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On March 29, 1945, movie star Jimmy Stewart was promoted to full colonel, one of the few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years. From the article:
"Legendary actor Jimmy Stewart piloted a bomber over Germany and retired after a lengthy military career.
By Sam McGowan
Jimmy Stewart is arguably the only prewar American actor of superstar magnitude to have served in a sustained combat role during World War II, and the only one to have served in a position of command. He was also one of only a handful of men to progress from private to full colonel in less than five years.
Jimmy Stewart: Actor and Aviator
James Maitland Stewart was a native of Indiana, Pennsylvania, where his father ran a hardware store, which makes him a true product of Main Street America. Indiana is far different from Philadelphia or even nearby Pittsburgh. Located in western Pennsylvania, it lies in a region with close ties to the American frontier of the early 1800s. Like many other Americans of his age, Stewart came from a family with military service in its background. Both of his grandfathers were Civil War veterans, and his father had fought in the Spanish-American War. As a boy, Stewart actually wanted to pursue a career in the military but was dissuaded by his father. A shy and reclusive youth, he spent much of his time building model airplanes, a hobby he continued into adulthood.
Stewart took his first airplane ride right after World War I when a barnstorming pilot stopped outside the town for a few days. Jimmy was around 10 or 12 years old at the time. His father’s successful business provided the family with wealth and political connections. Jimmy’s father enrolled him in Mercersburg Academy, a prestigious college preparatory school in southern Pennsylvania, at age 16. He was home with an illness when Charles Lindbergh made his historic transatlantic flight in an airplane that had been designed by Mercersburg alumnus Benjamin Franklin Mahoney.
Stewart’s personal ambition was to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and become a Navy pilot. His father, however, thought otherwise, and the young man enrolled at Princeton University in 1928. It was at Princeton that he developed an interest in acting and became friends with fellow actor Henry Fonda, who also shared Stewart’s interest in model airplanes. Stewart and Fonda, who was not a Princeton student, were members of an intercollegiate dramatic team. After Stewart’s graduation, the two young men went to New York to try their luck on Broadway. They took screen tests, then went to Hollywood, with Fonda preceding. He was at the station to meet Stewart, who stepped off the train carrying a model of a Martin bomber they had been working on while sharing an apartment in New York.
Immediately after he arrived in Hollywood, Stewart began taking flying lessons at Mines Field Airport—now Los Angeles International—where he encountered members of the Hollywood community such as Robert Taylor, Tyrone Power, and Frances Langford, who were flying out of the field. Taylor would later serve as an instructor pilot with the Navy.
Stewart Enlists
By the spring of 1941, Stewart was a successful movie star and an accomplished pilot with a commercial license and more than 300 hours in his logbook. He owned his own airplane, a Stinson 105, and was an investor in Thunderbird Field, a new venture in Phoenix that had a contract to train Army pilots. Had he waited until after Pearl Harbor to enlist, Stewart would have been a good candidate for the Army’s service pilot program, a program offering commissions and ratings as noncombat pilots to men with significant civilian flying experience.
Stewart, however, decided to enlist after he received his draft notice in October 1940 in the very first draft and had been in the Army for several months before Pearl Harbor. When he reported for his physical, the lanky actor was found to be underweight, a finding that would have caused most men to breathe a deep sigh of relief. But the notice had stirred a patriotic chord in the young man from America’s heartland, and he was determined to answer his country’s call. He appealed the decision. He passed the weigh-in the second time around. He said later that he had a friend manning the scales, while others have reported that he filled up on bananas. On March 22, 1941, the actor became a U.S. Army Air Corps private.
An Uncommon Commision
Just how Stewart received his aeronautical rating as a military pilot is a mystery. At age 32 when he was drafted, he was beyond the cutoff age of 27 for aviation cadet training. He was a college graduate, however, from one of the country’s most prestigious schools, and was thus eligible for an officer’s commission. He also was a rated commercial pilot. At some point he applied for a commission and a rating as a pilot based on his civilian flying experience. Since his commission was dated January 19, 1942, he may have been commissioned in conjunction with the newly initiated service pilot program, although he was apparently given a military pilot rating since service pilots were restricted to noncombat duty. By that time he had been in the Army for almost 10 months and wore the chevrons of a corporal. He was stationed at Moffett Field outside San Francisco, where he remained for a time as an officer.
Stewart’s experience in becoming a U.S. Army pilot is very unique. Prior to World War II, there was only one way to become a rated pilot, and that was through completion of an undergraduate pilot training course as either an aviation cadet or an already commissioned officer. In late 1941, the Army began hiring civilian pilots to serve under contract to ferry airplanes and perform other nonmilitary duties. When war broke out, many of these men were considered for military service in limited-duty status.
