the rank of Sergeant, and was then sent off on a driving course.
That move precipitated a dramatic reversion to type: he proceeded to drive a large lorry full of soldiers through a hedge and into a tree. A certain loss of nerve was suffered as a consequence â not just on Howardâs part, but also on that of his superiors â and he was shunted discreetly sideways to a role in which he could be trusted to do less damage.
There was little time, however, for further mishaps â at least on English soil. On 6 June 1944, Howard and his comrades boarded a merchant ship and set sail for Normandy as part of the D-Day dawn invasion force. Heavy seas prevented the vessel from disembarking its troops, and so it was left to wallow in its swell for no fewer than eleven days while the first wave of the invasion pressed on ahead. Howard â who was meant to be up on a conning tower manning a Bren gun â spent much of this frustrating and unnerving period coiled up on the floor, suffering from a combination of suspected influenza, undeniable seasickness and a mild form of malnutrition.
When, at last, he was back on dry ground, he was informed that he was being posted to Lille in northern France. âAnyone speak French?â enquired an officer. Howard, somewhat impetuously, replied that, as he had been to a half-decent grammar school, he could manage the odd word. âWeâre a bit short, Sergeant,â the officer said, âso youâre an interpreter.â47 Before Howard had a chance to splutter any kind of protest, he was transferred to Brussels as part of the Military Establishment.
âWho are we governing?â he asked an officer when he arrived. âThe Germans soon,â came the confident reply, âbecause weâre winning the war.â âWell,â said Howard, looking only a little less anxious than before, âthatâs one blessing, anyway.â48
There were plenty of scrapes and narrow escapes. On one ostensibly straightforward assignment, for example, Howard accompanied a Major to a nearby village in order to ascertain how many women there were pregnant (and thus qualified as a priority for the soon-to-be-distributed food). The snag was that Howard the interpreter had absolutely no idea what word was French for âpregnantâ, and so, in haste, he assumed a heavy Charles Boyer-style accent, improvised a phrase that he believed mistakenly to mean more or less the same sort of thing â âNous voulons savoir si une femme voulons avoir un enfant?â49 â and ended up asking a succession of women not if they were having a baby, but, rather, did they want to have a baby. Unsurprisingly, he and the Major were chased out of the village by a group of angry husbands brandishing cudgels, pitchforks and shotguns, and then, on their way back to camp, they almost got themselves lost hopelessly in a dense sea of fog.
The next thing that Howard did was to appear to liberate the Netherlands. As usual, it happened by accident.
The Germans were in the process of capitulation, and, on 5 May 1945, a convoy of Allied vehicles was due to set off from Brussels to enter the Dutch legislative centre. When the dawdling Howard was urged to hurry up and get into one of the cars, he chose, without the slightest hesitation, the one right at the front: âIt seemed logical.â50 At some point en route, however, all of the vehicles lining up behind fell foul of navigational errors and disappeared from sight, leaving Sergeant Frankie Howard to enter The Hague alone in a chauffeur-driven staff car and be mobbed by a mass of grateful citizens (âthe most appreciative audience Iâve ever had!â51).
As this surreal little period continued, Howard was sent with a young Army Captain to Stade, near Hamburg, to form a two-man Military Government. The Captain, facing one taxing challenge too many, promptly suffered a nervous breakdown, leaving a panicky Howard to tap out a signal for help. Reinforcements duly arrived, swelling the risibly under-manned Government of two to a risibly over-manned Government of 200. Howard, relieved to find that his services were no longer urgently needed, redirected his efforts towards the far happier task of entertaining.
He organised yet another concert party. He tried, unsuccessfully, to inveigle a fleeting appearance in a movie â Basil Deardenâs The Captive Heart â that he heard was being shot further âup the roadâ in the British Occupation Zone. He performed the occasional one-man show. He did all of the things that he most enjoyed being able to do.
As far as Howardâs Commanding Officer was concerned, he was pushing at an open door. During the summer of 1946, the War Office began a process whereby all of the old individual service entertainment bodies â including ENSA, Stars in Battledress, Ralph Readerâs RAF Gang Shows and the many and various concert parties â were gradually merged to form a new, all-embracing, post-war organisation called the Combined Services Entertainment unit (or âCSEâ for short). With more than thirty separate shows to stage, the need for new talent was acute, and Howardâs CO, hearing that the next audition was about to be held in nearby Nienburg, urged the obsessive performer to travel there and try his luck. âWith my record,â groaned Howard, âIâll be back tomorrow.â His CO was more sanguine: âMaybe youâll be lucky this time.â52
Howard drove there in a lorry. Although he had not applied for an audition, he managed to get his name added to the list, and just after lunch, before there had been any time for the customary build-up of nerves, he was instructed to take his turn in front of the judges.
There were two people in particular whom he had to impress. One was the officer in charge of CSE productions in Germany and Austria, Major Richard Stone: a former actor who would go on to become one of Britainâs leading theatrical agents.53 The other was Stoneâs assistant, Captain Ian Carmichael: a RADA graduate with a long and illustrious performing career ahead of him.54
Howardâs routine revolved, somewhat idiosyncratically, around an old Ella Fitzgerald number called âA-Tisket, A-Tasketâ. Holding a slightly bent, smouldering Woodbine between the first two fingers of his shaky right hand, he interspersed the verses â
A-tisket, a-tasket
A brown-and-yellow basket I sent a letter to my mummy
On the way I dropped it.
I dropped it, I dropped it Yes on the way I dropped it A little girlie picked it up And put it in her pocket.
â with his usual brand of rambling interjections, before bringing the song screeching to a close:
Tisket, tasket, I lost my yellow basket
Oh someone help me find my basket
Make me happy again, again.
(Was it red?) No, no, no, no!
(Was it brown?) No, no, no, no!
(Was it blue?) No, no, no, no!
No, just a little yellow basket
A little yellow basket!55
âThank you very much,â Major Stone said with the standard politely inscrutable smile, and then, once Howard had departed
