Bing Crosby struggled to sing White Christmas to troops, most difficult thing in his career

For soldiers in France listening to Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas” in December 1944, home must have seemed far away. The legendary crooner, who first sang the song that reminisces about snowy childhood Christmases, once told his nephew, Howard Crosby, that singing “White Christmas” in front of teary-eyed troops ahead of the Battle of the Bulge was the hardest moment of his professional life.“I asked Uncle Bing one time, ‘What was the single most difficult thing you ever had to do in your career?’ We were out playing golf one day, and I didn’t know what he was going to say,” Howard told Fox News Digital.“I didn’t know if he was going to say, ‘Well, it was, you know, learning lines for the movies or working with a difficult director.’”He continued, “He didn’t have to think about it at all.

He said, ‘Well, 1944, we were over with the USO troupe.’ And he said, ‘We gave an open-air concert for 15,000 GIs and British Tommies in an open-air field in France.'”His uncle told him Dinah Shore and the Andrews Sisters were at the show “‘and we had a lot of laughs and the boys were having a wonderful time, great fun.’ But he said at the end of the show, ‘I had to sing “White Christmas.” And I had to get through the song with 15,000 guys in tears and not break up myself.'”“And a lot of those boys died the next week in the Battle of the Bulge,” Howard added. He said his uncle loved entertaining troops, considering it his patriotic duty. The “High Society” star even tried to enlist but was told he was too old. Howard said that Gen.George C.

Marshall, the chief of staff of the Army at the time, told him, “‘Look, Bing, we don’t need you in the front lines.We need you raising money for the war effort.’ So, I think he looked at it as a patriotic duty, and I think he also felt like a special kinship with the boys that we’re serving.” Howard said that when Bing performed for the troops, he refused to ...