After 27 years and three wars, there wouldn't seem to have been any surprises left for Bob Hope, 64, in his Christmas tours for the troops. So they loaded him into a twin-engined C-2A "Cod" and fired him off the catapult of the carrier Ranger (acceleration from zero to 120 m.p.h. in three seconds), whomping him down on the nearby Coral Sea with the aid of an arresting hook. Hope came away laughing, but just barely. "I haven't felt a hook like that since vaudeville," he told 2,500 gleeful sailors. "I think I lost twelve fillings, and if you see a...
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