Hollywood Goes to War: The Story of Wayne Morris—the Brad Pitt of His Day

00:00:10
Speaker 1: And we continue with our American Stories. And now it’s time for another one of Roger McGrath’s Hollywood Goes to War stories. Today, McGrath will be treating us to the story of Hollywood’s strapping, steely-eyed leading man, Wayne Morris. Here’s McGrath with the story of Wayne Morris.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: Wayne Morris was born and bred in California. Though he didn’t think about it growing up, he looked like something created for screen stardom. He was tall, athletic, and handsome. He was also intelligent and good-natured. It wasn’t until college, though, that he got the acting bug. Then the six-foot-two-and-a-half and well-built two-hundred-pound Morris began taking acting lessons and appearing in plays. The blond-haired, blue-eyed college boy was soon signed to a Warner Brothers contract. Morris appeared in twenty-nine movies by the time Here’s twenty-seven years old, and starred in most of them, including the box office and critical smash hit Kid Galahad. He then walked away from Hollywood and stardom to serve as a Navy fighter pilot in World War II. Wayne Morris was born Burt Dwayne Morris, Jr. in February 1914 in Los Angeles. His father, Burt Dwayne Morris, Sr., had New England roots by way of the Upper Midwest. In Nebraska, there was a Morris ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War as an officer. Wayne Morris’s mother was the former Anna Fitzgerald. From Texas, there was a Fitzgerald ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War as an enlisted man. Wayne Morris would have a younger brother, Richard Morris, who also became a pilot in World War II. When Wayne Morris was still a little boy, the family moved to San Francisco and remained there before returning to Los Angeles when he was almost seventeen. Morris graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1932 and began college only a few miles away at Los Angeles City College. There, he became a theater arts major and started studying with the then-famous Passadena Playoffs. He began appearing on stage and attracted the attention of a talent scout from Warner Brothers. A studio gave him a screen test. The camera loved him, and he was signed to a contract. Morris made his screen debut in 1936 in China Clipp, starring Pat O’Brien and Humphrey Bogart, a fictional account of Pan American Airlines establishing the first trans-Pacific commercial flight service. The movie had Morris playing a navigator on the Martin M-130 C plane. Making the movie got Morris interested in aviation. In his next seven movies, Morris had only two substantial roles, but even his minor roles marked him for stardom. In 1937, in Kid Galahad, he got his chance for the big time with the role of a heavyweight boxer, Kid Galahad. His co-stars were Edward G. Robinson, Betty Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. In that tough company, Morris held his own, and his character made him the favorite of audiences. The film was a major success, and Morris was elevated to the leading man. Morris starred in a variety of roles in his next twenty movies. While making the movie Flight Angels in 1940, he began taking flying lessons. He was soon a licensed pilot, flying regularly and logging many hours of flight time. With Japanese aggression in the Far East and in the Pacific increasing, Morris joined a naval reserve unit in 1941 and was commissioned an ensign. Following Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy activated Morrison and sent him to flight school. By late summer 1942, he had his wings. He desperately wanted to fly fighters in the Pacific, but the Navy wanted him here at home as an instructor so he could also make public relations appearances. Moreover, the Navy considered him too big to cram himself into the cockpit of a a Grumman Wildcat, the Navy’s fighter at the time. Now a Lieutenant j.g. Morris was less than thrilled when he was ordered to a Navy airfield at Hutchinson, Kansas, as a primary flight instructor. He began his assignment with resignation rather than enthusiasm, but the plot was about to thicken. Morris was married to Patricia O’Rourke, a beautiful young actress. Her mother had a younger brother, David McCampbell. McCampbell was a Lieutenant Commander, a combat veteran, and one of the Navy’s top pilots. One day, McCampbell happened to fly into Hutchinson on a cross-country trip. Morris greeted Uncle Dave and pleaded with him to pull some strings and get him into the fight in the Pacific. “Give me a letter,” said McCampbell. McCampbell was able to push Morris’s letter of request through the chain of command and get Morris transferred. However, Morris now found himself training in Jacksonville, Florida, in the PBYC plane. The Navy still thought Morris was too big for fighters. Morris reckoned he would now make it to the Pacific, but as a PBY pilot, he would be flying reconnaissance and rescue missions. To Morris’s rescue came Uncle Davi. A second time, Commander. McCampbell had been tasked with forming a fighter squadron and again told Morris to give him a letter of request. McCampbell said he picked only those men who had a burning desire to fly fighters in combat. McCampbell’s squadron, designated VF-15, would be flying the new Grumman Hellcat, which was a far superior fire in every way to the Wildcat, but it didn’t have much more cockpit room, and pilots still had to sit on top of their parachute packs. It would be a very tight fit for Morris. In the spring of 1944, after many months of intense training, McCampbell’s squadron was assigned to the carrier Essex. By May, Essex arrived in the Marshall Islands, now being used by the Navy as a staging area for the invasion of the Marianas. While waiting for the invasion, Essex launched raids against Japanese-held Marcus and Wake Islands. This gave Lieutenant Morris his first tastes of combat. Morris and the others encountered no aerial opposition from Japanese fighters, but were met with intense anti-aircraft fire. Several American planes were lost, and nearly all, including Morris’s, suffered damage. During June, McCampbell’s boys began hitting Saipan in the Marianas. Morris was in a group of Hellcats that destroyed several seaplane ramps and nearly a dozen seaplanes on the ground. Then Morris sighted a MAVS that had gotten Nearborn. MAVS was the U.S. Navy’s identification code for the Kawashi seaplane, a large four-engine plane with a crew of nine. The Kawashi was armed with four thirty-caliber machine guns and one twenty-millimeter cannon.

