 The word theater took on a new meaning in the Second World War. The South Pacific, the India Theater, the ETO were theaters of war. But for entertainers, they were still theaters. The theaters filled with boredom, tension, and luminous of hundreds of thousands of boys who needed songs and laughter as no other audiences in theater history. I'm Celeste Holmes, and I take great pride in being a member of the entertainment profession. I think you will see why in the story that follows. It's a sort of documentary thank you note from the United States Army to the entertainers who gave more than a quarter of a million performances in combat areas during World War II. Of course it isn't the whole story, it can't be because most of those performances are recorded only in the memory of those who were there. More than most professions, perhaps mine is made up of individuals like some of the stars you will see in this story. But it was the whole profession, the well-known and the hundreds of little-known entertainers who saw that the job needed to be done and did it. In their own way, I think you can say they were soldiers too. As our trade paper here, variety, called of the time, soldiers in grease paint. Pretty much the same anywhere. And before World War II was finished, there weren't many places in the world that American GIs hadn't seen. Places where we could hardly remember what it was like to be warm or dry. We're not standing in line waiting for something. Not fighting boredom or the weather or an enemy that fought back. Sure, there were doctors. But like one medic said, the only thing that can relax a body as taught as these bodies is a tub of hot water or a good belly lap. And we can't get the hot water. Ah! Would you like some tea? You got some tea. When they went down to North Africa, they had to take a lot of shots and things. But now in the Army, it's easy. Really? Why? Well, the doctors, they just take you into the room. Two doctors. And one looks up your nose, and the other looks down your ear, and if they can't see you, you're in. Yes. That's the way I heard it. All they do now is doctor looks in each ear, and if they can't see each other, you're in. And if they can, you're an MP. A joke doesn't have to be new to be funny. When laughter's been stored up for weeks or months, it doesn't take much to set it off. Any MP joke brought roars. A funny walk or a Hitler imitation brought down the house. Did I get on you? After is the best medicine. Nobody knew that any better than Joey Brown, who lost the son at the beginning of the war. When that happens, he said, all other boys become your son. And he spent the rest of the war approving it. Of course, when we first entered the war, the government was more concerned about sending soldiers overseas than entertainers. So, the entertainment profession pitched in at home. They made one nightstands from coast to coast, selling millions of dollars worth of war bonds. They performed at service canteens, army posts, and hundreds of training camps all over the country. They gave their time and talent from the start. And before World War II was over, more than one soldier would have Hollywood blood flowing in his veins. Matt and Neidold began to appear in newsreels instead of romantic leads. James Stewart, Jackie Coogan. The Marines had a part for Tyrone Power, the Navy commissioned Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Robert Taylor was given a new role in the air. So was Clark Gable. This ship was launched in tribute to his wife, one of the first home front casualties killed on a war bond tour, the beautiful Carol Lombard. You'll remember these girls as four Jews in the jeep. Carol landed, Kay Francis, Mitzy Mayfair, Martha Ray. They landed practically on the heel of 150,000 GIs in North Africa in 1942. The fathers of some of these boys had probably heard Al Jolton sing Mammy overseas in World War I. With him on this 40,000 mile trip in 1943 was Merle Oberon. She'd been one of the first of more than 600 performers who went overseas in our first two years of war. Entertainers like Patricia Morrison, veterans like Frank McHugh and Alan Jenkins. You couldn't kill Vogueville, not even with it. New Guinea, Guadalcanal, the Solomon, and every fly spec island right through to Burma. The whole South Pacific war was one green hell of jungle and suffocating heat, rain, mud, and mosquitoes. You say nothing of the enemy. It was a job that had to be done and we'd be there till we finished it. But this was one party we hadn't invited ourselves to. That's why it hit us hard sometimes when these entertainers showed up out of nowhere. Like Major Melvin Douglas, heading up special services in one of the roughest theaters of war, China, Burma, India. And Sheridan showed up there with Ben Blue. You'd ask, what were they doing here? They didn't have to come the way we did, but they had come anyhow, stumbling over coconut trees flattened by anti-aircraft