This Day in History: Bob Hope's First USO Show

On this day in 1941, Bob Hope gives the first of his legendary shows for the USO. It was just the beginning of a 50-year effort to bring smiles to the faces of our men and women in uniform.

His overwhelming success has earned him the moniker “One-Man Morale Machine.”

Hope was then host of NBC radio’s The Pepsodent Show, featuring his comedic monologues along with skits and other performances. But the course of Hope’s life would forever be altered when The Pepsodent Show was taped at March Field before a military audience on May 6, 1941. He loved it and wanted more.

After Pearl Harbor, he doubled down on this strategy, ultimately taping all but nine of his wartime shows before troops. Soon, he was traveling overseas, too, and he brought others along.

“The musicians, comedians, and dancers traveled in cargo planes, PT-boats, and in jeeps to meet soldiers, sailors, marines,” the National WWII Museum explains. “The troupe put on shows on the backs of trucks, on stages made of coconut logs and in hospital wards, sometimes holding back tears while singing. Each performer recognized the importance of being there.”

Hope traveled to remote outposts. He landed on battleships. He went to combat zones. He visited troops throughout World War II, then continued his mission during other conflicts too.

Where the troops went, Hope went.

His self-deprecating jokes kept them laughing. “Working in a war zone is great for a comedian,” he deadpanned. “You can always blame the bombs on the enemy.” But he also quickly figured out that roasting officers was good for a laugh. He made a point of visiting hospital wards, but figured they “did not want sympathy, they wanted cheer,” so he was liable to walk in with a smile, joking “Okay, fellas, don’t get up.”

Hope began annual Christmas tours in 1948. He quipped that the tours “saved me a fortune in Christmas presents,” but the reality was that he was missing Christmases with his own children, who fortunately viewed Christmas without dad as “doing their part” to help.

One memorable Christmas show closed with the crowd singing Silent Night. “There was not a dry eye in the house,” one attendee later remembered. He’d ridden in the back of a Jeep for two hours, just to see the show.

Hope often received letters from military personnel—or from their families. “Mr. Hope,” one Marine wife wrote, “I thank you as I know every wife, mother, and girlfriend thanks you for bringing a little happiness to our men away from home.”

One mother wrote after receiving a letter from her son, who’d loved the show. “Mr. Hope, you gave our son the last few hours of happiness in his life,” she concluded. “We lost him shortly after that. From the bottom of my heart and with the utmost sincerity may I say ‘thank you’ Sir—Thank you, Thank you.”

Hope’s last Vietnam show was reportedly quite a scene, with men hanging from cranes and other heavy equipment to get a better view. “He got a standing ovation from the minute he came on,” Seabee Ron Ronning said.

But Vietnam was not the end. As late as 1990, Hope was visiting troops participating in Operation Desert Shield. Indeed, it’s estimated that he performed for as many as 11 million troops during his lifetime of service.

Hope never joined the military, but he was made an “honorary veteran” at age 94. He pronounced it “the greatest honor I have ever received,” but he didn’t think he was owed thanks.

“Believe me when I say,” he once said, “that laughter up at the front lines is a very precious thing . . . . There’s a lump the size of Grant’s Tomb in your throat when they come up to you and shake your hand and mumble ‘Thanks.’ Imagine those guys thanking me! Look what they’re doin’ for me. And for you.”

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Primary Sources:

• Ann Oldenburg, Bob Hope USO Shows: The One-Man Morale Machine (United Service Organizations)

• Dear Bob...: Bob Hope’s Wartime Correspondence with the G.I.s of World War II (Martha Bolton & Linda Hope eds. 2021)

• Friday, May 6, 2011: 70 Years Ago Today (United Service Organizations)

• Honorary Veteran Bob Hope (National WWII Museum; May 26, 2022)

• Hope for America: Performers, Politics and Pop Culture: Entertaining the Troops (Library of Congress)

• Letter from Anne Underwood to Bob Hope (October 23, 1975) 

• Letter from Linda Faulkner to Bob Hope (January 1, 1970)

• Letter from George and Sally Hall and family to Bob Hope (January 21, 1972)

• Remembering Bob Hope’s First USO Show (United Service Organizations; May 6, 2010)

• Scott Harrison, From the Archives: Bob Hope entertains the troops (L.A. Times; Dec. 21, 2018)

• So Ready for Laughter: The Legacy of Bob Hope (National Museum of the United States Army)

• USO Tour Veterans, In Their Own Words (United Service Organizations)

• Vincent Canby, Bob Hope, Master of One-Liners and Friend to G.I.’s, Dies at 100 (New York Times; July 29, 2003)