Jimmy Stewart: Hollywood Goes to War

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show. And this next story combines military history and cultural history and tells the story of an actor we all know, Jimmy Stewart. In 1946, by the way, he starred in It’s a Wonderful Life. But only a year before, and years before, he was serving in World War Two and in a dangerous job: a pilot running missions over Europe, bombing the heck out of the place. Here to tell the story of how Jimmy Stewart got there, about his life, is historian and regular contributor here at Our American Stories, Roger McGrath, himself a former Marine. Here’s McGrath.

Jimmy Stewart was one of the most beloved actors in the history of Hollywood. Early in his career, he had the look of the boy next door, guileless and innocent, honest and sincere. He matured into an everyman character, a regular guy dealing with daily life and the love and heartbreak of romantic relationships. Ultimately, he was the heroic figure, often standing alone against great odds and demonstrating courage and wisdom. Whether portraying a young man, a struggling husband, or the Western hero, Jimmy Stewart always seemed like simply one of us, the quintessential American guy. In real life, that’s exactly what he was. James Stewart was born in May nineteen eight in Indiana, not the state, but a small town of six thousand people in western Pennsylvania, some sixty miles east of Pittsburgh. The town of Indiana is surrounded by farms and coal mines. Stewart’s father is a Spanish-American War veteran who runs a family hardware store established by a Civil War veteran father. Stewart’s mother is a talented pianist who fills the Stewart household with music. Jimmy learns to play an accordion, which a customer leaves at the hardware store in payment for a bill. Both sides of the family had a long record of military service since immigrating to the American Colonies from Scotland and Ireland. Stewart becomes fascinated with aviation at a young age and loves building model airplanes instead of doing homework. His father decides he must buckle down and get into Mercersburg Academy, a prep school in south central Pennsylvania. Mercersburg is dedicated to preparing young men for college, especially the Ivy League schools. Stewart studies hard at Mercersburg, but also competes as a high jumper on the track team, is a member of several school clubs, and appears in school plays. He thrives at the school despite coming down with scarlet fever and suffering a kidney infection, making the tall, skinny teenager even skinnier and causing a delight in his graduation. When Charles Lindbergh makes his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in late May nineteen twenty seven, Jimmy Stewart is home from school and listening to reports of the flight on the radio. Stewart tracks Lindbergh’s progress on a map over the Atlantic, over Ireland and Britain, and right into Lindbergh’s landing in Paris. Charles Lindbergh is Stewart’s hero. Stewart wants to become a pilot upon graduation from Mercersburg, but his father insists on college. Stewart is accepted for admission to Princeton and begins classes at the prestigious Ivy League school. In the fall of nineteen twenty eight, Stewart switches majors several times before settling on architecture. However, he’s most passionate about appearing in school plays.

He acts, he sings. He plays the.

Accordion. Led by Josh Logan, who is destined to become a Hollywood screenwriter and director, the Princeton Boys dick their plays on the road during the summer. Although of very different temperaments and personalities, Logan and Stewart become fast friends. After graduation from Princeton, Stewart devotes himself to the stage, ape in her bigger roles and usually receiving critical acclaim. He shares an apartment in New York City with another young actor, Henry Fonda. Despite contrasting personalities and different political views—Stewart a staunch Republican and Fonda a devoted Democrat—they become lifelong friends. Hollywood talent scout Bill Grady, who first sees Stewart act with the Princeton Troop, gets MGM to sign Stewart to a contract in nineteen thirty five. Stewart appears in his first Hollywood movie that year, Murder Man, starring Spencer Tracy. In nineteen thirty six, Stewart is in nine movies, including as the male lead opposite Margaret Sullavan in Next Time We Love. Sullavan is at the peak of her career and she had insisted that stut Heart be.

her male lead.

They have known each other for years, going back to her brief marriage to Henry Fonda. Sullavan recognizes Stewart’s natural charm in quaint mannerisms and helps him use those characteristics effectively on the screen. Audiences love the Jimmy Stewart persona. Stewart’s last film in nineteen thirty six, After the Thin Man, has him in an uncharacteristic role.

He plays a murderer.

The husband-wife team of William Powell and Myrna Loy track him down. The role demonstrates that Stewart can play more than lovable, homespun types. Stewart appears in only three movies in nineteen thirty seven, but one of them is a block office. In critical smash success Navy Blue and Gold, Stewart is in the role of a football player at the Naval Academy. He has arrived dad Annapolis through the enlisted ranks. He’s an everyman striving to improve himself and rise in life. Playing off the football theme, The New York Times declares Stewart’s performance makes him a triple threat man in the MGM backfield.