Stewart, however, was already in the Army when he was considered for commissioning and rating as a pilot and may have been rated and commissioned through a different route. Instead of being assigned to ferry airplanes or fly transports, he became an instructor pilot in the Training Command. He underwent an evaluation and was considered competent as a military pilot without attending a formal pilot training course. Stewart’s status as a graduate of an Ivy League university and his leadership potential may have been factors in his ultimate military career. Even so, his progress is unique.
Legendary actor Jimmy Stewart piloted a bomber over Germany and retired after a lengthy military career.
While serving as a squadron operations officer, Major Jimmy Stewart discusses a mission with pilots in the spring of 1944.
Stewart on the Sidelines
Although Stewart had his heart set on becoming a combat pilot, the Army was less enthusiastic about using a man of his notoriety in a combat role. He was more valuable as a recruiting tool. Shortly after he was commissioned, he was called to Washington, D.C., to attend President Franklin Roosevelt’s March of Dimes rally and make the rounds of a number of parties and galas. Now that the United States had entered the war, the image of a Hollywood star in uniform wearing silver pilot wings was a surefire recruiting tool for the Air Corps. The patriotic Stewart, however, wished to serve as a soldier; he did not want to play a role as a show pony and was determined to do everything in his power to get an operational assignment with a combat unit. When he returned to Moffett, he signed up for instrument and multi-engine training along with night and formation flying.
After receiving a rating as a multi-engine pilot, Stewart was sent to Mather Field near Sacramento for instructor training and qualification as a multi-engine instructor pilot. The former actor’s next assignment was at Kirtland Field at Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he flew twin-engine Beechcraft AT-11s carrying bombardier training cadets on flights over the bombing range. It was an ideal assignment for a future bomber pilot—his role was to carry young bombardier trainees and their instructor over the practice ranges to drop dummy bombs on targets outlined in the desert. His responsibility was to fly a straight and level course over the bombing range until the student bombardier took control of the airplane with his sophisticated computerized bombsight to make the drop. It was routine duty, but while his passengers were learning to drop bombs, Stewart was learning to be a bomber pilot.
Whenever he had time off, Stewart headed for Los Angeles to see his Hollywood friends. Many had also joined the service. His good friend Henry Fonda enlisted in the Navy. Burgess Meredith, who had been Stewart’s housemate before the war, had also joined the Army Air Forces and was in training to become an intelligence officer. During one visit toward the end of 1942, he met up with his old buddy Clark Gable, who had just completed an officer training course in Miami and had orders sending him to gunnery school. Gable was expecting to go overseas upon completion of the course to gather material for a movie he was making for the Air Corps.
In early 1943, Stewart transferred to Gowen Field at Boise, Idaho, in a new role as a four-engine instructor pilot. Prior to the assignment he went through a four-engine course at Hobbs, New Mexico, to check out as a first pilot, or aircraft commander. Upon completion of the course, which used Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, he went to the Combat Crew Processing Center at Salt Lake City, Utah, where he expected to be assigned to a combat unit and begin training for overseas duty.
The other pilots in his class were recent graduates of advanced pilot training, and they received assignments to combat groups that were forming up for duty overseas. Stewart, however, was not a graduate of an Army pilot training program, and his status was somewhat murky. It is probable that since he was one of the first pilots to be rated on the basis of civilian flying experience, he had not been rated as a service pilot but had been given regular pilot wings instead. He went to Boise and the 29th Bombardment Group as an instructor pilot. The 29th had served on antisubmarine patrol missions in the Caribbean at the beginning of the war, then had moved to Boise to serve as a training group for combat units preparing for duty overseas. Shortly after his arrival, Stewart was promoted to captain and given a new assignment as a squadron commander.
Transferred to a Combat Group Command Position
After he had been at Boise for several months, a rumor reached Stewart’s ears that he was going to be taken off flying status and reassigned to the audiovisual service. Another rumor was that he was going to be sent on a perpetual War Bond tour. The rumors were more than Stewart could take. Up to this point he had not tried to pull rank, position, or status, but he had had enough. He paid a visit to the group commander, Colonel Walter Arnold, and stressed his desire for an assignment to a combat group. Arnold was sympathetic, and instead of giving him a pep talk about the needs of the service and sending him on his way, Arnold decided to do something on his behalf. He recommended Stewart to fill a vacancy in the 445th Bombardment Group, which had passed through Boise a few weeks earlier and was in the third phase of training at Sioux City, Iowa. The 703rd Bombardment Squadron needed an operations officer, someone with considerable heavy bomber and command experience, and Stewart had both. The group had activated at Gowen Field several months earlier, and Stewart was well known to its senior officers.
