"THERE GOES HOPE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 184, 31 December 1942, Page 5

"THERE GOES HOPE"

Film Star Describes Visit To Army Outposts in Alaska

HIS interview with the film and radio star Bob Hope is condensed from the American paper "Variety." Hope is one of the compéres of "Command Performance, U.S.A.," the radio session for American servicemen away from home, which is heard from the ZB stations ‘

OB Hope is back in Hollywood and still talking about what he terms the most "unforgettable" weeks he spent giving Army shows in Alaska, with Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna, and Tony Romano. And he wasn’t even thinking of, let alone mentioning, one memorable five minutes

in the air when the pilot grimly told the awed troupers to get ready to bale out-over a most fearsome; desolate waste of crag and fjord and cranny. Hope, in a gust of words, was too busy telling of other things he considered more important about this 16,000-mile trip in two and a-half weeks. The fact for instance, that the soldiers were so genuinely enthusiastic; that to Frances Langford went the distinction of being the first white woman ever to reach Cold Bay in the Aleutians; and that four people, bringing with them what they honestly felt to be so pitifully little, could and did manage to generate so much enthusiasm among so many lonely soldiers stationed in this stark outpost on the rim of the world. _ "We Felt Like Cheering" "I wouldn’t trade the trip for my last five years in the show business," Hope says, then adds, "My lucky years." "The boys were so appreciative, they made you feel humble, There they were -guys doing a tough job at 50 dollars a month, standing and cheering four people who, after all, were only giving what they could readily spare, time and talent. By gad, we felt like cheering right back at them. "For they were guys who came crawling out of fox holes, with mud in their eye and beards on their chins, They

were slogging through their jobs, day after day and week after week, uncomplainingly, and in fact, with high good humour, though they had no way of knowing whether or not civilisation had forgotten them. "That’s our job-emphatically minefrom now on. To point out the necessity and importance of showing our boys in these desolate outposts that they are not forgotten by those at home. I’m going back there in January, and I mean to take everything with me that they think they need. Unique Experience "T'll hit Iceland, too, probably as part of an itinerary that takes in Ireland and Scotland. Yes, Hollywood won’t see so much of Hope from now on, I’ve got other plans. "The Arctic entourage played its biggest show in Uniack, where 4000 soldiers watched the performance outdoors in the rain. The smallest audience was 40, at an auxiliary airport called Northway, where the stage was a huge tree stump. The most memorable part of the jaunt, perhaps, was the visit to Uniack and Cold Bay, since theirs were the first civilian feet yet to reach that part of the Aleutian archipelago. But Watson Lake gave them their most unusual experience. "There were hundreds of engineers at the place," he says, "and all they know about life, as it’s now being lived, is that it has decided they are to spend an awful lot of it building a road through Canada. Also through muck and rain and snowand muck. When a place like that sees a civilian, it thinks it’s having delusions. And when it sees a Hollywood actor, it knows it’s having them. Because of crowded communications, you see, the boys seldom had any advance warning. We’d just pop up in front of them, and there would be a lot of hand whispers, quick looks, then they’d dive into huts and tents and come out with more soldiers!" One such soldier came up to Bob Hope in Nome, offered his hand and said with a grim humour that made the actor smile, "Welcome to Devil’s Island." But he remembers more fondly the pale little buck private who sidled up at another spot and said with wistful sincerity: "I just want to thank you for the boys."