Phil Harris's Wartime Service

[Roman]

We've all heard stories about the men and women who enlisted in the armed forces after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and about the large number of prominent actors, such as James Stewart, Clark Gable, Jackie Coogan, and Robert Montgomery, who put Hollywood aside to serve their country (frequently in dangerous combat situations).

Phil Harris is another who volunteered for service during the war. If you've listened to the Benny Program, you know that Phil and members of his orchestra left the show in December 1942 when Phil enlisted in the Merchant Marines. I don't know how many realize that Phil was 38 years old when he enlisted - much older than most volunteers. As his first daughter had just been born, by age and by family status, he was certainly exempt from the draft. And the Merchant Marines was no easy job in the early years of the war. While I don't know much about Phil's specific service during the war, the Merchant Marines took enormous casualties during the first years of the war as they guarded our oceanic shipping against German and Japanese submarine attack.

While we justly remember Phil's musical, acting and comedy gifts, we should also recall that there was much more to Phil Harris than his work in front of a microphone.

[Brad]

[quote="Roman"]While I don't know much about Phil's specific service during the war, the Merchant Marines took enormous casualties during the first years of the war as they guarded our oceanic shipping against German and Japanese submarine attack.
quote]

The Phil Harris - Alice Faye program is one of my favorites - some of the later shows feature Phil's warm-up act to his studio audience. In his warm-up, Phil acknowledges the servicemen in the audience with respect, and mentions that he was in the Merchant Marines during the war, participating in the "Battle of Catalina."

I presume this to mean he (and his orchestra) were entertaining servicemen training on/near Catalina during the war. A very noble thing to do for a near-middle aged man with an infant daughter.

[LLeff]

I presume this to mean he (and his orchestra) were entertaining servicemen training on/near Catalina during the war. A very noble thing to do for a near-middle aged man with an infant daughter.

I do have to wonder if there was any pressure from the listeners, since Phil's hard drinking and flirtatiousness make his character seem younger than he actually was. So I wonder if there were letters of people who couldn't quite separate the character from reality and were suggesting that Phil leave the bottle and go to serve his country in her time of need. Same with Dennis, sans the bottle.

[Roman]

You raise a larger issue that just Phil's and Dennis's service. There was large popular pressure on everyone under the age of 35 or 40 to enlist. While the famous who enlisted were, I'm sure, motivated by patriotism, they also risked the public's scorn if they didn't enlist.

The great Red Sox player Ted Williams very reluctantly enlisted in 1943 after taking a fair amount of abuse in 1942 for not doing so (the irony here, of course, is that Williams served far and above the call of duty - he served as a fighter pilot during the war and then took off two more years during the Korean War where he again flew combat missions. John Wayne was booed by soldiers in 1944 during a visit to a military hospital in Hawaii because he hadn't joined the military. And I can recall my father lambasting Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope years after the war as "draft dodgers" because they hadn't enlisted (despite the fact that Hope was even older than Phil Harris).

I imagine that Dennis must have felt very uncomfortable in the period before he joined the navy in 1944, especially after the older Harris left the show. It's hard today to imagine the degree of public pressure that men under the age of 40 faced to join the military.

[LLeff]

I imagine that Dennis must have felt very uncomfortable in the period before he joined the navy in 1944, especially after the older Harris left the show. It's hard today to imagine the degree of public pressure that men under the age of 40 faced to join the military.

I believe I was watching "Band of Brothers" (an amazing series, BTW) and there was discussion by the original veterans of how some young men wanted so badly to enlist that when some ailment eliminated them, they wanted to commit suicide. There are many stories of Sinatra being the target of criticism (and even tomatoes...although I think that was just a picture of him) for not being in the military.

Considering Jack's letter advocating (unsuccessfully) to keep Bill Morrow out of the service, I'd imagine Jack would not have been afraid to advocate for Phil/Dennis to keep them out of the service, citing their criticality to his program which was good for national morale. But as you noted, those who did successfully avoid serving (for valid reasons or no) were often held in low regard as a result.

I offer no comments about the current situation, as I don't want this to become a political discussion. But it's interesting to compare such strong pressure to enlist in WWII vs. the public demonstrations against it in Vietnam. Does anyone remember people leaving a television program in the 60s because they had to enlist or were drafted?

[shimp scrampi]

The first instance I can think of when a lot of public sentiment went in the other direction was when Elvis Presley was drafted - a lot of fans wrote to the Army asking that Elvis be exempted from the draft. Of course that was 1957 or 1958 - so the US was not in active armed conflict, which changes the equation some.

Now that I think about it, an Elvis and Phil duet would really be something! I wonder if there's some lost Sun Studios recording of "That's What I Like About the South" by Mr. Presley...

[Roman]

I think the World War II pro-enlistment fervor was the exception, not the rule, in our history. Before 1940, we only had a draft during the last couple of years of the Civil War and then one year at the end of the First World War. So the draft and enlisting (voluntarily or not) was not a regular feature of American life during most of our history (the same has been true since 1971 when the draft came to an end and we went back to an all-volunteer military). And as shimp scrampi (love that name - I get hungry every time I read it) notes, the WWII fervor for enlisting had certainly waned by Elvis's time and I don't need to begin recalling the Vietnam War era.

Whether Phil Harris enlisted because of popular pressure or because of patriotic fervor (or perhaps because of both factors) and whether he served mostly by entertaining a la Glenn Miller, or by taking on more dangerous duties like Jimmy Stewart and Robert Montgomery, is not important. The fact is that he served voluntarily at an age when he didn't have to, he endured a separation from a family that he cherished, and he placed his job security at risk not knowing whether the public would still remember him when he returned to civilian life. That's all a great credit to his memory.

[shimp scrampi]

And as shimp scrampi (love that name - I get hungry every time I read it) notes

Well, I'm an uncreative cautionary tale in choosing an username...mercifully I wasn't eating Moo Goo Gai Pan the day I signed up for the board!

[Jack Benny]

You can hit me with something heavy after this post, but I've always thought that since Phil was only gone for, what was it? 16 weeks?, anyway, I always thought that he found a way to enlist in a way that would least affect his career. I also though he was younger and could have been drafted into the infantry, and he has avaoiding that major commitment to the war by serving such a small time in the? What branch of the seveive was it? I want to say Merchant Marines, but that can't be right can it?.

[Roman]

Phil Harris served in the Merchant Marines for about a year. At the age of 38 and with a child, he was clearly exempt from the draft under the rules in place during World War II. If he had been younger and hadn't had a child, he would have been eligible to be drafted by the army. The Army was the only branch of the armed forces that drafted people; the other branches were comprised solely of volunteers. But the Army didn't tell you when you were drafted which part of the Army you would be assigned so it is not true that Phil - even if he had been draft-eligible - would have been selected for the infantry. The Army made those decisions AFTER you were inducted.

The key point about Phil is that he did not have to serve in the Merchant Marines or any other branch of the armed forces. He was a volunteer. The fact that he served for only a year doesn't change the fact that his entire service was voluntary. And, again, the Merchant Marines was not a "soft" service. Many Merchant Marines lost their lives during the war.