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Jimmy Stewart

Richard Cranium

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Got this emailed to me today...........






Months after winning his 1941 Academy Award for best actor in “The Philadelphia Story,” Jimmy Stewart, left Hollywood and joined the US Army. He was the first big-name movie star to enlist in World War II.

An accomplished private pilot, the 33-year-old Hollywood icon became a US Army Air Force aviator, earning his 2nd Lieutenant commission in early 1942. With his celebrity status, he was assigned to attending rallies and training younger pilots.

Stewart, however, wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to fly combat missions. By 1944, frustrated and feeling the war was passing him by, he asked his commanding officer to transfer him to a unit deploying to Europe. His request was reluctantly granted.

Stewart, now a Captain, was sent to England, where he spent the next 18 months flying B-24 Liberator bombers over Germany. Top brass tried to keep the popular movie star from flying over enemy territory. But Stewart would hear nothing of it.

Determined to lead by example, he assigned himself to every combat mission he could. By the end of the war he was one of the most respected and decorated pilots in his unit. But his wartime service came at a high personal price.

In the final months of WWII he was grounded for being “flak happy,” today called Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD).

When he returned to the US in August 1945, Stewart was a changed man. He had lost so much weight that he looked sickly. He rarely slept, and when he did he had nightmares of planes exploding and men falling through the air screaming (in one mission alone his unit had lost 13 planes and 130 men, most of whom he knew personally).

He was depressed, couldn’t focus, and refused to talk to anyone about his war experiences. His acting career was all but over.

As one of Stewart's biographers put it, "Every decision he made [during the war] was going to preserve life or cost lives. He took back to Hollywood all the stress that he had built up.”

In 1946 he got his break. He took the role of George Bailey, the suicidal father in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Actors and crew of the set realized that in many of the disturbing scenes of George Bailey unraveling in front of his family, Stewart wasn’t acting. His PTSD was being captured on film for millions to see.

But despite Stewart's inner turmoil, making the movie was therapeutic for the combat veteran. He would go on to become one of the most accomplished and loved actors in American history.

When asked in 1941 why he wanted to leave his acting career to fly combat missions over Nazi Germany, he said, "This country's conscience is bigger than all the studios in Hollywood put together, and the time will come when we'll have to fight.”

This holiday season, as many of us watch the classic Christmas film, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” it’s also a fitting time to remember the sacrifices of those who gave up so much to serve their country during wartime.



Credit: Ned Forney, Writer, Saluting America's Veterans
 
I'd like to know what Bomb Group He flew in, as my Dad was there in a 24 also, same time frame...
 
Knew this about him, it's one of our favorite movies too. He was the gen-u-wine article to be sure. Just saw him on "What's My Line" the other day, from around 1954 or so. An American Hero and an American treasure. He was with the 453rd Bomb Group.

The Stewart family tradition of serving in the military goes back to Jimmy’s third great grandfather, Fergus Moorhead, who served in the Revolutionary War. Jimmy’s maternal grandfather was a general for the Union in the Civil War. His father Alex, served in both the Spanish-American War and World War I. Jimmy Stewart entered the Army as a private and at the end of WWII was a colonel in the Army Air Corps, fully decorated as the result of the 20 combat missions he flew over Germany as leader of a squadron of B-24’s. Among the medals, he was awarded were two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Croix de Guerre.



Stewart continued his military career after WWII by serving in the Air Force Reserves and rose to the rank of Brigadier General. President Reagan awarded him the Medal of Freedom, which is the highest award that can be awarded to a civilian in the United States.
 
Makes one proud to be an AMERICAN! Thanks again to all who have served this great nation! ruffcut
 
One of my favorites of him was Destry Rides Again. Quite funny. Another great legend with many great movies to watch.
 
This resides in front of the fireplace 365 days a year. Just to remind us.
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He played Lindbergh in that movie about the first trans-Atlantic flight. He flew a replica of the legendary "Spirit of Saint Louis", plane as well. I read somewhere, way back when, that he refused to act in any movie where the good guys lost. My favorite actor!
:thumbsup:
 
As an airman, I’ve heard this story before. Make no mistake, Jimmy was a bone fide combat veteran and hero. He went on to Command in SAC flying bombers when Curtis LeMay was approval authority for all commanders. If you’ve read anything about LeMay, and knew he picked Stewart...well you know Jimmy was the real deal.
 
I used to shop, browse and borrow candy at the Stewart Hardware store.
 
I’ll add this to the discussion. Thanks to the OP for the reminder of a great American.


20 February 1966: Brigadier General James M. Stewart, United States Air Force Reserve, flew the last combat mission of his military career, a 12 hour, 50 minute “Arc Light” bombing mission over Vietnam, aboard Boeing B-52 Stratofortress of the 736th Bombardment Squadron, 454th Bombardment Wing. His bomber was a B-52F-65-BW, serial number 57-149, call sign GREEN TWO. It was the number two aircraft in a 30-airplane bomber stream.

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