Bring on Clifton Fadiman! I feel like being guest artist on Information, Please. Make the subject Alaska. I've been there. So has our gang, on a 16,000-mile tour of army camps. The "gang" included Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna, Tony Romano, and one guitar. The "tour" included every camp we could possibly hit, and a few that we almost didn't!

We left Seattle by Pan American transport, and our first stop was an auxiliary airport, where we refueled. It was just a little place surrounded by trees. A soldier would come out and take a look at us. Then he'd give us a double-take like he couldn't believe his eyes. He'd yell, "Hey, Joe, come here! It's Bob Hope!" Joe would run out from behind a tree, look for himself, and then wave back. "Hey, Pete," he'd yell, "come here! It's Frances Langford!" I felt like President Roosevelt on his tour of the aircraft plants. Pretty soon soldiers began pouring out of the woods and, since we were going to be there for an hour, we climbed up on a tree stump and gave them a show. It was a bit crowded on that stump, but it was better than the soapbox I used when I was working for the W. C. T. U.

At Ladd Field, in Fairbanks, we developed a sudden passion for an army bomber. Besides, our tickets on the Pan American number were only good to that point. Our pilot, Captain Marvin J. Setzer, was really a great flyer. You can guess how I felt when I discovered he came from Pomona, California! If you had been kidding Pomona on your broadcasts for five years, how would you like to put your life in the hands of a native Pomonan and fly over that mess of mountains in Alaska? Understand what I mean? But duty came first apparently, and the kid did a great job.

In fact, after the trip was over, I gave him a gold watch inscribed, "Thanks for my life," and I wasn't kidding. An experience over Anchorage made that phrase strictly from the heart. We had visited a couple of small camps, and about ten o'clock were returning to Anchorage to join a celebration that was in progress there. Well, everything was swell when we started, but we ran into a terrific sleet storm. We had to fly blind for what seemed like hours. Jerry and I had been kidding this sort of thing before we started from Seattle. We had a story in our routine about the parachute jumper who was told by his officer that a station wagon would pick him up when he completed his jump. After finding that neither of his chutes would open, he remarked, "It'd be just like 'em not to have the station wagon there, either." Well, here we were. Colonna looked at me, made a "What can we do about it?" gesture with his hands, and stroked his mustache nervously.

We felt the plane getting ready for a circling glide to lose altitude. "This," I said, "means we're going to drop anchor at Anchorage." Brother, did that feel great! But what happened next shouldn't happen to one of Crosby's horses. It was so foggy we couldn't find the runway. Next thing we knew we were back up to 13,000 feet, trying to get above the storm. We couldn't see a thing, and, to add to the general effect, the radio went out. I heard the pilot yell to the crew chief, and he went over and put a Mae West life jacket and a parachute on Frances Langford. "In case you land on water," he was shouting to her, "just push those buttons and the jacket will inflate."

I looked at Frances to see how she felt. After all, I had talked her into coming on this trip. I got so cold all of a sudden, I began to shake all over, but Frances just looked at me and grinned. She was taking it big. I pointed to her rip cord and said, "Do you think you're strong enough to pull that thing?" She nodded her head, still smiling. There we were, rehearsing for a crash, and she was smiling.

The crew chief began putting chutes on all of us. I looked at Romano. He was a delicate shade of chartreuse. I looked at Colonna. He was still stroking his mustache. He turned to me and said, "I'll bet that station wagon won't be there, either."

Suddenly we saw a powerful circle of lights piercing the sky through the clouds. After seeing those lights, I won't look at a Hollywood première again. They came right up through the fog, and, brother, were they welcome! The boys at Anchorage had been worried about us, so they had put the lights around the airfield in a circle and shot them up. Using them for a beacon, we made our landing, and I've never been so thrilled to be on the beam. They even had crash wagons waiting for us. Somebody said, "Let's get a drink." I said, "As soon as I change my linen." The boys asked Frances how she felt, and she answered. "I was hoping we'd jump!"