And you’re listening to historian Roger McGrath. The life of Jimmy Stewart continues here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country, and especially the stories of America’s rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to politics, to innovation, culture, and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can’t get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale.edu to learn more. This is Our American Stories, and we continue with the story of Jimmy Stewart. The year is nineteen thirty seven. After graduating from Princeton, Stewart devotes himself to acting, where he soon becomes a triple threat man in the MGM backfield. Here’s McGrath with more of Jimmy Stewart’s story.

The Triple Threat Man appears in ten movies in nineteen thirty-eight and thirty-nine, mostly as the male lead.

In movie after movie,

he delivers performances to receive critical acclaim. He’s called one of the most knowing and engaging young actors appearing on the screen, and one of the finest actors of the screen’s young roster. Stewart plays the male lead in Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You, which wins the Academy Award for Best Picture of nineteen thirty eight. He receives his first nomination for Best Actor with his performance in another Capra-directed film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Stewart follows that with another smash success, Destry Rides Again. By nineteen forty, Jimmy Stewart is well established as one of Hollywood’s major stars.

He appears in four movies.

that year, including two Hollywood classics: The Shop Around the Corner and The Philadelphia Story. For his performance in the latter, he receives the Academy Award for Best Actor. Stewart’s at the top of Hollywood now; famed money, women, and the best roles are his. He makes two more movies that are released early in nineteen forty one, and then walks away from Hollywood and into an Army recruiting office. He has a pilot’s license and a degree from Princeton University, and tells the recruiter he wants to join the Army Air Corps. However, Stewart fails his physical. He seems to be in great shape.

What can be wrong?

Standing six foot three and weighing only one thirty eight, he’s underweight. The thirty-three-year-old movie star goes into hard training. For him, it means eating high chloric foods and drinking vanilla maltz. In March nineteen forty one, shortly after receiving his Oscar for Best Actor, Stewart reports for a second physical. “I was ready to take him in a studio car,” says Bill Grady, now a casting director, “but he refused to let me take him in the limousine. He went by bus instead. I tailed after him. I waited, and when a medical officer came out, I asked him if Jimmy had made it?” “The officer told me he’d made it by one ounce.” What the officer didn’t know was that Jim was so determined to make the weight that he hadn’t been to the bathroom for thirty-six hours. It had been torture, but it had put him over. Stewart soon emerges gleefully shouting to Grady, “I’m in, I’m in!” By the end of March, the Oscar-winning movie star is Private James Stewart and has sent for a week of processing Fort MacArthur in San Pedro. Already a civilian pilot, he has shipped to Moffatt Field at the southern end of San Francisco Bay for training with the Army Air Corps. He excels in basic training and has made a squad leader. After a month, he learns that when he finishes basic training, he will be assigned to a film unit at Wright Field in Ohio. Stewart also learns that Louis Mayer, MGM.

Mogul At pulled strings in Washington to have Stewart assigned to a motion picture unit. Mayer wants his star safe and sound. Stewart is outraged and meets with the commanding officer, Colonel E. B.

Lyon.

Stewart hands his pilot’s license in his log book to the colonel and tells him he wants to fly and fly in combat if it comes to that. Colonel Lyon says he will intercede in Stewart’s behalf. However, Lyon tells Stewart the problem is not only overcoming Louis Mayer’s influence in Washington, but Stewart’s age. Stewart is turning thirty-three, which is normally too old for an ericadet. Lyon’s strong appeal wins the day, and Stewart is soon in pilot training. Stewart excels in all phases of flight training and passes his final check rit. By the middle of November nineteen forty one, we start is now a certified Army Air Corps pilot. In December, he’s commissioned a Second Lieutenant.

It’s also in December.

that the Japanese launched their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States is now in the war, and Stewart is ready to do his duty where his Army Air Corps uniform. Stewart serves as a presenter at the Academy Awards in February nineteen forty two and hands the Oscar for Best Actor to Gary Cooper for his role in Sergeant York. During the spring of nineteen forty two, Stewart has to resist several attempts to make him a public affairs officer. Many in the Air Corps feel he would be of greater value of making public appearances than flying in combat. After repeated requests, he has assigned a bomber training, qualifying as a B seventeen Flying Fortress pilot by February nineteen forty three. Against his wishes, he’s kept stateside as a flight instructor, flying both the B seventeen and the B twenty four Liberator until November nineteen forty three, when, as Captain James Stewart, his ships overseas as the CEO of a squadron of Liberators in the four forty fifth Bomb Group. They are based at Tibbenham, one hundred miles northeast of London. Navigator Steve Kirkpatrick describes Stewart as damn good commanding officer. “I always had a feeling he would never ask you to do something he wouldn’t do himself.” Stewart’s first mission comes on December thirteenth, nineteen forty three. He’s part of a flight of several hundred P twenty fours that bomb submarine pens at the German port of Kiel. Stewart’s B twenty four suffers more than a dozen hits from f, but no one is wounded in the plane; though full of holes, flies well enough to drop her bombs and turn for home. Stewart’s second mission is on December twentieth. The target for the day is the German industrial city of Bremen. Stewart’s squadron is to hit in the oil refinery in a shipbuilding facility this time. On the way to the target, Stewart’s plan is not only flying through flak, but is also attacked by German fighters: them one oh nine in the Emmy won ten. It looks dire until American Peat forty seven thunderbolts chase off the measure schmidts, but not before one may to pass so close that Stewart says he can count the rivets in her belly. The squadron’s missions continue, and the losses begin stacking up. B twenty fours are shot down by German fighters, out of the sky by flak, ditching the English Channel. When limping home, crash into each other and explode when fumes from leaking gas tanks ignite. Leaking gas in the B twenty fours is such a problem that bomb-bay doors are frequently opened to allow fumes to escape. On Stewart’s tenth mission, late in February nineteen forty four, he nearly escapes death. The target for the day is a measure smith factory deep inside Germany near Nuremberg, and an aircraft fire is especially concentrated and accurate.

