Read Beat (...and repeat)
If you're like me, you like to know things but how much time to invest? That's the question. Here's the answer: Read Beat--Interviews with authors of new releases. These aren't book reviews but short (about 25-30 minutes on the average) chats with folks that usually have taken a lot of time to research a topic, enough to write a book about it. Hopefully, there's a topic or two that interests you. I try to come up with subjects that fascinate me or I need to know more about. Hopefully, listeners will agree. I'm Steve Tarter, former reporter for the Peoria Journal Star and a contributor to WCBU-FM, the Peoria public radio outlet, from 20202 to 2024. I post regularly on stevetarter.substack.com.
Read Beat (...and repeat)
“Jeep Show: A Trouper at the Battle of the Bulge” by Robert B. O’Connor
It’s been 80 years since the bloodiest battle of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge, a five-week struggle that started during the Christmas season of 1944 that took 19,000 American lives in fighting in the densely wooded Ardennes region of Germany.
It was Germany’s last stand, said O’Connor, who drew on considerable research of that battle in Jeep Show, a novel that focuses on the U.S. Army’s troupe of performers who put on small variety acts for combat infantry just behind the front lines.
While the USO entertained troops throughout the war in larger productions with stars such as Bob Hope, the Andrews Sisters and Dinah Shore, the Jeep shows, so named because performers often arrived in a Jeep, were smaller affairs designed to reach the fighting men on the front line or at air bases.
It was entertainment in a hurry and sometimes risky. Jeep shows performed in forward areas too dangerous for USO shows or the Red Cross. The war also demanded a lot from the entertainers. Sometimes Jeep show teams would put on as many as 11 shows in a day, said O’Connor.
Mickey Rooney, one of the central figures in O’Connor’s story, was a real-life Jeep show squad leader during the war, earning a Bronze Star for his service. Other Jeep show performers, not all well-known at the time, who went on to stardom included Mel Brooks, Red Buttons, Burt Lancaster, Dick Van Dyke, and Sammy Davis Jr., said O’Connor.
“Sammy Davis Jr. may have been the first black man to integrate the U.S. Army since the service was still segregated at the time,” O’Connor noted.
“(Jeep show) performances served as more than just entertainment. They were beacons of hope bringing moments of song, dance and laughter to weary troops, letting them know they weren’t forgotten,” said the author.
O’Connor said he originally planned a non-fiction account on Jim Hetzer, a West Virginia dance instructor assigned to the Army's Morale Corps as an Entertainment Specialist. Attached to a Jeep show squad in Europe, Hetzer often worked with Private Mickey Rooney.
With access to dozens of letters Hetzer wrote during the war that described the Jeep show experience, O'Connor said he opted for the historical novel approach in order to engage younger readers.
“It seems odd to call a World War II novel 'delightful,' but that's exactly what you get with O'Connor's mix of history and fiction as battles rage on and enlisted men entertain the troops,” cited Kirkus Reviews.
