were bringing down for you, some cigarettes, and a few things -- Ms. Langford and Ms. Thomas had to throw a few gowns aboard.

So we thought this morning -- As we passed over, we thought we saw a shark wearing Langford's gown, smoking a Chesterfield, singing "I'm in the Mood for Love."

I think he felt he was under some kind of a lucky star or something.

He somehow was a little bit of a daredevil, and he was in a lot of close calls.

After their hard water landing, Hope and his troupe regrouped and put on a small, impromptu show for 450 residents of Laurieton, Australia.

My mother was worried, and I think in a lot of cases, there was a lot of anxiety and all of that.

A lack of communication during those days certainly played a huge role in that.

With the help of her Catholic faith, Dolores Hope could only pray that Bob Hope was safe doing what he loved on some island, airfield, or hospital, where his humor was most needed.

I think what really struck me about my grandfather's travels with Bob Hope are most people don't realize that there was the big shows that were on film, but then there were smaller shows that were literally just the four of them in the back of a flatbed truck within miles of the front line, just to make sure that they got to as many troops as they could.

Three or the four of them would get in a Jeep and they would try to find this group and they would do a shorter version for them.

They were clearly cutting up off script, having a good time, dealing with whatever the circumstances of weather.

Or there might have been an alarm that there's planes coming over.

The travel to overseas war zones was especially challenging for the female members of Bob Hope's troupe.

The fact that Frances Langford and Patty Thomas, another very young woman, 18 or 19 years old, put up -- There were no facilities for women, no niceties.

This was not an easy thing to ask of these performers, and the fact that they were willing to put themselves through that says everything about their character and their resolve.

I really felt like I was really doing something, you know, for my country.

Everything we did was fun.

The one thing I want from this show -- no tears.

Everybody must have fun because that's our message.

When I've talked to World War II vets, the way they had just appreciated and really felt like Jerry and Bob and Frances were part of their families and really made a difference.

If you're in a combat zone and you're fighting for your life and you don't know what the next day is going to bring... You may think that I'm a bit wacky Why don't you get back in the sacky?

There's room for two [ Laughter ] Your nose and you Sometimes it's easy to forget that there are troops out there that are fighting on behalf of a good cause.

I think he prided himself on being an everyman.

It was just natural for him.

He was uniquely self-deprecating.

You know, he would say something like, "I would have won the Academy Award if it hadn't been for one thing -- my pictures."

[ Laughs ] You know, he loved the stage.

He loved the personal contact.

He always liked to have the audiences close to him as possible.

In 1945, after a series of more camp shows in the United States, stretching from California to Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, and Buffalo, New York, Bob Hope returned to occupied Europe, where the war had ended.

Throughout the world, throngs of people hailed the end of the war in Europe.

By Victory in Europe Day in May 1945, the USO was putting on some 700 shows a day worldwide.

[ Applause ] By the war's end, roughly 7,300 entertainers had performed overseas in 420,000 shows, entertaining 130 million service members.

They're not forgotten.

World War II ended officially in September 1945 with the unconditional surrender of the Japanese.

Hope and his troupe performed their last camp radio show on Christmas Day, 1945, at Birmingham General Hospital in Van Nuys, California.

Thanks for the memories.

Just say thanks... Thank you For the memories "I hope you liked my dance."

I hope you liked my dance "Didn't find it too revolting."

And found it not too revolting Perhaps nothing speaks to Bob Hope's enduring legacy in World War II more than the tens of thousands of letters Hope's secretary, Marjorie Hughes, collected and preserved from European servicemen to the Pacific and beyond.

Each correspondence is filed in an extensive archive that speaks to Hope and his troupe's impact during a world war.

To use Ms. Hughes' word, it's history.

Throughout all the miles, morale, and memories, Bob Hope's ultimate reason for doing all he did to entertain the servicemen and women in World War II was simple -- Bob Hope loved his adopted country, America, and was grateful for all it provided him.

Linda Hope has made it her life's work to make sure that the legacy of Bob Hope, from the early days in vaudeville through the World War II years, he was willing to give back from his heart.

If I meet somebody in their 70s or 80s and they mention that they were in World War II, I'm gonna bring up my grandfather and ask them about him and Bob Hope and what that was like and where they saw them.

Number one on the radio, one of the number=one stars in Hollywood, tremendously successful in personal appearances and hundreds and hundreds of benefit shows, mostly for the military.

Bob Hope and his talented lineup of Hollywood entertainers logged some 80,000 hard-traveled miles during World War II to entertain American troops, an astronomical number in the 1940s, especially in the middle of a world war.

His commitment to the men and women that served our country is just amazing.

Bob Hope essentially created the idea of the stand-up comedian.

Bob Hope's impact during World War II in the United States was incalculable.

Five of the most memorable years of my life, I want to tell you that.

We haven't learned from what these people experienced and went through and fought for and died for.

The America that we're in right now is in desperate need of the spirit of those World War II days.

Production of "Miles, Morales and Memories: Bob Hope and World War II" has been made possible by... AM General -- mission ready, future driven.