Stewart’s transfer came at a time when the Army Air Forces was in the process of phasing out the B-17. Nearly all of the new groups still in the pipeline for overseas duty were equipping with B-24s. Larger and considerably faster than the famous B-17, the B-24 had much greater range, and the Army Air Forces senior leadership preferred it as the long-range heavy bomber until the Boeing B-29 Superfortress became available in significant numbers. With only a couple of exceptions, by late 1943 all of the new heavy bomber groups departing for Europe were equipped with B-24s, while all of the B-17s in the Pacific were being replaced.
Some of the overseas commanders, particularly Maj. Gen. James H. Doolittle, did not agree with the decision. Doolittle was particularly adamant about continued B-17 production after he took command of the Eighth Air Force, to which Stewart would soon be assigned, but that was still well into the future in the summer of 1943. Although he had reportedly been training new pilots in B-17s, Stewart’s future would be in B-24s. According to author Starr Smith, who served with him in England, Stewart had not been checked out in the B-24 prior to his arrival at Sioux City, but the transition presented no difficulty to a pilot with his experience.
From Sioux City to Great Britain
As a squadron operations officer, Stewart was responsible for his new unit’s aircrews. His role was to supervise the assignment and training of the squadron’s aircrew personnel and to ensure that they were all proficient. If a crew had problems, it was up to the operations officer to solve them or reassign crewmembers to make up effective crews. Stewart was an operations officer for only three weeks before he was moved up to take command of the squadron, a job that gave him new responsibilities. As a squadron commander, he became responsible for all squadron personnel, including the enlisted ground crews who took care of the big B-24s and the administrative personnel who were responsible for keeping squadron records and preparing written orders. His primary role was to maintain discipline and morale while carrying out orders he received from group headquarters.
By November, the 445th Bombardment Group had completed all its training requirements for operational service and was deemed ready for transfer overseas. Preparations for the invasion of Western Europe were under way, and the focus was on defeating the Luftwaffe and gaining control of the skies over the planned invasion beaches in France.
As the squadron commander, Stewart had no crew of his own. So he departed for Europe with the crew commanded by Lieutenant Lloyd Sherrard. Sherrard was an experienced pilot and had checked Stewart out in the B-24 when he joined the squadron at Sioux City. Stewart and the Sherrard crew left from the Ferrying Command departure point at Morrison Field at West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 15, 1943.
First Combat Missions of the 445th
After their arrival at Tibenham, the men of the 445th did not go right into combat. It was November 1943, and the Army Air Forces had been in combat for almost two years, during which it had learned many lessons. One of the lessons was that newly arrived groups needed a shakedown period of theater indoctrination before beginning operational missions. The 445th was assigned to the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing, commanded by Brig. Gen. Edward J. “Ted” Timberlake. The youngest general officer in the Army, Timberlake was the most experienced B-24 commander in VIII Bomber Command and arguably the most respected, if not the most capable, of the command’s wing commanders. He took his 93rd Bomb Group to England in the summer of 1942 and led it until he was promoted to command a provisional bombardment wing.
While other young generals were sent back to the United States to new assignments, Timberlake remained in Europe with the Eighth Air Force as a combat wing commander for the duration of the war. A few days before Stewart transferred to the 445th, Timberlake’s B-24s flew the famous low-level attack on the Ploesti oil fields in Romania. He was a no-nonsense commander who expected the best from the men who served under him, which meant he wanted his officers and their crews to be the best in the business. For more than two weeks the 445th flew practice missions to make sure that all crews were ready for combat. Stewart and his operations officer flew with each of the crews in the squadron and talked to each member to make sure they knew their jobs and were ready for combat.
On December 13, 1943, the 445th flew its first combat mission, a strike on the U-boat pens at Kiel. Stewart led the group’s high squadron, taking them in over the target at 27,000 feet. His next mission was to Bremen on December 16, when he flew as lead pilot for the 445th Group. On Christmas Eve Stewart again led the group, this time on a mission against German rocket-launching sites in the Pas de Calais. With more than 2,000 bombers and fighters participating, it was the largest Eighth Air Force mission of the war to date.
Stewart’s Crucial Decision at Ludwigshafen
It was on the January 7, 1944, mission to Ludwigshafen that Stewart came to the attention of superior officers above his group. Stewart was again leading the group. As they were departing the target area, he realized that the group he was following, the 389th Bomb Group, was 30 degrees off course. He called the other group lead and informed him of the error, but the other officer insisted they were on course. Stewart knew that the course was wrong and that it was taking both groups away from the protection of the main formation. Nevertheless, he advised the other group leader that he was sticking with him, knowing that the decision was akin to signing his own death warrant.
