We rightly remember our Armed Forces at the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph each year, but spare a thought for the unsung civilian performers who lifted the spirits of the servicemen and women during the war. Since 2000, ENSA has been represented at the Cenotaph, and this year, a handful of people, including Alan Crowe, Suzie Cliff, and The Ronnie Singers, will be there. This brief article explains why we should remember ENSA and discusses how these troupers helped the war effort.
The entertainment industry, along with many other parts of society, was mobilised during 1939-45, reflecting Britain’s ‘Total War’.[1] However, unlike other industries, professional entertainers were not deemed a reserved occupation and so primarily relied on volunteers who were outside of conscription age.[2] Consequently, the performers who made up most ENSA troupes were often very young women and men over the age of 41. Despite this, by 1944, over 4000 artists were performing with ENSA in all theatres of war involving British soldiers.[3] The vast majority of these artists were not famous and performed out of a sense of duty, rather than seeking publicity. They had volunteered to do their ‘bit’ for the war, working on relatively low wages, whilst suffering long, arduous journeys overseas, discomfort, sometimes dangerous conditions, and sickness.[4] Far from home in a strange, unfriendly place, these performers suppressed their own concerns and put on a smile and a show for the troops each day (often several times a day). This required its own form of bravery.
How did ENSA support the war effort, particularly helping those troops serving abroad? Maintaining morale is a common response, but it needs to be unpacked a bit. Collie Knox described it well writing in 1947:
“When a man is far from home, sizzled by the eastern sun, and browned off in every direction, his sense of proportion, never perhaps his strongest point is apt to fray at the edges. He suspects his wife in England of ceaseless infidelities, his sweetheart of burning passion for Americans and Poles, his fellow-men of forgetfulness and apathy, his Government of inertia, and his immediate Commanders of plots against his well-being, his family, his health, and his future. To say nothing of his beer and cigarettes.”
Entertainment was a form of welfare and as such, it “links the civilian and Service man to relieve the latter’s anxieties, so that he may be free to give his whole self to his duties as a fighting man.”[5] In this way, ENSA contributed to the ability of servicemen and women to fight more effectively. Entertainment provided a sense of connection to home. During the war, many of the British troops serving overseas felt that they had been forgotten by the civilians at home.[6] Seeing civilian performers enduring hardship to travel overseas to entertain the troops was seen as a morale booster.[7] ENSA performers often spent as much time speaking to members of their audience after their acts as they did up on stage. Other ways in which entertainment helped the troops were by combating boredom, making them feel valued, and boosting esprit de corps through shared experiences.
Whilst ENSA was unforgivably left out of the Victory March of 8 June 1946, the letters of gratitude sent by senior military commanders after the war speak for themselves.[8] In his memoir, Basil Dean, the Director of ENSA (see "Bastard Basil of Drury Lane"), discusses the acknowledgement of ENSA's important role during the war from General Alexander, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and Monty.[9] General McCreery, Army Commander of the British Army of the Rhine, wrote:
“The troops, at a time when it was very necessary to combat conditions which might easily have led to a deterioration of morale, were thus able to enjoy first class entertainment from home. This has been a very important contribution. On behalf of all ranks I should like to express sincere gratitude for the work you and your staff have done and I should be grateful if this could be conveyed to them.”[10]
ENSA’s service was also recognised by the US Army, as this extract from Major General Bolling shows:
“The passing of ENSA will, as you suggest, be noted with considerable regret on the part of the large number of Americans who enjoyed their shows during the war years on all the fighting fronts. As you know, in numerous instances ENSA was in a better position to provide entertainment for US troops than our own units, and on these occassions the British shows did an unselfish and magnificent job. For this ENSA will always have our warmest gratitude and admiration.”[11]
For all the ENSA troupers who served their country in the best way they knew how, Collie Knox summed it up better than I can:
“Their names still remain nationally unknown, but their reward lies in the solace they have brought to tired and entertainment-starved people. And by many a weary, homesick soldier, they will be remembered. Thus their reward is great.”[12]
Despite this contribution to the war effort, no permanent memorial exists to ENSA today. However, Alan Crowe is raising money to rectify this by establishing a legacy dedicated to these performers at the National Memorial Arboretum.
You can find out more about the ENSA Memorial charity here. I hope you agree that they deserve to be remembered.
[1] William J. Philpott, ‘Total War’, in Palgrave Advances in Modern Military History, ed. by Matthew Hughes and William James Philpott, Palgrave Advances (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 131–52.
[2] Tony Lidington, ‘Don’t Forget the Pierrots!’: The Complete History of British Pierrot Troupes and Concert Parties (Routledge, 2023), p. 133; Basil Dean, The Theatre at War (George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, 1956), p. 230.
[3] Richard Fawkes, Fighting for a Laugh: Entertaining the British and American Armed Forces, 1939-1946 (Macdonald and Jane’s, 1978), p. 14.
[4] See other posts on the experience of the performers - https://matteatonmedia.substack.com/p/remembering-vivien-hole-ensas-fallen, https://matteatonmedia.substack.com/p/the-day-the-show-almost-stopped
[5] Brigadier M.C. Morgan, C.B.E., M.C., p.s.c., ‘WO 277/4 Army Welfare 1939-1945’, TNA [The National Archives], The War Office, 1953, p. 173, WO 277/4: Army Welfare 1939-1945, 1953.
[6] Daniel Todman, Britain’s War: A New World, 1942-1947 (Penguin Books, 2021), p. 426; Alan Allport, Browned off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War, 1939-1945 (Yale University Press, 2017), p. 133; Charles Whiting, Poor Bloody Infantry (Stanley Paul, 1987), p. 196.
[7] Professor Edgar Jones, ‘Morale, Psychological Wellbeing of UK Armed Forces and Entertainment: A Report for The British Forces Foundation’, King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Kings College London, January 2012, p. 11 <https://bff.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Morale_Report_BFF_screen.pdf> [accessed 16 April 2024].
[8] Fawkes, Fighting for a Laugh, p. 13; Lidington, Don’t Forget the Pierrots!, p. 253.
[9] Dean, The Theatre at War, p. 532.
[10] Letter from General McCreery to Basil Dean, 16 September 1946, ‘Basil Dean Private Papers: DEA 5 - ENSA Papers’, Rylands Research Institute, Manchester, n.d., fol. 5/1/388, Rylands Research Institute, DEA 5.
[11] Letter from A.R. Bolling, Major General, USA, Theatre Chief of Special Services to Basil Dean, 29 May 1946, ‘Basil Dean Private Papers: DEA 5 - ENSA Papers’, fol. 5/1/49.
[12] Collie Knox, It Had to Be Me (Methuen & Co Ltd, 1947), p. 173.