The boys in Alaska were wonderful, really wonderful. We were sitting in a small café in Anchorage one night, and three sailors walked over and started talking to us. They insisted on buying us a drink. We thanked them, but refused, as we certainly didn't want to rob them of their monthly stipend. They left, but a little later the waiter brought over a tray with eight champagne cocktails. The sailors had paid for them and departed without waiting to be thanked. Those drinks meant a lot to us, because they were bought in real sincerity. I guess we'd have carried them home for souvenirs if they'd been transportable.

The boys went for Frances in a big way. She was the first white girl they had ever seen on Unimak Island, 250 miles from, Kiska, in the Aleutians. They brought her souvenirs, gave her all sorts of insignia, and made her a sergeant major at Naknek. They treated her swell. No rough stuff. They just looked at her, nudged each other, and whispered things like, "Boy, what I'd give for a date with her!" and all the stuff typical American kids would say anywhere. That's just what they were, real American kids. That trip did Frances a lot of good. You can imagine what it would do to any girl to get all the attention she got from these men. She even got prettier on that trip.

We did eight shows for the boys at Nome. That's right on the Bering Sea, you know. We went there from Anchorage after stopping to play for the troops at Galena, on the Yukon. I got to spit in the Yukon, which is about like kissing the Blarney stone, I guess — a goal achieved. We did a show on the back of a truck, with the wind at our back so the boys could hear what we said. It was plenty windy, though not as bad as it was at Nome. There it rained so hard and the wind was so strong, we were nearly blown right off our feet, overshoes and all. That was the toughest place we were in, Nome. It was just a mud pack. The boys slushed around in mud up to their ankles. Juneau is a good town: Anchorage is O. K., too; and Fairbanks is called the "Country Club of Alaska." But Nome — it's Devil's Island with blubber!

I've been around to a lot of camps in the United States. I've seen how they live. And, boy, compared to those boys in Alaska, the fellows here are in velvet. Over in Galena I went to visit a doctor who probably went into the army from a swell practice in a nice big building in Minneapolis or somewhere — you know, a place with all the modern gadgets and instruments. In Galena this doctor was doing his stuff in a square tent heated by an old wood stove. He used the stove to sterilize his instruments and an army cot for an operating table.

The food wasn't bad. At Nome we had powdered milk and powdered eggs for breakfast. Something new for a comedian — powdered eggs!

At one of the camps I ran into a boy I knew in Hollywood. I can't use his real name, so let's call him "Anisetti." "His parents were well-to-do and he was in the chemical business back there. He was a corporal at this camp, so when I got there, I asked for Anisetti. The general had him looked up and invited him to his house for dinner with us that night. The first thing the kid did when he walked in was to stoop down and feel the carpet. "Boy," he said, "a rug!" He was the only guy in the camp who had a floor in his tent, he later told us. He got the boards by stealing them off a plank walk outside of a tent while the boys were busy singing songs. I'm telling this to show how democratic our generals are. There was the corporal sitting right next to the general and telling how he stole planks to put a floor in his tent.

Well, was this kid lonesome! He was so glad to see some one from home that he ran over, put his arms around us, and almost wept for joy. I asked the general later if Anisetti could fly to another spot with us if we dropped him off on the way back in a day. The general said he could, so Anisetti went along. You should have seen the expression on his face when we landed at Unimak and another general there came to the airport to meet us. I introduced the members of my party, "Miss Langford, Mr. Colonna. Mr. Romano, and Corporal Anisetti." And the general walked over, with a straight face, shook hands, and said, "How do you do, Corporal Anisetti." The corporal nearly swooned.

Those generals are really swell, though. We were playing one of the camps, and you could see that the kids were thinking of their wives and sweethearts when Frances came on. One of them just put his head down on his hands and sobbed. The boy-next to him put his arm around his shoulders and patted him on the back. The general nudged me and said, "Get that kid? You don't know what you're doing for them, coming up here. It's just what they need. They'll be talking about your visit for months."