Stewart’s liberator is.

taking hits, rocking, rolling, and shaking when a tremendous explosion lifts the plane and fills the cockpit with smoke. A blast of icy air hits Stewart. He looks down and sees a jagged hole that a basketball could pass through inches from his left foot. He has a perfect view of the German landscape twenty thousand feet below. Suddenly, the any aircraft fire stops and German fighters, a fock Wolf one ninety, appear. A B twenty four on Stewart’s right is riddled with bullets and has a wing blown off. It flips over and nos down.

plummets toward the ground.

Only one parachute is seen. Then, on Stewart’s left, a second B twenty four is hit, and it too begins a death dive.

to the earth.

The fighters disappear, and the anti-aircraft fire returns.

And you’re listening to Roger McGrath. When we come back, more of the remarkable story of Jimmy Stewart. Here on Our American Stories, and we continue with Our American Stories. When we last left off, we were in the middle of Jimmy Stewart’s tenth mission in February of nineteen forty four. Stewart is witnessing his unit of B twenty four Liberators getting picked off in the sky by Nazi fighters. Here again is Roger McGrath.

A Liberator flown by Mac Williams, one of Stewart’s oldest, most reliable pilots, takes a direct hit near the cockpit. Stewart thinks Williams must be dead and expects to see the plane nose over and plummet downward. To Stewart’s astonishment, after rocking and shaking, B twenty four restaurants to straight and level flight; Williams or his co-pilot must be alive. Despite all the damage Stewart’s plane has suffering, the engines continue to hum, and Stewart feels blessed relief when he finally reaches the English Channel. Landing at Tibbenham will not be easy, though the plane’s hydraulic system has been shot away. As Stewart approaches the field, the landing gear has to be hand-cranked down in control surfaces, and brakes muscled by cables. Without any hydraulic assist, Stewart takes Tibbenham’s longest runway and needs every inch of it before the Liberator screeches to a halt. John Robinson, a crewman and Stewart’s squadron, describes what the plane looks like. “The tail of the ship was sticking up in the air, and the nose was sticking up in front, just in front of the wing. At the flight deck, the airplane had cracked open like an egg. The runway had aluminum scars where the plane had been dragged.” Jimmy Stewart stood by the end of the airplane’s left wingtip. As I walked up to him, he looked up at me and said, “Sergeant, somebody sure could get hurt and one of those damn things.” As Squadron Coe, Stewart also has to write letters to parents and wives of those in his command who die or are missing in action. It takes a great toll on Stewart, although he has tried not to. These are many has grown close to. There’s hope for some of them.

missing.

When an airplane is shot down, everyone in the formation looks to see if men bail out and shoots open. Unlike the Japanese in the Pacific Theater of the War, German fighter pilots allow their enemy airmen in parachutes to float to the earth. Those floating down even report German pilots flying by and saluting them. This gives Stewart some measure of comfort. Dur In March nineteen forty four, Jimmy Stewart, now Major Stewart, begins flying an especially equipped B twenty four Liberator called a bathfinder. A bathfinder is equipped with radar and all the latest electronics, and theoretically can conduct precision bombing even when the target is obscured by clouds. Late in March, flying a Bathfinder, Stewart leads two hundred bombers to an aircraft manufacturing plant north of Berlin. However, the undercast is pea-soup thick, and the Bobbitdier tells Stewart, “Even with the plane’s special equipment, hitting the plant will be unlikely.” Rather than waste the bombs of two hundred Liberators, Stewart orders the flight to follow him to the day’s secondary target, Berlin. This will be the first time any of Stewart’s boys get to hit Big B, as they call Berlin. Despite heavy flak, they drop six thousand incendiaries and six hundred bombs on.

the German capitol during April.

Stewart’s made operations officer of the four to fifty third Bomb Group, which is stationed at Old Buckingham, only six miles from the four forty fifth at Tibbenham, and now he has responsibility for organizing a