00:08:39
Speaker 1: And you’re listening to Roger McGrath tell the story of Wayne Morris, and what a story. Indeed, has family roots in battle that go back to the Revolutionary War. Not one family member but two go to LA City College, studies acting. In the end, becomes a star. Kid Galahad makes him a huge star. But what is you do? He joins the military like so many other stars. In an ironic twist, he pulls strings to get into battle, not to get out of it, and not just any battle. He wants to get into the air, and this is the most dangerous of all positions. When we come back, more of Hollywood Goes to War and more of Wayne Morris’s story here on our American Stories. And we continue with our American Stories and with Roger McGrath’s Hollywood Goes to War stories, this time capturing the story of Wayne Morris. Let’s return to McGrath with more of the story.

00:09:51
Speaker 2: Morris dives on the Big Bird and opens up with his Hillcat’s. Six .50-caliber Brownie machine guns, ub or slugs, rock the Japanese seaplane and cause it to roll out of control. It plummets into the ocean. Lieutenant Morris had his first aerial victory. His next action came a week later in the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, which was what Navy pilots called the airborne phase of the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Morris and others of VF-15 were flying cover for torpedo planes and die bombers. When four Zeros dropped out of the clouds above and began a run on the bombers, Morris took on the lead Zero. They helcat in the Zero each banked and dove and rolled, but it was Morris’s machine gun fire that took effect. The Zero began smoking, nosed over and plunge his straight down thousands of feet into a layer of clouds. Morris followed it down, but once he emerged below the clouds, the Zero was nowhere to be seen. Morris soon spied an oil slick on the water, indicating the Zero must have plunged into the sea. However, since he didn’t actually see the Zero crash into the ocean, he could only count what was surely an aerial victory as a probable. For the next two months, Morris and the rest of VF-15 it targets not only on Saipan but also on nearby Guamantinian. Most of the time, the Hillcats bombed and streathed their enemy, was at aircraft fire. After the Turkey Shoot, the skies over the Marianas had been nearly cleared of Japanese planes, so more aerial victories would have to wait. In September, Essex and other American carriers began launching strikes against the Palau Islands, especially Peluloo. McCampbell led the first sweep. Neither he nor any of his pilots were able to under their kill totals because they caught the Japanese planes on the ground. They destroyed dozens of them, but under Navy and Marine Corps regulations, only planes destroyed in the air counted as kills. After several days of pounding the Palau Islands, Essex and other carriers were ordered to sail west to the Philippines and strike at Mindanow airfields. On their first sweep over Mindanow, Morris and two other VF-15 pilots spotted a Japanese patrol plane and blew it out of the sky. Later in the day, on a second sweep, Morris sent a burst of machine gun fire into a ‘top sea,’ the Navy’s code name for Mitsubishi twin-engine troop transport plane. The transport’s starboard wing tank erupted in flames, and soon the entire plane was ablaze and spiraling to the earth. It was Morris’s second confirmed aerial victory. Several days later, over Negros Island, Morris spied a Zero blow him. As Morris dove in banks to get in behind the Zero, the Zero went into a steep spiral dive, probably to the Japanese pilot’s surprise. Morris was able to put his Hellcat into an equally tight spiral dive and fired several bursts into the Zero. The Zero exploded in a ball of flame, and Lieutenant Morris had his third confirmed kill. Later the same day, Morris and Ensign Ken Flynn jumped an ‘Anate,’ the Navy’s code name for the Nakajima fighter. The ‘Night’ was the Japanese Army’s equivalent to the Japanese Navy’s Zero. Morris’s first burst caused the Nakajima to begin smoking. Flynn followed with a burst that caused the already badly damaged fighter to erupt in flames and roll into a spiral dive that ended in the ocean. Minutes later, Morris and Flynn went after a Zero that was on the tail of a Hellcat. Morris fired, and the Zero exploded in a ball of flame. It was number four