War is Wet

It wasn’t limos and luxury hotels for the stars entertaining Allied troops and visiting wounded personnel during World War Two. One year, Jack Benny and his troupe coped with oppressive heat. Another, it was torrential rain in the South Pacific.

On this patriotic day in the U.S.A., let’s give a couple of examples of how things went for Jack’s band of entertainers on an overseas tour to meet the forces fighting against tyranny. In 1944, Jack was on the road with musicians Larry Adler and June Bruner, singer Martha Tilton and actress Carole Landis. Adler was contracted by the Central Press to write a series of articles on their trip. His payment was donated to the Red Cross.

The first story was published September 19, 1944, the other on October 5, 1944.

This post isn’t altogether about Jack but give you an idea of some of the things he went through.

When The Roads Are Out, You Just Hop Into A PT Boat
By LARRY ADLER
Famed Harmonica Artist
SOMEWHERE IS THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC—We thought the trip by jeep last night in a driving rain was as tough as you could make it, but we are just beginning to live. We couldn't get to our next base by jeep because the roads were washed out by the storm, so they elected to transport us by PT boat.
We wore ponchos and a fat lot of good they were! Within 10 minutes Jack Benny and I were completely drenched. We drove to the boat in a rain so heavy that we could not see the road before us, but I don't think there was a road anyway. My spine tells me there wasn't.
Aboard the boat, Jack and the girls went below, which was a mistake. Those PT boats pitch like a bronco and everybody was seasick. I fared better, staying out on the bridge and just getting cut to ribbons by spray lashing across my face.
It's A Knack
Capt. Lanny Ross, on the bridge with me, said he'd never be tempermental [sic] about singing conditions again. Salt water, sea air, all supposed to be dangerous, and in addition he was trying valiantly to smoke a pipe!
We reached our base after twenty knots of heavy weather and were taken straight to the hospital auditorium where about 1,000 patients were waiting for us. There was no time to change into dry clothes, nor were there any dry clothes to change into.
Jack and I were muddy almost to the hips and soaked from there on up. For a gag, we wore very loud ties with our G.I. khaki.
There wasn't any way of taking out suits, which had been ruined anyway from playing in the rainstorm the previous evening.
We had a band which was really sensational and I did a jam session with them. They were a station hospital band with Pvt. George Horton of New York city doing a wizard trumpet solo as well as vocals.
The Boy Can Play!
T/4 Al Baldori of Detroit played his sax solos with a peculiar slouching stance as if he'd dropped something, but it didn't affect his music.
Vincent Mastronardi of New York city beat out the drums so well that I signaled him to take about five choruses on his own. He did and the house came down.
In all fairness I should say that the house comes down on anything. These boys are pushover audiences, more so than even in Africa, and it’s hard for the performer to keep his sense of balance; to remember that nobody is as good as the G. I.'s would lead you to believe you are.
Civilian audiences will be just as critical as usual. I try to keep my show up to civilian standard rather than play down—it’s a lot better if I can succeed in doing so.
This hospital base was cleaved out of pure jungle and they've done wonders with it. If it weren't for the rain, it would be very nice.
No One Gets Colds
I noticed, however, that nobody seems to have colds, nor did any of our troupe catch them despite the show in wet clothes. Outside the ward in which Jack Benny and I are quartered, Negro troops are trying to make something out of what used to be a road but is now just swamp.
This morning Jack and I breakfasted with two nurses, Lt. Fern Dahlgren of Shakopee, Minn., and Lt. Ruth Hook of Columbus, O.
"You do not have to be crazy to do this work," said Lt. Hook, "but insanity is an asset."
They were in the audience when we did our night show in a hangar at the airstrip.
I am always amazed at the facilities put up for our shows. They had floodlights, a fine sound system, a well-constructed stage, dressing rooms and—crowning achievement—a real toilet, put in for just this one night.

Visit With Paratroopers Is A Real Thrill
By LARRY ADLER
Famed Harmonica Expert
SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC—At the moment I love everybody. My morale, which had done a nose dive at the sight of our home for the next five days, is on the up again. This base is another one of those mud and rain spots and we just ain’t in the mood.
However, just a few hours after our arrival a naval chaplain showed up. He asked Jack Benny and I to do a show aboard a troop transport just in from the states. Jack and I went down and found ourselves aboard a Dutch passenger ship, converted to war but with all the luxuries still intact.
We did our show on deck. Jack beseeched the men to write letters home to keep up civilian morale. He has intended only to talk, but a violin was rustled up and Jack gave out with the usual “Love in Bloom” and “Ida.”
There have been other numbers written but Jack refuses to recognize them.
A Worthwhile Kick
After we were introduced to Capt. Pest who invited us to dine. Jack was about to refuse as we were supposed to dine back at our base, but I kicked him under the table.
I know ship food and didn’t want to miss it after our tender acquaintance with bully beef boiled, fried, hashed and smothered in another portion of bully beef. Well, friends, our menu consisted of consommé macedoine, roast beef, braised goose with apple sauce and creamed spinach, chocolate cream pie, fruit and coffee, topped off with a cigar for Jack, beer for me.
For the first time since leaving the States I was almost unable to rise from the table. Oh, what a beautiful day—permissions of the copyright owners!
Meet The Boys
Before the meal, we met the most impressive group of soldiers that we have yet played before. They are a paratroop division—Douglass air-borne, as they are called. They are young, tough and I’ve never seen so much sheer health floating around. It made me wish I’d brought along my muscles.
Before we gave our show for them, we were invited to watch a mass jump from the vantage point of the plane itself. Jack Benny and Carol Landis were in one plane, Martha Tilton and myself in another.
The plane seemed to groan with the weight of these young giants and had a tough time getting off the ground. The men fiddled with their chutes, made jokes, sang a song that seemed to go “glory, glory, glory, what a hell of a way to die!”
Martha leaned over to me and whispered agonizingly, “I’m sacred. I don’t want those boys to jump out of this plane. Do they have to?”
Some Get Jump-Happy
I assured here that a great many of the men were probably scared, too, but that nothing could keep them from making their jump. In fact, as Cpl. Guy Berkstresser of York, Pa., remarked, “Some guys get jump-happy. They want to keep making one jump after another.”
The door for the takeoff was open, of course, and I stood in it, holding onto an overhead wire for support, which was just as well, because our plane banked sharply to the left and I was staring straight down at the earth with only my thin overhead wire between me and eternity. I was scared green.
I was told to stand to one side of the door, that the men were ready. The jump signal had flashed and the men were standing up, hooking on to that overhead wire. Then they got the go sign.
“C’mon, let’s get the hell out of this,” said one of them and then it started. There was an unearthly lot of mass yelling and the men began piling out, pushed none too gently by the officer in charge.
Quite A Thrill
I can’t fully describe how thrilling it was to see this impetuous race into nothingness.
Occasionally, a man would jam in the doorway and there would be a split second of heaving and panting. Then he, too, would have vanished and the stampede would continue.
The last man was out now and we could see the white mushrooms heading toward the ground. We headed back toward the landing strip.
I was astonished to see how close together the parachutes had landed. Scarcely 50 yards apart, or so it appeared from the air. One had landed right in the middle of a highway and several trucks waited patiently for the ‘chutist to extricate himself.
I left the plane feeling that I'd met the bravest man in the world.