—When the time for recognition
of service to the nation in wartime comes to be considered, Bob Hope should be
high on the list. This man drives himself and is driven. It is impossible to
see how he can do so much, can cover so much ground, can work so hard, and can
be so effective. He works month after month at a pace that would kill most
people.
Moving about the country in camps, airfields,
billets, supply depots, and hospitals, you hear one thing consistently. Bob
Hope is coming, or Bob Hope has been here. The Secretary of War is on an
inspection tour, but it is Bob Hope who is expected and remembered.
In some way he has caught the soldiers’
imagination. He gets laughter wherever he goes from men who need laughter. He
has created a character for himself—that of the man who tries too hard and
fails, and who boasts and is caught at it. His wit is caustic, but is never
aimed at people, but at conditions and at ideas, and where he goes men roar
with laughter and repeat his cracks for days afterward.
Hope does four, sometimes five, shows a day. In
some camps the men must come in shifts because they cannot all hear him at the
same time. Then he jumps into a car, rushes to the next post, and because he
broadcasts and everyone listens to his broadcasts, he cannot use the same show
more than a few times. He must, in the midst of his rushing and playing, build
new shows constantly. If he did this for a while and then stopped and took a
rest it would be remarkable, but he never rests. And he has been doing this
ever since the war started. His energy is boundless.
Hope takes his shows all over. It isn’t only to
the big camps. In little groups on special duty you hear the same thing. Bob
Hope is coming on Thursday. They know weeks in advance that he is coming. It
would be rather a terrible thing if he did not show up. Perhaps that is some of
his drive. He has made some kind of contract with himself and with the men
that nobody, least of all Hope, could break. It is hard to over-estimate the
importance of this thing and the responsibility involved.
The battalion of men who are moving half-tracks
from one place to another, doing a job that gets no headlines, no public
notice, and yet which must be done if there is to be a victory, are forgotten,
and they feel forgotten. But Bob Hope is in the country. Will he come to them,
or won’t he? And then one day they get a notice that he is coming. Then they
feel remembered. This man in some way has become that kind of bridge. It goes
beyond how funny he can be or how well Frances Langford sings. It has been
interesting to see how he has become a symbol.