for Morris. Seconds later, Morris found himself flying directly into an oncoming Nakajima. He hit the ‘Nate’ with a single burst before banking steeply. In the meantime, Flynn circled behind the ‘Nate’ and finished off the already crippled fighter. During the rest of September, Morris got no more aerial victories, but together with his wingmen and other violets, he was credited with putting a Japanese submarine out of action and sinking two freighters and several patrol boats. Then in October, in a strike at Okinawa, Morris dove on a Kawasaki fighter, Japan’s most modern fighter, the ‘Tony,’ as U.S. Navy code identified the plane as an inline liquid-cooled engine that the Japanese copied from the Dambler Benz engine that powered the German Meshischment fighter. The Kawasaki fighter tried to outmaneuver Morris by turning inside him, but Morris was able to stay behind the ‘Tony’ and pour fire into him. The Kawasaki shook and smoked and lost altitude rapidly. It hit the ocean and cartwheeled spectacularly before sinking. Morris now had the big three of Japanese fighters: the Mitsubishi Zero, the Nakajima K-Fifty-Seven, and the Kawasaki Key-Is-Sixty-One. But Kid Galahad was also an ace. Later in October 1944 came the epic Battle for Lee Ti Gulf. Dave McAmberlan’s boys were active in the air over the Cibulean Sea. Morris got one Zero easily while making a high pass, giving him six confirmed aerial victories. Later on the same day, Morris fired at two oncoming Zeros, but his rounds either missed or had no effect. He then banked steeply to come around and try again, but found the Zeros turning with him. He didn’t think much of his chances in tight turns against two Zeros and ducked into a cloud. Instead of going through the cloud and emerging on the other side, Morris circled inside the cloud and came out where he entered, just as he had hoped. He found the Japanese fighters waiting for him on the cloud’s other side. This allowed Morris to come up behind the Zeros. A burst from Morris’s machine gun sent one Zero spiraling into the sea and the other scurrying for home. Morris was in no condition to pursue. His Hellcat had been riddled with bullets, the engine was coughing, and hydraulic fluid was running into his cockpit. Nonetheless, he now had seven confirmed aerial victories. By the end of November, Air Group 15 completed its tour, and Morris’s war was over. He returned home with three rows of ribbons on his chest, among other decorations. Had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross four times and the Air Medal two times. Was Hollywood’s only ace of the war. He had no easy days. Three of the Hellcats he flew were sold badly damaged by Japanese fire. They were stripped of their serviceable parts and pushed overboard. “Yet,” said Morris, “it wasn’t the Japs I feared, but my own shipmates.” “Every time they showed a picture of board Essex, I was scared to death there would be one of mine.” That’s something I never could have lived down. Back home, Morris served in a naval reserve unit and as promoter to Lieutenant Commander. He also restarted his movie career in 1947 after a six-year interruption. He would appear in thirty-six movies and be cast in dozens of television shows over the next thirteen years. In September 1959, his World War II commander and his wife’s uncle, Dave McCampbell, now Captain McCampbell, took command of the carrier bon Hamers Yard. While the ship was in San Francisco Bay. McCampbell invited Morris and some other former squadron mates to come aboard for a short cruise into the Pacific, where the carrier would conduct air exercises. On the way back into San Francisco Bay, he climbed a series of ladders to the carrier’s bridge for a good view of the passage under the Golden Gate Bridge. He reached the ship’s bridge and collapsed. A helicopter flew him to Oakland Naval Hospital, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead of a massive coronary. He was only forty-five years old. Hollywood lost one of her stars, the U.S. Navy lost one of races, and America lost one of her heroes.

00:19:52
Speaker 1: And a great job like Greg Hangler, as always, on the production of that piece. And a special thanks, as always, to Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Human and Vigilantes, also a U.S. Marine and former history professor at UCLA. The story of Wayne Morris here on our American Stories.