presenting Bing Crosby and Company in the Road to Berlin on the cavalcade of America sponsored by the DuPont Company, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. And once again here is cavalcade's commentator Walter Houston. Good evening. Tonight the DuPont cavalcade is a birthday party with four candles making the fourth anniversary of the USO. Our star is a little guy who is usually getting kicked around by Bob Hope and vice versa. But to every man overseas he's a little voice inside a dope boy's heart that says remember, remember all the little moments and places and people that are America. A voice that sings of simple things like a lad from Kansas saying to his gal, stay the way you are, I'll be back. A voice that's sort of an international western union boy delivering every girl's message of love and loyalty to her GI. Happy tonsils they call him, gravel throat, the growner. Blame what you will, somewhere along the line he swallowed a little old music box that takes every boy's and every gal's day dreams and cranks them out a little fancier than they ever could. And so without further adjectives, adverbs, or superlatives we present one of America's favorite voices of World War II, Bing Crosby on the cavalcade of America. When the blue of the night meets the gold of the day. Well I'd say that's ample, Brother Ambruster. They've been running me on and off with that since 1900 B.F. B.F. that's before Frankie. But Frankie's been very helpful to me though. He came through with a great suggestion just recently for a new theme song for me. When I Grow Too Old to Dream I'll Have You to Remember. Isn't that nice? Frankie's a fine boy though and we're great friends. Actually we are. In fact, next season we're going out on tour together. Frankie and I were going to sing some duets, do a little double act. We thought we'd call our act breathless and hairless. Should be a grand act. But enough of the microphone with the fringe on top. Let's cut the USO birthday cake and join hands in our little bovine session wherein we reminisce about our overseas jaunt last August through October. It'll be strictly ad libitum, that's ad lib for short. You know what ad lib is, don't you? That's when Hope writes a joke on the margin of his script and tries to make you think he just thought of it. And you just wish he hadn't. Anyway, holding down the east chairs in our little hokey pokey tonight are... Jeannie Durrell. A very cute girl. And... Darlene Garner. A very cute girl. And what you know, Joe? Dorita. And when I was her age I was cute too. Well we thought we were slated for the Quine Eye circuit or the South Pacific. So of course we headed for San Francisco where we improved our time working a few hospitals and laying around town. About the third night in Mecca by the Golden Gate the phone rang in my hotel room. Hello? Mr. Crosby? Yes? I have a cable for you from Bob Hope. Collect. Natch. Would you please read the undesirable message? Dear Bingle, would you please phone Dolores? I forgot my scrapbook. A kindly fate intervened, however, saving us from a possible juncture with Ho's nose. The service came to report to New York. It was really something to know that we were going to have a small role in Ike Eisenhower's big show. The next thing we knew we was in Scotland. Well, just a minute Bing. Don't tell us you're skipping that trip across the Atlantic. Well I didn't think it was my business. Oh, he's still embarrassed about that paratrooper. That boy sure had the groaner on the ropes, didn't he kids? I'll say he did. Oh, it was really nothing. We were a day or two out on this big troop ship with the all British crew. I don't suppose I better divulge the name of the ship, un, Joe? I should say not, the Ile de France, that's a secret information. Exactly. I'll never forget that big paratrooper built like Superman's big brother and he talked like Benny the Creep. I'm heading for the ship's theater late for a show and this boy stops me. Hey, wait up. Who, me? Yeah. You got a groaner, ain't you? Well, I'm sometimes referred to as such. Yeah. Hi, son. Sing me White Christmas. Well, I'm late. I'm on a forced march to the theater. I said sing me White Christmas. Well, I'm doing a show. I'm going to the theater. Sing me White Christmas. Well, I'm due at the show. Besides, I can't sing White Christmas without a guitar. Get a guitar. Huh? I said get a guitar. Sing me White Christmas. Well, look, I'm busy. It's late and I'm due at the show. I got no guitar. I'll see you around. Well, the next day I'm heading for the British captain's quarters. We're going to bust a scone or a crumpeter to he and I and this is the big boat. But who's