This Is the Army, the theatrical phenomenon of World War II, is back in the news because Decca Records has released the cast album on CD. This phenomenon of its era had become almost forgotten. Some of the surviving cast members complain that everyone talks about Bob Hope's contribution to soldiers' morale when, in fact, many more men in that war were entertained by This Is the Army.
The show was a landmark in the career of America's most famous songwriter. Irving Berlin not only wrote the words and music, but he actually appeared in the show during most of its run in theaters in the United States, England and Italy and at military bases in Europe, Africa and on Pacific islands.
This Is the Army broke the color barrier in the American armed forces. The Army, Navy and Marines were all racially segregated until Berlin cast blacks in his show and insisted that his men travel and bunk together.
But racial integration was such a new idea that there were some problems. An officer on a Pacific island said to Berlin: "I see you have colored boys. We have a special campground for them," and Berlin instructed all of his troupe, white and black, to stay in the "colored" camp. Whenever commanders tried to segregate them, the troupe responded: "Sir, we have orders that we have to stay together."
The achievements of This Is the Army stand out even more when you look at Irving Berlin's problems just before it was written. The year preceding it was an unusually tough one for the songwriter. Going into 1941, he had been at a peak of popularity with a catalog of songs that stretched back to 1907 and more successful motion pictures than any other composer. He also had a Broadway hit in the 1939-1940 season, Louisiana Purchase, which had a profitable year-and-a-half run, longer than any of the Rodgers & Hart or Gershwin hits of the 1930s. It was Berlin's 16th Broadway show. He was indisputably the king of American popular music.
Then all of his songs were banned from radio starting January 1, 1941. Broadcasters didn't want to pay fees to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, so radio stopped playing all ASCAP music which included the work of Berlin, Gershwin, Rodgers and many more. While the war clouds gathered far across the sea, Americans were forbidden to hear the song that included that phrase in its verse, "God Bless America," on radio. Berlin, the composer of that anthem, defiantly announced that he would travel to movie theaters around the country to personally sing and play piano to plug the sheet music and phonograph records of his catalog of banned hits. Unfortunately, he didn't follow-through on this. Instead, he sat around and brooded, entering a state of depression that plagued the later years of his life.
The dispute lasted until the end of 1941 when the government mediated a settlement which allowed broadcasters to play ASCAP music for much lower fees than before. People like Berlin would receive only a third of what they had expected to get in royalties. As long as the ASCAP ban lasted, the unhappy Berlin saw no point in writing a new show because the songs couldn't be publicized on radio. He did compose for the film "Holiday Inn," but Paramount kept it in the can until the ASCAP ban was lifted. Berlin said: "All that time, your songs are hidden away and you have no way of knowing whether the songs will be accepted or rejected."
When a friend casually raised the subject of what plays were running on Broadway, Berlin snapped at him: "Nothing of mine," and walked away. Cole Porter's Panama Hattie became the longest-running musical in New York after Berlin's Louisiana Purchase closed in the summer of 1941.
Berlin fretted about his inactivity and often was in a bad mood. He published only six songs in 1941 and they all involved the European conflict. "Any Bonds Today,""Arms For the Love of America,""A Little Church in England" and "When That Man is Dead and Gone" (referring to Hitler) were played at Defense Bond rallies and at events to increase American support for Britain. His wife, Ellin, spoke in favor of aid to Britain and publicly attacked Anne Morrow Lindbergh for saying that the USA should stay out of the conflict.
Then Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, plunged the United States into the war and snapped Berlin out of his depression. Oddly, this tragic event created euphoria among many Americans, including Irving Berlin. He was glad that the dictators could now be attacked and beaten, and he determined to do everything he could to help the effort. His daughter Mary Ellin wrote (in A Daughter's Memoir, published by Simon and Schuster): "I'm reminded of how excited he was, how he bounded in and out of rooms, how he gleamed, how different it was."
In World War I, Berlin wrote the musical Yip, Yip, Yaphank, which was produced by the men of Camp Upton on Long Island. As a 29-year-old, he composed "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" and performed it nightly, dressed in an army uniform. In 1942 he was much older and lived in luxurious properties on both coasts, and was a new father for the fourth time, but he decided to do again what he had done before. At age 53 Berlin prepared to join the war.
