TOKYO — With a weary smile Bob Hope turned to the reporter and said fondly, "No. The GIs haven't changed. Since my first. show, they haven't changed one bit."

Thousands of American servicemen and women stood and cheered Monday at Yokota AB in honest testimonial to those words, as Hope and, his troupe of "American Beauties" and entertainers closed out what will probably be his last Christmas performance in Japan.

The 68-year-old comedian and part-time Santa indicated Sunday that he would probably turn in his transpacific wings and keep future troop entertainment to the confines of Stateside military hospitals.

If it really is Hope's last trip to Japan, his biggest fans — the GIs — let him know that they wished it was only his first.

No. The GIs hadn't changed.

The same "one liners" that etched smiles onto the faces of battle weary soldiers in Korea in 1950, brought them to their feet Monday at Yokota. Only the names and events were different.

"I want to tell you," Hope said in his opening monologue, "the recruiter was right. At Yokota no airman sleeps alone."

Thousands of servicemen, -women, dependents, civilians and others crowded into a cordoned-off section at the south end of .the runway for one last look and listen at the gentleman who has been making .these overseas swings with his troupe since 1945. The last tour Hope made to Japan was in 1968.

During the two-hour performance Monday, Hope didn't ease up once — not with jokes, not with girls, not with anything.

"I like this new mod Army," he said. "You guys are really taking advantage of the service allowing long hair. Some of you look like you're wearing Spiro Agnew divots.

"I even saw a general — I guess he was a general — and he had three stars on his pony tail."

As the laughs started to thin out (along with the monologue) and the scattered shouts of "where are the broads?" turned into chorused pleas, Hope relented and brought on his special corps of "American Beauties" — twelve gorgeous beauty queens and up-and-coming female entertainers from across the nation.

"I had to bring them along, he said. "The plane doesn't have a heater.

"At the auditions I ask the girls only two questions: 'What do you do and how far do you go?'

"All I know is that if the enemy has field glasses on us, he's probably going crazy trying to figure out what that new secret weapon is."

A few thousand GIs knew what the weapon was. The air was too chilly for that many guys to break out in a sweat so fast.

To up the pressure singer-dancer Fran Jeffries forgot her dress and appeared on stage in her underwear — at least that's what the crowd thought.

The local temperature rose at least 10 degrees when Hope brought on singer-dancer-actress Lola Falana. She put her million dollar legs and other parts into action for a sizzling number to the music of Les Brown and his Band of Renown.

Miss World 1973, Belinda Green from Australia, came on strong and shattered all opinions that the only things Australia has to offer are kangaroos and aborigines.

No. The GIs hadn't changed, and neither had Hope.

"Now that President Nixon is in for four more years," he said, "we'll have to wait and see if he expands his chain of White Houses across the country. And the President has already thought of a new slogan that tops McDonald's: 'Over one hundred million voters served."'

It's going to be lonely in the Pacific next year about Christmas time. The man who always used to show up with a pocketful of home probably won't make it back this way.

Things just won't be the same.

Thanks for the memories, Bob.

Migrated