As Stewart feared, the German radar operators saw that the two groups had become separated from the bomber stream and vectored several squadrons of fighters to the attack. They were about 30 miles south of Paris when approximately 60 Luftwaffe fighters came in for the attack. The lead pilot, whose navigator had made the mistake, paid for his error as his B-24 went down. Stewart ordered his group to close up their formation for protection. His formation did not lose any planes, but 17 B-24s went down that day. Stewart’s decision to stick with his sister group rather than abandoning them to their fate in spite of the navigational error saved the other group from complete annihilation. Colonel Milton W. Arnold, the 389th commander, sent a letter to 445th commander Colonel Robert H. Terrill commending Stewart for his actions. Shortly after the mission, Stewart was promoted to major.
The day after the Ludwigshafen mission, the Eighth Air Force command structure underwent some changes. For reasons that have never been fully explained, General Carl Spaatz, who had taken command of the new U.S. Strategic Air Forces, Europe, decided to send Eighth Air Force commander Ira Eaker to the Mediterranean and bring Maj. Gen. James H. Doolittle to England to take command of the Eighth. It was not a popular decision, and it became even less popular when Doolittle announced that the mission requirement for Eighth Air Force bomber crews had been increased from 25 to 30.
“Big Week”
Many Eighth Air Force crewmen came to believe that Doolittle was using them to get his name in the papers. The intensity of combat was increasing, and casualties among the bomber crews were mounting. During their first 21 days in combat the 445th lost six crews, an average of two a week. Group personnel saw 61 of their comrades listed as missing in action in less than a month. Such casualty rates had become common throughout VIII Bomber Command and would quickly rise as the workload increased in early 1944 in preparation for the invasion.
In early 1944, Spaatz and his deputy commander for operations, Maj. Gen. Fred Andrews, approved a plan for Operation Argument, a massive week of heavy bomber attacks on targets in Germany that has since come to be known as “Big Week.” On the opening day of the operation, Stewart flew as deputy lead of the 2nd Bombardment Wing. The mission was planned for blind bombing using radar, but the weather over the target was suitable for visual bombing conditions, so Stewart moved into the lead. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for the mission. Stewart flew two other missions during the intense week, a mission to Gotha and a third to Nuremberg, during which he led the 445th formation.
Stewart’s Stardom Within the Air Corps
During three months in combat, Stewart had achieved a reputation not only in his squadron but also in the group and wing. To many of the combat crews he had become a lucky charm. Missions on which he led either the squadron, the group, or the wing seemed to be successful, in that bombing results were usually good and casualties were generally light. He was popular with the officers and enlisted men under his command. But rumors began circulating that he had become too important to the higher-ups to risk on missions and that he was going to be transferred and perhaps grounded. In early March, the Eighth Air Force began a series of missions against Berlin, which had not previously seen American aircraft in its skies. The missions were hazardous and costly—the first two alone cost the Eighth Air Force more than 1,000 men. Stewart, however, was conspicuously absent from all of the Berlin missions until March 22, when he led the 2nd Bombardment Wing to the most heavily defended target in Germany. It was his 12th combat mission.
It turned out that the rumors of Stewart’s transfer were true, although his days of combat flying were not completely over. He was relieved of command of the 703rd Bombardment Squadron and transferred to the 453rd Bombardment Group at Attleborough to assume the role of group operations officer. On March 30, 1944, he assumed his new position as assistant to the group commander, Colonel Ramsey Potts. Stewart’s new assignment put him in a close relationship with another of the Liberator superstars. Ramsey Potts had been a squadron commander in the 93rd Bombardment Group under Timberlake, who had previously introduced Stewart to him. After leading his squadron on the infamous low-level mission against Ploesti, Potts had risen to the rank of colonel and was given command of the 453rd Bombardment Group two weeks before Stewart’s transfer when the group’s original commander was shot down. As the group operations officer, Stewart was responsible for all of the details of planning the group’s participation in the missions to which it was assigned and for briefing the crews for each mission.
Stewart’s new assignment was based on merit rather than fame. Potts did not ask for him. The group’s previous commander and operations officer had both been lost only a few weeks before, and morale in the group was correspondingly low. Stewart had a good reputation as a combat leader and as a commander who was popular with his men, officers and enlisted alike. Timberlake personally picked Stewart for the assignment to complement Potts.