"I'm putting together a show," Berlin told his friends in the music business. "I'll organize it myself, and we're going to handle our own copyrights, set it up as a dummy corporation called `This Is the Army, Inc.' because the army can't hold copyrights. We'll have a company of 300 soldiers and our own music publishing detachment." All the money would go to the Army Relief fund.
Berlin composed a complete score in a month, including "This is the Army, Mister Jones" in march tempo, and the romantic ballads "I Left My Heart At the Stage Door Canteen" and "I'm Getting Tired So I Can Sleep." (The soldier wants to sleep so he can be with his girl in his dreams.) He also wrote a jive number for the black soldiers to sing: "What the Well Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear." (A military uniform, of course.) He revived "How I Hate to Get Up" to perform it as he had in 1917.
The show opened with a chorus of soldiers singing: "You thought that many, many years ago / You saw the last of every soldier show / But here we are, yes / Here we are again."
Berlin included a minstrel number from World War I when white people put black grease on their faces and imitated blacks. Since Berlin made a point of integrating his cast, why did he choose to do this number? Wasn't if offensive to the blacks in the troupe? Director Bob Sidney answers: "It was an old song, and we wanted to recreate the mood of 1917. Minstrel shows were still accepted even in 1942. There was a black-face number in the movie Holiday Inn in 1942. Believe me, our black guys were very vocal, and if they were offended they would have told us. Pete Nugent, a black dancer, said to me: 'Let me work with these white stiffs, and I'll show them how to do it.' Anyway, our black guys didn't want to sing that corny number. They preferred doing the song that Mister B wrote for them about well-dressed men in Harlem."
Ezra Stone, the first director of This Is the Army, raised the issue, and Berlin agreed to stage the song without black makeup and to tone down the dialect that was part of minstrel tradition. Stone convinced Berlin by using the practical argument that if soldiers put on blackface they wouldn't be able to clean up to appear in the rest of the act.
There were 359 men in the company, including cast, crew and musicians. No women. Men wore dresses and played female roles in the show. All were privates, corporals and sergeants. Berlin didn't want any officers. This is the Army went into rehearsal in May, just five months after Pearl Harbor, and opening night was July 4, 1942, at the Broadway Theater. In those days, theaters were not air conditioned and no one else opened shows in July, but this was something special. (The theater had big blocks of ice, and the crew ran fans before the start and during intermission to circulate cool air.) Mary Ellin Berlin's parents let her attend one of her father's shows for the first time, at the age of 15.
Berlin selected as director the 24-year-old Ezra Stone, star of radio's "Henry Aldrich" series, who had done some stage directing before he was drafted. For choreographers, Berlin picked Fred Kelly, who ran a dance studio in Pittsburgh and whose best-known pupil was his brother Gene, and Robert Sidney, recommended by Berlin's friend Hassard Short, the 65-year-old British-born director of the 1930s stage classics, The Bandwagon, Face the Music and As Thousands Cheer.
Sidney had danced in the Broadway productions of On Your Toes and The Boys From Syracuse. And he choreographed Short's production of Banjo Eyes starring Eddie Cantor just before he was drafted.
Sidney says that This Is the Army was the greatest emotional experience of his life. "Irving Berlin was a little giant. He was incredible, a monumental talent. He ran our outfit like a civilian general. He once took me to dinner and told me, `Never fight unless you know you can win,' and he knew he could win his disputes with military bureaucrats because he could always call General George Marshall who was his friend. But he was not very warm. He was cautious with people."
Stone was an overweight, serious man who started out as a Berlin fan, then changed his opinion: "I got the full blast of his charm -- very enthusiastic, very warm, very gracious. I was really snowed by him." But Stone became alienated by Berlin's bossy nature. He said Berlin acted as if every wish of his was a military order, and he expected everyone to obey him, promptly. Stone also complained that what interested Berlin most was personal publicity.
Berlin once called a meeting and complained that too many of Ezra's friends were in the show: "too many Jews." Stone was astounded. Could Irving Berlin, who grew up in an observant Jewish household, actually be saying this? Berlin explained that he wanted to avoid the appearance that this was a Jewish show, put on by Jews who were trying to avoid combat. Berlin was afraid of anti-Semitism, which he knew from childhood and his fear was intensified by pro-German propaganda that claimed it was only the Jews who wanted the USA to go to war against Hitler. Berlin was the target of attacks as recently as 1940 when some ministers said that a non-Christian immigrant had no credentials to write a song asking God to bless America. An editorial in the Altamount, Missouri, Times said: "Izzy Balinsky, ex-singing waiter, can't express the real American attitude. [He's part of] the refugee horde."
