Christmas With Bob Hope and the Troops

Bob Hope is best known for his Bob Hope Christmas Shows for the Troops. His first War-time show was aboard the RMS Queen Mary when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Hope spoke to the captain and offered to put on a special performance to help calm the nervous passengers. The 1939 Christmas Radio Show of the Pepsodent Show is one of the few Bob Hope Christmas Shows that doesn't revolve around entertaining the troops. (Which is too bad, the program, which features a long skit of Bob opening a toy factory for Christmas, is filled with way more suggestive innuendo than you would expect a radio show to get away with! The troops would have loved it!)

Bob gave his first USO show at March Field in May of 1941. During the war he traveled extensively to entertain the troops where ever he could, making many appearances on AFRS programs like Command Performance and GI Journal, and making live appearances whenever and where ever high could. He seemed to take special pleasure in being overseas with the troops at Christmas time, and continued the tradition for many years after the end of WWII. In the few years that there was not a conflict with overseas servicemen who needed their spirits lifted, he was sure to be found putting on a show at a veterans hospital.

The 1954 show from Veteran's Administration Hospital at Long Beach, CA. Bob makes plenty of jokes about Christmas in LA and the vets chasing the pretty nurses in the hospital. Most of all we get to feel the affection that Bob has for the men who have served their country:

When ever Bob appeared overseas, he wore fatigues to show solidarity with his audience. He appeared for the troops during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, and the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. In 1997, by act of Congress, Bob Hope was declared an honorary Veteran of the United States Armed Forces.

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