pretty puss do I have to bump into? Hey, how are you? Come here. There's a guitar. Well, Buck Harris is our guitar man. He's down below deck. He's getting ready to go on. Well, go get him. I want to hear White Christmas. Well, listen son, I'm awfully sorry. Ah, shut up. You never was any good in the first place. You're full of gravel and you're slipping. You know what I think of you, Crosby? You smell. Well, now just a minute. What are you doing? Well, Buck, look, can you over, un-sling that overgrown yoke there, will you? This guy wants to hear White Christmas. You mean you're going to sing it for just one guy? I'd attain you. And you, fella, just stand up there with your back to the wall. I'm going to sing this thing right into your china. I'm dreaming of a White Christmas with every Christmas card I write. May your days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases be wild. Well, what about it, big boy? Eh, that's fair. Well, Jeannie and Darlene and I, I suppose you kids have a million of your own memories of the trip, huh? Millions, Bing. Jeannie, remember the night Bing got his first taste of English humor? Aye, aye, aye, that English humor. I'll never forget that scene. A huge crowd, largely British boys, and on stage the great English comedian Tommy Hanley. The Bob Hope of Great Britain. High horn with an Oxford accent, this boy. Bing comes in the stage door. Tommy Hanley spots him and introduces him. I give you a famous gentleman and singer. I understand he's Dorothy L'Amour's father, but I could be Sirong, Sirong. Gentlemen, Harry Lilies Crosby. Bing, I'll wait till you're going to find London very much to your liking. You think so, Tommy? Oh, yes, Bing. I'm so sure of it that I'll bet you three Bob Hope. Oh, no. You can't do this today. As you say in America, I'm very hot tonight. Tommy, you're hotter than a two dollar pistol. Yes, sir. I don't get it. I'll just skip it, Tommy. It's just my way of saying that I think you're a great comedian. Well, thank you for being so frank, Sinatra. I know. Bing, Bing, I say Bing. Hit me, Tommy, hit me. Bing, you heard the joke about the iron walnut. No, Tommy, tell me the joke about the iron walnut. I can't crack it. It's a great deal easier to understand English humor when we realize that Bob Hope was born there. But it's pretty nice to know that even though they didn't understand all our jokes, they understood and enjoyed our songs, especially this one. Split two ways with our little globe trotting chantus, Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Cheney Durrell. Well, then they flipped us over to Normandy in one of those big C-47s. Remember kids how the guys kept asking for songs like Sweet Lilani and Blue Hawaii, Old Cow Hand, all the oldies they wanted to hear. Well Bing, don't just slide over them like that. Too fast to brush? Come on. Let's bring back those nights when the boys would corner you and ask for so many songs that we'd all have to come to your rescue. Oh, what wonderful nights. The show is over, but it goes right on into the wee hours. Somebody yells. Hey, take your gloves off. The fellow makes with the accordion. That's the stomach Steinway. And we're gone. Come with me where moonbeams lie Tahitian skies and the starless water linger in your eyes. Very big and honored. What's that daughter singing in the stage? Shoo Shoo Baby or something? Shoo Shoo Old Darling? Oh, no Bing. I couldn't sing that. I don't know all the lyrics. You're a tap dance, aren't you? How about knocking it out with your pedal extremity? Yeah, darling, come on. Tap up a small storm for the guys, huh? Well, fellas, I'll do it if Bing and Jeannie sing it. Well, we're going to sing it. Just pump away, Professor. Everybody. Oh, Shoo Baby. Bye, bye, bye, baby. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Your pop is off to the seven. Go ahead. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Shoo, Shoo Baby. Your pop is off to the seven. Go ahead, darling. Yee-hoo, yee-hoo. Yee-hoo, yee-hoo. You're listening to Bing Crosby, Joe DeRita, Jeannie Darrell, and Darlene Garner in the Road to Berlin, presented by DuPont Cavalcade of America on the fourth anniversary of the USO. To a few Americans, pre-war civilians, France used to be Paris in the spring. Chanel No. 5, silly bonnets along the Rue de la Paix, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Luxembourg, Montparnasse. But we found France to be quite another thing. Like the little kid we saw riding up the hill on the bike. Yeah, Joe. He was a boy about 10 years old. Same guns had leveled his hometown. Same guns were firing over his village at the Germans in a nearby town. We watched Mr. Small fry