fire, pieces of exploded shells cracked up airplanes. They were right in the midst of it, like the rest of it, the same heat, the same mosquitoes, the same chow line, the same food that you ate with teeth that felt like sandpaper, and the same enemy nuisance raids, sniper's bullets, pouring rain, but they put on their two a day shows wherever they found us. Just by showing up, they let us know that the world we'd left behind was really still there waiting for us when this job was done. All together there was enough combat for 20 wars, but in between, time could be harder to kill than the enemy. Maybe you could dig up a corner movie. Maybe you could cheer up your girl back home with a snapshot to let her know you were keeping busy. But for real, live flesh and blood entertainment, you usually settled for a local talent, and a three-day pass just helped remind you of how far from home you really were. From the South Pacific right through India to the Middle East, you usually just put up with what you could get. That's why, as audiences, these boys made it worth anything. Scorching heat, three blankets at night, and lucky to go to bed in dry clothes. But this entertainer called the South Pacific Theater 7th Heaven for any comic willing to risk his neck in it. And this one agreed. What's he doing here? They might have asked that question the first time Bob Hope showed up. No GI station anywhere in the world would ask it today. That's a lie, and I can prove it. Well, it was here yesterday, I've been robbed. The latest dance sets even reached the South Pacific. The courtesy of Miss Patty Thomas. Don't you get back in the sackie? There's room for two. Your nose and you. How about getting Miss Langford out here to sing a couple of bars? Yeah. In the ETO in Northern Europe, some of us in the infantry thought we'd never get enough sleep again. And even when things lit up, you could feel pretty low. No, it was no sightseeing trip. War makes every place look the same. So instead of writing home about what you saw, you wrote what you felt, or thought, or remembered. Even in the Fifth Army Front in Italy, sometimes everything stopped with the weather. And unless you had to write home about, the more time you had to write it in. With a little luck, of course, you might get a rodeo going in an Anzio farm yard. And when winter came, you might dig in with the Andrews sisters. But the only way they could play every war or theater at once was on records. He was a famous corporate man, but much of time go away. He had a busy time, but no one else didn't play. He was a time... Or as members of your own outfit. Yes, there were big stars and entertainers whose names had never been in lights at all. Nothing remains of the work that some of them did in World War II but a snapshot. Sometimes not even that, because no one was there with a camera. No one was there with the audience. Three GIs in a tent or 3,000 jamming in airfields. And often enough, they were watching entertainers. You may never have heard of them. Not what the public calls stars, but what we think is called truth. Who makes this a profession in which we take great pride. In World War II, they played the weeds and the fissile patches. They entertained anywhere, no matter how rough things got. They played for months at a time, giving as many as six performances a day wherever they were booked. And then they looked for places they weren't booked to entertain there. Some were overseas for a year and more. Some were injured. And like a lot of the GIs they played for, some of these soldiers in Greece never came back. Not that the stars weren't around. The army called this the European theater. And that's what it finally was beginning to look like. Whether you hit it at show time or child time. Raymond Massey sampled the GIs soup pail. The cast of information, please, followed up with the sink. The ETO was one theater we didn't leave when the show was over. It was the theater we woke up in, ate in, played in, and slept in. On the foxhole circuit, Mitzi Mayfair and Jane Pickins found a little room for backstage visitors. But on stage was Catherine Cornell and a dozen plays and musicals. Anna Mahatti, Charlie Zant, my sister Eileen. You were never certain of your destination. Going on tour in the South Pacific, you prepared for anything. Who said Gertrude Lawrence couldn't slay an audience? You ready? What do you want? Get that. Got me. It seems as though there were no plays Ella Logan hadn't sung. But some of the preparations were more threatening than the destinations themselves. Not that Jinx Balkenberg and Pat O'Brien expected to find a Broadway stage in China. And there was so much rain in the South Pacific, Gary Cooper brought a tarpaulin to keep his act from washing away. In other theaters, any place you could drive a truck you could collect an audience at the drop of a tailgate. When your act got too near the battlefront to risk floodlights