I said, "General, you ought to know what those kids are doing for our morale. Competition was so keen in the States that we came up here to get top billing!"

One night at seven we landed at another location without advance notice. A lieutenant came out to meet us. He just stood there and looked at us, as if he didn't believe his eyes. He was a swell-looking young fellow — a typical All-America football player, clean cut and well built. Finally he said, "What would you like to do?" I said, "Well, we'd like a bite to eat and then we'll try to entertain the boys." We sat down to eat, and the boys just sat around and looked at us. All through the meal they just sat and stared. We did a show for them, and then the lieutenant came over and said, "Do you suppose you could do another one in a little while? We've got 1,300 engineers nine miles down the road." I said, "Go get them. We'll do as many shows as you want." So they came and sat there, most of them with big beards, but all young American kids, just eating up every word we had to say.

Those boys in Alaska are quick on their feet, too. I had to think fast to keep up with them. They all wanted to fire questions at me, and if I had stopped to answer them all, the show would have gotten out of hand So I had to kid 'em back. It was tough sometimes. At one camp I was telling them, "Every one in the United States is conscious of what you're doing here, and that what you need is regular entertainment." One of the boys interrupted me with, "What we need is the United States!" I had to do some mighty hard thinking to give him the answer. "But what the United States needs is to have you right here, brother." They know it, too, but you can't blame them for forgetting once in a while.

Some of our toughest shows were around Unimak. At one place we had a lot of guys sitting on cold wet ground. Boy, were they rugged! I took cold shots before I left Hollywood, but that weather was too much for me. I caught a cold that I still haven't been able to shake. But I was happy there, and I told them so. You never heard such laughs, such cheering, and such applause. "I'm happy to be here where the action is," I told them. "In the States I've played in some swell theaters with plush seats, and they just sneered at my kisser. Of course I'm not used to this cold — I just finished a picture with Dorothy Lamour, and I got paid for it, too!" That went over big. I told them about some of the hardships the people in the United States are enduring since the better things in life have been rationed. "Every one is keeping his car in the garage," I said. "The streetcars are now crowded to the point where it's fun!" They loved that.

There aren't very many places in Alaska where the boys can go for amusement. It isn't so bad in a place like Anchorage. They have a night club there called the Polar Bar — ten Eskimo girls and a picture show. They even have a place called Café Society, Jr., right downtown. It's just a little store where you can probably get a quick drink.

In Seattle, when we said we were flying to Alaska, people just looked at us and said. "You're kidding!" implying that we ought to have our heads examined. We heard so much about Alaska that we didn't take anything but rough clothes. Were we fooled when we landed at Fairbanks and were taken over to the officers' quarters at Ladd Field! Some one asked if we were going to the officers' dance that night. We went, and did Frances feel foolish! All the officers' wives wore evening dresses. She was the only girl there in a sweater and skirt.

When I got back I had a lot of fun telephoning people the boys had asked me to call. A major at Unimak asked me to call his wife at Portland, so I put in the call when I arrived at Seattle. I got her on the line and said, "This is Bob Hope." She said, "Who?" I said, "Bob Hope," "Go away and stop kidding," she laughed. I said, "I'm on the level. This is Bob Hope. I promised your husband I'd call you."

She rounded up the whole neighborhood to listen, and they finally took a vote and decided it was the real McCoy. I had to do the same thing with wives in Omaha, Princeton, and even Hollywood, but, boy, was it a lot of fun! It made me realize more than ever that the greatest happiness is seeing it in others.

One thing we're sure of, after making that tour, is that those boys must have more entertainment. They're putting their all into winning this war for us, and so far they're the Forgotten Men of the armed forces. We're going back in January to renew friendships and give 'em a few new gags. In the meantime we hope that other citizens of the U. S. A. will come through with some real treats for our Snow Men!

Publication Date: December 19, 1942