peddling his way up the hill, oblivious to Uncle Sam's bloodhounds barking at the Nazis. When he got next to us, we noticed that he had something slung across his back. And remember Bing, you hollered at him? Hello, mon garçon. Où est-ce que vous allez? Where are you going? I'm on the side of the violin. Pardonnez-moi, I am going for lesson on the violin, monsieur. And all that thunder with his village wiped out, maybe his own home. This moped was heading uphill for a fiddle lesson. Uphill yet. That was the France we saw uphill all the way. And uphill for our G.I.s too, huh, Bing? You thinking about any particular day, are you, Joe? Yeah. Remember the afternoon we saw about 700 bombers going over with the egg delivery for Hitler's supply lines? I certainly remember that day all right. The last bomber in this group was disappearing over the Siegfried Line. We got into a jeep and bounced out into a pasture to unravel our little opera for the boys. About an hour later, as I recall the scene, I'd cooed a couple and knocked hope and synoptra a little, tore those boys down a bit. And you, Jeannie, you were fracturing them with a bit of the song. Vesteme, vesteme mucho. Each time I thrill to you. To us, this sound is just another plane in the distance, but not so to this huge crowd of 15,000 men at the replacement depot. They know the sound of a B-24 with one motor gone. Here comes this John Smith or Sam Jones flying home on a wing and a prayer. A hole in his fuselage bigger than the Holland Tunnel. Jeannie stops singing. The show is forgotten. The liberator's over our heads now. Staggering like a drunk and limping like a dog on three legs. He's heading for some little emergency field a few miles away, losing altitude by the minute. There he goes and 15,000 guys let out a yell. They're cheering that pilot in. We thought the show had gone pretty good up to that time, but believe me, he was the topper. Nobody knows his name, but when you watch 15,000 men looking up at one sick plane, well, the kid at the stick just has to be your brother. That's all. What happened to that second lieutenant who followed you all over the map of La Belle France? It just so happened, Smarty, that he had a perfect right to get around like that. He had an important roving assignment. I thought he was just looking for cigarettes. Stop that. He had a roving assignment with intelligence. He didn't look so intelligent to me, honey. Army intelligence, Joe, G2 or something. Oh, I get it. That's very different stuff. Darlene, I sort of thought he was doing a little cross-country courting for your benefit. You're going to talk now, aren't you? Tell daddy. You don't think he'd go through all that just to hear you sing blues of the night, do you? Me with my big finish with the high note of here? Anyway, he was a sweet boy, and you wouldn't joke about him if you knew that he was wounded. Oh, well, I'm sorry. Darlene, you heard from him then? Yes, I got a letter recently. Fortunately, the wound isn't serious. That's good. Where was he wounded? In a foxhole. No, I mean the location. It was near Metz. The location on the anatomy. Oh, well, all I know is the way he starts the letter. Dear Darlene, I'm writing this letter standing up. Next case. Jeannie, if you had to pick out one experience on our trip that would outlive all others, what would it be? Oh, gee, Bing. I don't know. There are so many beautiful moments, beautiful in spite of the mud and cold, like the 1103rd combat engineers, many casualties building and defending their pontoon bridges under fire. And remember, Bing, we played to them in a driving rain. Yeah, and they cheered and applauded like they were comfortably ensconced in the mezzanine of the New York Paramount. French people, sad-eyed fathers and mothers coming back to poke around in the ruins of their homes. They're leaving their hometowns for the safety of the countryside, a boy of 10 or 12 carrying a baby. You say, quite a burden you're carrying, son, and the kid says... La charge? Mais non, c'est mon frère. She's no burden, he's my brother. And we talk to French women. Are you bitter, I ask. Bitter that we Americans have to bomb your towns? No, we are not bitter. The bomb, they have killed my friends. They have killed my father and my sister. But they have killed many bosh too. And they said anything that brings relief from five years of the iron heel of the Nazi heels is better. Red Cross donuts and coffee made while you wait in the mud of France. Oh, they're wonderful, those Red Cross club mobile girls. They're everywhere. And boy, they are really, really welcome. Memories of singing to guys that you didn't see, slipping up near the front under a complete blackout, a gun crew that you remember only from their voices and their accents. Hey, Bing, I'm from Texas. Knock me a bit of sunshine. