Late in Bing Crosby's life, his nephew Howard asked him a casual question while they were out playing golf together.
"What was the single most difficult thing you ever had to do in your career?"
Howard expected Hollywood stories. Maybe gossip about a demanding director. Perhaps the pressure of a high-stakes film production or a struggle with studio executives.
Bing didn't have to think about it at all.
December 1944. Northern France. The war in Europe was grinding toward its bloody conclusion.
Bing Crosby was on a USO tour, performing for American GIs and British soldiers far from home during the coldest, darkest days of winter.
That night, they set up an open-air stage in a field.
Fifteen thousand soldiers gathered to watch. Bing was joined by Dinah Shore and the Andrews Sisters.
They sang, they joked, they made the men laugh and holler—a brief moment of joy in the middle of a war zone.
Then came the closing number.
"White Christmas."
The song had already become an anthem for homesick soldiers since its release in 1942. It played constantly on Armed Forces Radio. Men who hadn't seen their families in years, who didn't know if they ever would again, heard those opening notes and thought of snow-covered streets and Christmas trees and the homes they'd left behind.
As Bing began to sing, he looked out at the audience. Fifteen thousand men were crying. He had to finish the song. He had to maintain his composure and his vocal control while 15,000 soldiers wept in front of him. He told his nephew it was the toughest thing he ever had to do in his entire career.
What made Bing Crosby's USO performances different from his Hollywood appearances were the small choices he made. He refused to wear his toupee. He hated the thing—called it a "scalp doily"-and wore it only when absolutely necessary for films.
But entertaining troops was different. "If I'm entertaining troops," he said, "I'm not going to wear anything phony like a toupee. Forget it."
He also insisted that officers and brass could not sit in the front rows. Those seats were reserved for enlisted men. The soldiers who would be on the front lines. The men who faced the greatest danger.
A few days after that performance in the field, those same soldiers were sent into combat. The Battle of the Bulge began on December 16, 1944. It was the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in World War II.
The Germans launched a surprise offensive through the Ardennes Forest in a desperate attempt to split the Allied lines. Many of the men who had wept listening to "White Christmas" in that field in France never came home.
Bing Crosby tried to enlist when the war began. He was told he was too old. General George C. Marshall, the Army's chief of staff, told him directly:
"Look, Bing, we don't need you in the front lines. We need you raising money for the war effort." He wasn't just an entertainer to them. He was a piece of home. Bing never forgot it. 🙏♥️