Actually, there were more Italians than Jews in the This Is the Army company, anyway. Because Berlin and Stone didn't get along, Irving brought in the young corporal Joshua Logan to help with the staging. When the show traveled overseas, Berlin refused to take Stone along, and Bob Sidney became The Army's director.
Brooklyn-born Milton Rosenstock graduated Juilliard. Now he was a 23-year-old corporal and was picked as the musical director. Young Johnny Sternberg was assistant conductor but, he says, "Rosie was a healthy boy and wasn't going to miss any performances, so they assigned me to sell souvenir programs outside the theater." After the war, Jonathan Sternberg became a noted classical conductor. As of 2004 he is the most professionally active of any of the show's alumni, as Music Director of the Bach Festival of Philadelphia and a frequent guest conductor in Europe. Rosenstock was music and vocal director of many Broadway hits until his death.
The stage manager was Alan Anderson, son of playwright Maxwell Anderson. Limelight Editions is about to publish Anderson's memoir, "The Songwriter Goes to War."
The cast included the actors and singers Gary Merrill, Burl Ives, Alan Manson and Jules Oshins. Manson later appeared on Broadway in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Allegro, Paddy Chayesfsky's The Tenth Man, and as Flo Ziegfeld opposite Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl. Oshins worked the Borscht Belt and took over the role of Nathan Detroit when Sam Levene left Guys and Dolls.
Ives had some fame as a folk singer before This Is the Army and starred on his own daily radio program, "The Wayfaring Stranger." While This Is the Army played in New York, Ives got permission to continue with his radio show, in uniform. He would jump into a cab after each broadcast and speed over to the theater where he sang in the This Is the Army chorus, but one night he was late and was given military punishment: a mop and pail, and orders to get on his hands and knees to scrub the bathroom. Even then, Ives was a very big man and the sight of him in this position amused the other soldiers.
Seymour Greene was a trombonist in the band, a large pit orchestra of 44 soldiers. You can see him alongside singer Gertrude Niesen in the opening number of the movie version of This Is the Army. Greene reports that Berlin wanted to make sure the public thought of his troupe as soldiers and not as showbiz performers, so every morning they had to march in formation from their hotel to the theater. "We used our talents as actors and as soldiers, so when we marched, we were the smartest-looking outfit you ever saw."
Berlin tried to get a theater managed by the Shubert brothers at a cut rate for This Is the Army. The Shuberts had hired Berlin early in his career and found the composer to be a demanding person about money. J.J. Shubert wrote: "As far as Irving Berlin is concerned, I would certainly make him pay for everything and not give him any concessions whatsoever. He always was a dirty little rat. He forgets that we gave him his first chance and did everything for him."
The abrasive side of Berlin's personality annoyed people like Stone and the Shuberts. But he had a kind side, too. Greene showed me a letter that Irving mailed to Greene's mother when the company was performing in the Italian war zone. Berlin wrote:
"I returned from Italy a few days ago, and this note is to tell you that Seymour is fine and in wonderful spirits... Seymour wanted me to give you his love, so here it is along with my very best wishes."
Anderson says: "Berlin was tough because he grew up poor and sang in the streets for pennies to feed his family. He learned to be a tough guy and to take care of himself. He told me that he needed to fight for his rights in the business, but he kept his family life separate and different."
Berlin used his toughness to achieve racial integration. Anderson says that Berlin told the Army about the blacks in the company: "They eat with us, they sleep with us, or we ain't going."
Berlin took the cast of This Is the Army into Decca's recording studio at the end of July to capture some of the music and skits for history. The American Federation of Musicians announced a ban against all phonograph recording effective July 31, 1942. Berlin argued that his show should be exempted from the ban because it was a military project. But most of the army musicians were members of Local 802 in New York from before the war, and they were afraid they'd never get jobs after the war if they defied the union. By finishing the sessions on July 30, This Is the Army beat the deadline and averted a confrontation. Union head James Petrillo said the ban would last "forever" because records hurt the market for live music. It actually lasted about a year until each record company settled separately by paying into a musicians' trust fund.