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know dear how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away. Oh, those crowds. They would cut in just when I'm building a good beat here. But I guess the high point of the trip will always be charms. We started the show in a huge factory where the Germans used to make airplane motors until our Air Force ventilated it. So a great many of the 79th Division were there. I think I was gargling Gordy Jenkins' tune. And kindly old Reverend Thomas made us a solemn promise. Said he'd make the two of us one. So I'm hitting the trail to the cow country. You can forward my mail, care of RFD. I'm gonna settle down and never more roam and make the San Fernando Valley my home. And make the San Fernando Valley my home. Hey, Bing. Hey, Bing. What's the matter? Bing. What do you got there? Bing, here's a message you're supposed to read to the mob. Rosebats? Oh, of course. Owen, I've lived in theacME hospital since nah. ols. Yeah. Oh boy. Got the men. Send out the men. Oh, that little lady was used to compete in action. Yes, Sergeant. Mollow up. Senate Samuelson and men report to Captain Alexander at command headquarters. Now, let's get into our barbershop. Aren't you ready? If I had my way, dear, forever that be, a garden of roses for you and for me. And my top sergeant, what am I saying? A thousand and one things, dear, I would do just for you. Would you lend me a quarter? Let's not be commercial then, through here. Take five duck hips. What do you got here? What's this? Oh, excuse me again, another announcement. Major Williamson and companies B and C report to Colonel Fitch at the forward echelon right away. Well, that's the one that empties the house, Bing. Let's go down by the door and see the fellows off. Come on, Darlene. Coming, Jeannie. Well, it seems the Hun was launching a counter, attacked up the road a piece, and the command headquarters needed our audience and needed them right away. Songs can wait, battles never. We stood close to the gate as the boys were filing out of the factory. Say, Jeannie, my wife lives at 323 South Avon Street in Philly. Take this slip, you know, just in case. Sure, soldier. Darlene, if things don't work out for me, Mom's phone number is on this envelope. Sure, soldier. Hey, Bing, I got a kid I've never seen. Look, here's his picture. If I don't, well, drop them all a line if you get time, and say you saw Pa on the road to Berlin. I'll take the picture. When I lay you 20 to 1, you come back for it. Well, we cut out and went on back to our tents. The next day, late in the afternoon, we were working a field hospital. A lot of the men who had to walk out on us had come back already on stretchers. Well, hello, Stanley. How far was I when you left the show last night? Well, Jeannie, this army's making a rude soldier out of me. I had to go walk out in the middle of you singing the St. Louis blues. Never forgive myself. That's the kind of men you meet when you go out for the USO. Men who have to leave for battle in the middle of your show who come back wounded, and they apologize for walking out on you. They're all cut from the same cloth over there, and, brother, it's all wool. We saw more of the same stripe that October homecoming day when we pulled into New York Harbor. Wounded boys are plenty, many helping the more badly hurt over to the side of the giant Queen Mary for a look-see. And then all of a sudden they all saw her, Statue of Liberty. Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness! The old girl's still carrying a torch for us, Sam. 31 months since I've seen the lady in the harbor. Yeah, back of her only a couple thousand miles is Texas. Hey, fellas, look at the growner over there. He don't look too sick about getting home himself. Hey, Pink! Don't look half bad, huh, men? These I see LaGuardia's washed the skyline for us. Hey, uh, you know what, Pink? Yeah? Well, a lot of us were just saying, uh, this occasion cloths are something special. Yeah, and you don't mean playing a sonata record, even. Yeah. Oh, you mean a toast, huh? Something in the bubbly stuff? No, no, no, something, uh, well, uh, corny, I guess. Corny? Well, suppose you break it gently over my flat top, huh? Well, uh, if you bend down over my wheelchair, I'll buzz it in your flaps, Bing. Okay, buzz me, boy. Come in. Um... Oh, well, I hate to go sentimental on you, gentlemen, but you know something I was thinking of the same tune myself? Oh, there's no place like home. There's no place like home. