- - Bing Crosby Choked Back Tears as He Performed 'White Christmas' for WWII Soldiers. Days Later, Many of Those Troops Were Killed

Victoria EdelDecember 25, 2025 at 2:00 AM

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Bing Crosby singing circa 1945 -

Bing Crosby once shared with his nephew his most difficult ever performance of "White Christmas"

Crosby said he struggled to keep it together as he sang the song for crying soldiers during World War II

The song became an anthem for American soldiers abroad during the war

Bing Crosby’s rendition of “White Christmas” became particularly emotional for soldier serving in World War II — leading to one of the most challenging performance of Bing’s life.

Bing’s nephew Howard opened up about the song and his uncle in a 2016 interview with The Spokesman-Review. Bing, who died in 1977 at the age of 74, was born in Tacoma, Wash. and raised in Spokane. His childhood home is now a museum on the campus of his alma mater Gonzaga University.

Bing performed “White Christmas” for the first time in 1942’s Holiday Inn, which featured music by Irving Berlin. The movie was released in August, and “White Christmas” picked up steam through the fall into the holiday season.

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Bring Crosby singing on 'The Bing Crosby Show' in December 1953

“The song became a hit in the winter of 1942, when it was embraced by homesick American GIs as a symbol of the country to which they longed to return and the values they were fighting to defend,” Jody Rosen, author of the 2002 book White Christmas, wrote, per The New York Times. “It was the war's unlikely anthem: a ‘Why We Fight’ song in which the fight was never mentioned.” It played often on Armed Forces radio.

“White Christmas” won the Oscar for Best Original Song and became the best-selling single of all time (a record it still holds). Though dozens of artists have covered it, Bing’s baritone was the voice most people associated with it.

During the war, Bing made live appearances for troops who were serving in Europe. Howard told The Spokesman-Review, “I once asked Uncle Bing about the most difficult thing he ever had to do during his entertainment career. He didn’t have to think about it. He said in December, 1944, he was in a USO show with Bob Hope and the Andrews Sisters. They did an outdoor show in northern France.”

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From left: Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney in 'White Christmas'.

“White Christmas,” of course, was performed. “At the end of the show, he had to stand there and sing ‘White Christmas’ with 100,000 G.I.’s in tears without breaking down himself,” Howard said.

“Of course, a lot of those boys were killed in the Battle of the Bulge a few days later.” The Battle of the Bulge took place from Dec. 16, 1944 to Jan. 25, 1945 and began with a surprise attack by the Nazis. It was the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States during the war, but after the battle was over, the Nazis never made an offensive attack again.

Crosby performed “White Christmas” again in the 1954 film White Christmas, which also starred Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. Perhaps appropriately, given the song’s link to WWII, the plot of the film sees Crosby and Kaye as two former soldiers who have a traveling show and perform it, in part, to honor their old general. At the end, they celebrate the white New England Christmas they longed for years earlier. The New York Times wrote of the song “White Christmas in 1953 simply, “It is a national institution.”

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