This Is the Army ran three months on Broadway, and then Berlin wanted to take it to audiences around the country. First stop on the road was Washington, D.C., and Eleanor Roosevelt was in the first-night audience. The President attended a Saturday night show. Secret Service men frisked all the This Is the Army soldiers to make sure they didn't carry weapons. They even searched inside the orchestra's violin cases. FDR invited the cast to the White House after the performance, and he stayed up til 1:30 shaking hands with all 359 men in the company.
"I was so thrilled that I didn't want to wash my hand afterwards," says theater writer Max Wilk, who was a private assigned to publicizing the show. "The President steered his wheelchair to us," says Bob Sidney, "and told each of us that he enjoyed what we did. But Eleanor was even more fantastic. She took us on a tour of the White House and told the Secret Service men, `Relax. These are our boys. There's no danger.'"
Sidney says that FDR was "a great hero to all of us." Wilk adds: "I couldn't wait to call my mother and tell her that I met the President."
Berlin admired the inspiration Roosevelt was giving the country. His early songs celebrated the common working man, and only later did Berlin become conservative on economic and social issues. He supported Roosevelt for a third term (and, later, for a fourth) while his wife campaigned publicly for FDR.
Saturday, November 28, 1942, was the last night of This Is the ArmyÆs engagement in Boston. Wilk had arranged for everyone to go to the huge Cocoanut Grove nightclub for dinner after the closing curtain. A major told the men: "I don't care about your party. None of you goes until we get the sets struck and everything packed onto the trucks." The men complained as they had to wait at the theater. But the major's order saved them from a horrible catastrophe. They just missed being inside the Cocoanut Grove when a fire broke out around 11 that night, destroying the building and killing 492 people, many of them soldiers and sailors about to go overseas.
The national tour ended in San Francisco in February 1943. Then the troupe went to Los Angeles to film the movie version. They marched in formation every day to the studio, and they had orders to never approach actresses. The movie version reduced the comic skits and introduced a personal story of a veteran from World War I, played by George Murphy. Ronald Reagan also has a featured role. The hawkish Berlin lyric, "Dressed Up to Kill," is changed to the milder "Dressed Up to Win." The ending has marching soldiers criss-crossing the screen with incredibly corny choreography which most Americans in 1942 thought was inspirational.
Anderson's wife gave birth to a son just before filming began. Berlin wrote a new song for the movie, dedicated to him, "What Does He Look Like, That Boy of Mine?" After the film, This Is the Army got ready to travel to Europe. Berlin wrote more songs for the foreign productions. "After a show opens," he wrote, "you can still keep polishing, trying little twists you hadn't thought of before... I like that feeling. I sit up most of the night writing."
Mary Ellin Berlin tells of the day her dad left to go overseas: "In the fall of 1943, my father said goodbye to all of us -- big hugs, no fuss now. And he was off in an Army plane to London to open This is the Army at the Palladium." Irving wrote "My British Buddy" for that opening.
The company for overseas was smaller -- only about 150 men, and the orchestra was "only" 26, still larger than any Broadway show. They received combat instruction and were issued small arms and rifles. When This Is the Army played in London, royalty and military brass often came back to meet the troupe -- the king, queen, the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and European monarchs who were living in exile in England.
"Vivienne Leigh came backstage," Sidney recalls, "and because of wartime shortages, she didn't have any makeup. She looked very plain. So I gave her some of our theatrical makeup. But don't think we had a soft assignment, because every night we had Nazi air raids."
In Liverpool, the company continued with a performance even after a parachute bomb burst through the theater roof and hung suspended by its strings, un-detonated, from the ceiling.
Then to North Africa where General Eisenhower was preparing for D-Day. American troops landed near Salerno, Italy, on September 9, 1943, and This Is the Army arrived a few days later. After the capture of Naples on October 1, the company bunked in what had been King Victor Emmanuele's palace. The Nazi air force bombed and strafed it every night. The Nazi army under General Kesselring put up a strong defense and it took until June 1944 for Rome to be liberated.
Then This Is the Army played the Rome Opera House. "Men were brought in relays (from the front lines) to see the show," said Alan Manson. "They thought they were going to see an accordion player and a broad shaking her ass. But we gave them an enormous show with 150 men." John Koenig, the set designer, said: "The GI's are not timid with applause; they whistle, yell and roar approval." Berlin wrote "The Fifth Army's Where My Heart Is" for this campaign.