at night, you went on at 9 a.m. and played all day. There were no ushers because most audiences brought their own seats and the CBI theater was really off-Broadway, especially up to within four miles of the battlefront with Paulette Goddard and William Gargan. Where these boys were, Lily Paws would come to sing for you. From China to the Persian Gulf Command to a concert hall in Germany. An autograph? Oh, yes, we kept right on signing. But as Bob Hope once said, they thanked us and asked us for our autograph. It was silly. We should have thanked them and asked for theirs. Of course, real troopers like this one will go anywhere looking for an audience. And you'd always find one in the South Pacific. Yeah, I'll be in there. Great work with Larry, though, I'm not sure. Oh, he's a great... The only trouble is on this trip, a lot of times we have to room together, you know, and share the same cost. And I don't mind it so much, except that Larry is part Indian, you know? And every time he goes to the little tree and he takes the blanket with him, I mean? A lovin' bloom, please. I like those orchestra leaders. You'd always start out like this. Looks like you're asking the horse how old he is. Wait a minute, just one second, I want to... Get this, wait a minute. Hey, boys, how would you like to police this area, right? Well, Carol? Oh, thank you, Chef. Oh, hello. Good to see you. Hello. Just to be honest with you, I, uh... I'm just a little nervous being up here all alone with about 6,000 men. No, really, you can understand how I feel, after all. How would you like to be all alone with 6,000 girls? Even girls like Carol Landis couldn't be everywhere at once, but they tried, with Armed Forces Radio. Who is a contagious? Or simply outrageous? This was broadcasting right up on the heels of the 5th Army in Italy, Irving Berlin, conducted. But this is war, and she won't worry you any more. War, war, war, no, she won't worry you any more. I want to say that sharing this entertainment with you today is for me more important than doing the entertaining. If morale is kept as high, such as I've seen during my visit to Italy, I'm certain that we can look forward to a speedy victory. Goodbye, good luck, Godspeed. Marlena Dietrich is always someone to write home about. And every day that World War II lasted, there were more boys who suddenly had little else to do but write letters home and wait for letters to come. Hospitals were filled as no war in history had filled them. But still, more came. More boys wounded in places need the doctors and the drugs to reach. Oh, movies might help these boys forget where they were for a while, but even the best movie couldn't show much personal interest in them. That was what they needed. These hospital visits were the toughest engagements any performer had ever planned, but the bravery of those boys was contagious. Maybe this wasn't a time for laughs, but no matter how banged up your body was, your mind inside was still okay. And they knew that was what really counted. Seeing all this equipment here, I should have brought my mother-in-law up. We heard her back last night. She came running downstairs and she slipped and fell. She keeps forgetting that chain don't reach to the living room. Sure, there were times when nothing cheered you up. When even first-hand sympathy from some movie star you knew as well as a member of your own family just wouldn't take your mind off things. When you'd been in it for two years or three years, fighting through one smashed town after another until they all looked the same, you'd wonder if you'd ever see a city all in one piece again. You'd get the feeling it would always be like this, that it would never end, that you'd be glad to settle for one song and one dance with the stage door canteen and parents. See what the boys... and tell them like a lie. It was over. And you were then in the Pacific. World War II was finished. The big job was done. It was done, and the boys who had done it were ready to come home. They had earned it. But they couldn't come home all at once. It was the old army game of hurry up and wait. But now the strain was tougher than ever. For the rockette, that just meant working harder than ever. And for entertainers like them, it still does. Because it's still going on. The fight against the boredom, tension, and loneliness of the troops overseas who are keeping the peace they won for us in World War II. The whole story of these soldiers in Greece came would take it through Korea, right up to the present. It would take us all over the free world because the Cold War can be just as hard to fight as any other country. And our soldiers need more encouragement than a laugh and a song to win it. They need the sense of home, but only contact with live performers can give them. This is why it's been a privilege for me to speak for the members of my profession who have joined in this battle and are fighting even now.