Opinion

Frances Langford and the USO

Monday, August 1, 2005
Bob Hope and Frances Langford with two Wacs during a World War II USO tour.

In July 2005 America lost a member of that Grand Generation from World War II when Frances Langford passed away.

She did not wear a uniform, nor carry a gun, but millions of GIs, because of her frequent visits to American troops in all parts of the world with the USO shows, considered her to be one of their own.

In 1940, the world was in chaos. Hitler was using his Nazi forces to gobble up Europe, and was contemplating an invasion of England. On the other side of the world, Japanese forces were devastating China and were well on the way to remaking the Pacific into a Japanese playground.

On this side of the world, President Roosevelt was trying to appease the isolationists in the United States, who wanted to keep America out of foreign conflicts, while at the same time offering enough aid to the British to keep them afloat while we built up our own meager -- and badly out-of-date -- armed forces.

A year before Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt threw down a challenge to six prominent American service organizations -- YMCA, YWCA, National Catholic Service, National Jewish Welfare Board, Travelers' Aid Association, and the Salvation Army. In light of the increased number of service men and women across the country, Roosevelt thought that there should be places where service personnel could go when they were off duty, where they could meet with civilians, who could bring a touch of "home" to these young people, many away from home for the first time in their lives. These organizations, and others, embraced the idea wholeheartedly, and on February 11, 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor, the United Services Organization -- USO -- was born.

The idea started small, but after Pearl Harbor, the USO movement quickly picked up speed. By 1944 there were over 3000 USOs, located close to military bases, all manned by volunteers, offering a bit of entertainment, snacks, and a friendly face to homesick GIs. President Roosevelt once commented, "If no USO existed, another organization would have to be invented … Isolation of the military from civilian influences is not in the best interest of the nation."

Bob Hope, whose name became nearly synonymous with the USO, came aboard in 1942, at first entertaining at camp shows in the Los Angeles area. His overseas trips with the USO began in 1942. Between 1942 and 1947, he recruited more than 7,000 entertainers to participate in USO shows. These "Soldiers in Greasepaint" worked without pay, and often shared primitive and sometimes dangerous conditions with the troops.

In 1943 USO Celebrity Entertainers began to follow the liberation forces through Europe, setting up USO Canteens almost as soon as an area was secured -- beginning with Rome, in the invasion of Italy. During World War II, an incredible 428,521 USO shows were presented, globally, wherever American troops were stationed.

At first, Bob Hope's USO tours consisted of the regulars from his radio show -- Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna, Judy Canova and Les Brown and the band. As the war wore on, he included his buddies from the screen, like Bing Crosby, Clark Gable and Fred Astaire. But Hope's USO tours went on for more than 50 years, and four wars, and eventually the list of stars on his tours grew to include sports stars, dancers, beauty queens, war heroes, astronauts and even politicians.

Hope's Christmas tour became a USO tradition for 34 years. In 1969, President Lyndon Johnson bestowed upon Hope the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 1997, Congress designated him as (the first) Honorary Veteran of the US Armed Forces. His last USO tour was in 1990, when he entertained the troops in Saudi Arabia who were participating in Operation Desert Shield. It was fitting that Frances Langford, a member of Hope's first USO tour, was also a member of Bob Hope's last USO tour.

Frances Langford was also a member of the Bob Hope USO tour that performed in Seoul, Korea, in the summer of 1952. I was stationed at Yong Dung Po, across the river from Seoul at the time. When we got the news that Bob Hope was going to appear with his troupe of Hollywood stars, there was great excitement at our compound. Fortunately, that week I was working the graveyard shift at our mobile bakery, so I was in a position to attend the early afternoon show, much to the groans of the fellows on the day shift who had to stay and work.

Hope's name was the only one that we had heard in connection with the show, but he was a big draw. When we got to the Kimpo Airport, where the show was to take place, the place was packed with GIs. We were a bit disappointed to learn that Hope had split up his troupe for the day. He and Jerry Colonna and a few others had gone to the front to entertain Marines. I don't know whether or not he had taken some singers and dancers with him, but we had to make do with Frances Langford, Patricia Neal, a male singer, four band members, and four scantily-clad dancers.

Frances Langford, though she appeared in scores of movies over the years, in 1952 was best known for her work in radio. She had started out to be an opera singer, but a tonsil operation that didn't go just right when she was a teenager, left her with a very throaty quality to her singing voice. Grand opera was out, but the public saw her voice as sexy and she had a very successful career as a torch singer, beginning with the Rudy Vallee show. Her radio credits included time on the Dick Powell show, Bob Hope, and Spike Jones, in addition to two shows, one radio and one TV under her own name.

Langford was a lifelong resident of Florida and loved the warm climate. She said that she almost did not make the trip to New York to audition for her first radio show because she hated the cold weather. Even after she retired from show business, she remained active in local charities up to the time of her death at age 92.

That day in Korea, Miss Langford came out to start the show dressed in baggy GI fatigues. Expecting beautiful girls in beautiful dresses, the GIs groaned, but she quickly regained control of the situation. She told how they had gotten in late and she hadn't had time to change. In her monologue she told about some of the funny things that had happened on their various tours. The one I remember was when they were in Greenland. There was a blizzard, and they actually had to stay over for another day. The stove in their tent had malfunctioned and during the night the water on her nightstand turned to ice. The next night they thought they had the stove fixed, but it smoked. The girls couldn't decide whether it would be better to be frozen or smoked to death.

Fortunately, after another, male, singer sang a couple of songs Ms. Langford reappeared in a slinky, sparkly dress for the rest of the show. At the time, she had a hit show on radio with Don Ameche, called the Bickersons, in which she and Ameche bickered almost non-stop for a full half hour. The bit was amusing, and she did a short bit of that skit with one of the other actors, who took Ameche's part, at our show. But it didn't compare with the three or four songs that she sang that day. Not only was she beautiful, but also she had a knack of projecting her songs so that each GI felt that she was singing just to him, giving life to the memories of the girl back home.

The sacrifices that the entertainers have made in bringing 65 years of USO shows to the troops have been great, but they should know that their efforts in bringing a "touch of home" -- for a little while -- have been much appreciated by the service men and women in all parts of the world who have attended these USO shows.

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