In the bellies of C-47s, the company flew back to London for a performance for General Eisenhower. Then the troupe went to the Mid East, South Asia and Pacific Islands. The routine was two shows a day, usually six days a week, and Berlin also made hospital appearances and visited officers clubs. Berlin flew back to the USA in the summer of 1944 to take care of his neglected business interests and to see his family. Before he temporarily left the tour, Berlin asked for the names of parents and wives, and when he got home he called or wrote to every family to say, "your boy is fine and he sends his love." While he was gone, "Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" was dropped from the show.
The rest of the troupe went to Egypt in August for an extended booking at the Cairo Opera House. Then they went to Iran, where they spent the High Holy Days in 1944. Some of the Jewish soldiers were invited to the home of a White Russian who had moved to Iran and become a vodka manufacturer. They had a relaxing mid-day dinner, with a Russian violinist and loud singing, until the soldiers had to leave to do their show that night.
Christmas Day 1944 the soldiers were on board the General Mann from India to Australia, and they had a nondescript beef stew dinner. Afterwards they sang Berlin's "White Christmas," including the verse about being in a hot and sunny place and dreaming of being back home. The composer was en route by plane. He re-joined the company a few days later and arranged for a turkey dinner to celebrate the New Year on the island of New Guinea.
In the Pacific, the This is the Army company traveled in a cargo ship, the Liberator, that they found in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia. During this period, Berlin shared cramped quarters with his men. One evening on the sea between New Guinea and Luzon, Bob Sidney was on deck talking with the skipper when they both saw a periscope. "My heart stopped," says Sidney. "I said to the Dutchman that I presume it's one of ours, and he said `No. It's not.' I thought it was going to torpedo us and kill us all. But because we had a Dutch flag and looked harmless, they just followed us for a day, then let us go." Greene adds: "Our ship was only 240 feet a long, too insignificant for them to bother with."
Berlin spent that time composing a new song that he'd insert into the show: "Heaven Watch the Phillippines." When Berlin talked with the men, it was always about show business or company business. You'd never hear Berlin in an intellectual discussion. Anderson says he never even talked about sports. "Music, and his family, were his whole life," says Anderson. "Most of the day, he'd sit and write songs." Except for the day of the submarine spotting, Berlin also liked to jump off the deck and swim in the Pacific.
Life on the ship wasn't easy. There was no refrigeration and everything the men ate was dehydrated powder or out of a tin can.
On each island, the men set up a stage and performed, sometimes for big crowds and sometimes for just a small detachment of American soldiers, sailors or marines. "They pulled our audiences out of fox holes," says Greene, "and some of them had non-regulation beards. After each show, we'd get back on our ship and sail towards the next island." Berlin wrote one more song, the last to be added to the show: "Oh to Be Home Again."
American armies invaded the main Philippine island of Luzon in January 1945, Iwo Jima in February, and Okinawa on April 1. Greene remembers celebrating Passover of 1945 at sea. "Our supply sergeant, who wasn't even Jewish, bought some matzoh in Australia, I got some wine from a Catholic chaplain, and we had a seder on the ship. Alan Manson led it, and I was the youngest soldier at 21 so I chanted the ma-nish ta-na-- traditionally done by the youngest child."
Did Berlin ever get tired of appearing on stage? "Never. He loved it. He lived for it," says Sidney. Often the audience asked Berlin to sing "White Christmas" as an encore.
Berlin left again in July 1945 because Paramount needed him in Hollywood to supervise the score of "Blue Skies," which was about to start filming.
On the island of Saipan in early August, the troupe saw bombers taking off and the next day learned that one of them dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Within a week, the war came to an end. The final performance of This Is the Army was in Hawaii on October 22, 1945, seven weeks after Japan surrendered. Berlin rejoined the company, sang "Oh How I hate to Get Up in the Morning," and spoke at the end of the show, saying he hoped he would never again have to write another war song. Shortly after that, the soldiers were flown back to San Francisco in a group of small planes, then discharged.
Berlin got back to the USA ahead of them. One of the first things he did was again call and write to families to tell them that their sons were fine. In this and in many other ways, Berlin was an interesting combination of autocratic and democratic, of self-promoting and considerate.
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