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. Gee, that's pretty nice, Pink. Thanks. I bet you guys are gonna give New York a good kicking around today. Oh, that's so wonderful. What's the first thing, what's the first thing you're heading for? Yeah, yeah. No, no, I mean it, really. What's the first thing you're heading for when you hook into your favorite piece of terra firma? Should we tell him? Oh, no, better not. Bing's pretty young, I mean... Says he's younger than Hope. Phonologically and physically, but not mentally, old man. Well, Bing, it's like this. The first thing we're gonna do when we hit shore is... Yeah? Get a chocolate soda. I may join you. Is it all right with you? Friends we'd like to thank the DuPont Cavalcade for letting us relive some of our fun and some of the memories we had over under the overseas banner of the USO. Thanks are in order to the millions of you who have given so generously to the National War Fund of which the USO is a part. Here at home, the USO takes care of more than 30 million servicemen a month. I used to think Vaudeville was a pretty big thing, but USO camp shows are playing the biggest circuit on earth. As far as my trip was concerned, I had a ball. It was tremendously interesting and tremendously exciting. I think I'm qualified to tell you that the USO does a great job under very rugged conditions. Their shows go everywhere. They're well run, well produced, well operated, and the boys really love them. Marines firing a mortar. The headache matters. Powder hurling the mortar shells through the air. Doesn't look like black powder. It isn't in grains. It's pressed in solid sheets and it's brown. Looks like a piece of leather with holes punched in it. Its pack is just like aspirin and moisture proof cellophane. Keep your powder dry. There's been good military advice ever since Oliver Cromwell gave it to his troops. Cellophane keeps powder dry for the mortars, those valuable, deady little guns that can lob a shell over a hill and drop it right down the enemy's neck. Gain? While cellophane before the war had done a splendid job of keeping food products fresh and many other products clean, few of us thought of it as a war material. But chemists working with the Army and Navy soon found it had any number of properties which made it extremely valuable for many war uses. In addition to being moisture proof, cellophane is oil and grease proof, odor proof, and can be made flame resisting. It has unusual resistance to permeable gases and in combination with materials, various types of paper, metal foil, or cloth, it performs still other important jobs. One of the war jobs of cellophane is protecting medicines. The sulfur tablets carried by soldiers are wrapped in it. So are medicines in the first aid kit for Navy life rafts, so are fracture bandages, blood plasma, and other medicines and medical appliances by the dozen. You've just heard about cellophane wrapped gunpowder. Guns themselves are wrapped in a special laminated cellophane so they can be shipped long distance and be ready for instant use on arrival. And food is wrapped in cellophane. The same protective film that helps make a loaf of bread go further in your own home protects the emergency ration of a soldier fighting in the South Pacific or in Germany. And finally, cellophane protects the men themselves. If our enemies ever use poison gas, our soldiers will put on their masks and then pull over their heads man-sized envelopes of cellophane, gas covers. These are just a few wartime uses of cellophane, one of DuPont's peacetime, better things for better living through chemistry. Tonight we've celebrated the fourth birthday of the USO in a script especially written for Cavalcade by Glenn Wheaton. Next Monday there'll be another such celebration on Cavalcade when we will honor the birthday of the great American Abraham Lincoln. Our story is of this man and of another great American who was wise enough to see and develop the latent talents of Lincoln and to help him along the path to greatness. It will be my privilege next Monday to play the part of this Salem school teacher whose name was Mentor Graham. Listen next week when Cavalcade will present Walter Houston as Mentor Graham, the man who taught Lincoln. Bing Crosby appeared on tonight's Cavalcade through the courtesy of Kraft Music Hall and may currently be seen in the Paramount picture, Here Come the Waves. The music was composed and conducted by Robert Dombrister. This is Gain Whitman sending best wishes from Cavalcade sponsor E.I. DuPont, Dinamours & Company of Wilmington, Delaware. This is the National Broadcasting Company. This is the National Broadcasting Company.