Over the next few weeks the two new arrivals worked to bring the group back up to par. As operations officer, Stewart was not expected to fly every mission, but he often went up in the group assembly ship to look over the formations as the group was assembling and occasionally flew missions as a member of a combat crew. Unlike the combat crewmembers, he had no quota of missions to fly before he could be rotated home. As a staff officer, he was to remain overseas as long as he was needed. The Allies were getting ready for the Normandy invasion, and the mission tempo had picked up. Stewart flew a total of 20 (some sources say 21) missions with the 445th and 453rd Groups. Those are the missions for which he received credit.
“We Hit Berlin, Didn’t We?”
Jimmy Stewart was no doubt the most famous officer to serve in a combat unit in World War II; he was also the most publicity shy. He was serving in the military purely for patriotic reasons and did not wish to capitalize on his military service in any manner, an attitude he maintained for his entire life. Members of the media were well aware that he was in England serving as a squadron commander with a Liberator group and were anxious to interview him. Stewart, however, refused all interviews and generally avoided contact with the press. The Army, however, took advantage of his notoriety by issuing press releases announcing his promotions and assumptions of new positions. A news release was sent out after his mission to Berlin in which he was quoted commenting on the intensity of the flak and fighters. When asked if the mission was unusual, he responded with “Unusual? We hit Berlin, didn’t we?”
Transferred to Timberlake’s Staff
Sometime in June, Stewart received another promotion, this time to lieutenant colonel. Shortly afterward, on July 2, he transferred to 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing headquarters to become Timberlake’s executive officer. In his new capacity he shared an office with Lieutenant Cal Stewart, no relation, who had come to England in 1942 with the 93rd Bombardment Group as a radio operator but had been reassigned to the squadron orderly room because of his civilian experience as a newspaperman in his native Nebraska. Timberlake authorized him to begin publishing a group newspaper, the first military newspaper in the European Theater. When he was promoted to brigadier general, Timberlake took Stewart with him as his orderly, then had him commissioned and made him his aide. The two Stewarts became good friends and equally loyal to their boss.
With his move to headquarters, Jimmy Stewart was off combat flying, but as a staff officer he was not due to return to the United States. Even though he was no longer assigned to combat duty, Stewart would sometimes manage to get on a mission. He frequently flew with the 389th Group, which had become the 2nd Bombardment Wing’s pathfinder group. Equipped with specially modified airplanes featuring radar and electronic navigational equipment for blind bombing, pathfinder squadrons provided crews to lead formations and allowed bombing through the clouds. Although the Army Air Forces still maintained a pretense of “daylight precision bombing,” the Eighth Air Force adopted British-developed electronic bombing methods beginning in the fall of 1943.
Stewart also occasionally went along on missions with his two previous groups, then later flew missions with the groups in the 20th Bombardment Wing. None of those missions were credited to him.
When Stewart transferred to Timberlake’s staff, rumors started that he was being groomed for command of his own group. Although Eighth Air Force commander Doolittle would say later that if the war in Europe had continued Stewart would have become a group commander, it never happened. In September 1944, Timberlake transferred to command of the 20th Bombardment Wing, which included his old group, the 93rd, and Stewart went with him. After serving for a few months as Timberlake’s executive officer, Stewart returned to the 2nd Bombardment Wing as operations officer.
Promotion to Colonel
In February 1945, Stewart was promoted again, this time to full colonel, and became 2nd Bombardment Wing chief of staff under Colonel Milton Arnold, whose attention Stewart had attracted with his actions in response to the straying 389th Group almost a year before. Stewart had risen from buck private to full colonel in only four years. It was a record achieved by few men. Only one other Hollywood type served in a combat role with similar rank; producer Merian Cooper had flown combat in World War I and returned to active duty as a colonel at the beginning of the war. Cooper served in China with Claire Chennault and in the Southwest Pacific in a staff position. Cowboy actor Tim McCoy, also a World War I veteran, held the rank of brigadier general in the Army reserve but did not serve overseas in World War II.
Stewart, now a full colonel, was still with the 2nd Bombardment Wing when the war in Europe came to an end. Timberlake had been replaced by Colonel Milton Arnold in August 1944, and Stewart had assumed a position as Arnold’s operations officer in December. In February 1945, Stewart became Arnold’s chief of staff. Three days after VE Day, Stewart replaced Arnold as commander of the 2nd Bombardment Wing.
Continued Service After the War
The war had ended, and Stewart’s new role was to preside over the demobilization of the wing and movement of its personnel back to the United States for separation or reassignment to the Pacific. He was in his new position for only some four weeks. Although Starr Smith relates that Stewart remained in command until the wing transferred back to the United States in September, official records indicate that he was replaced in June. His position until he returned to the United States aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth is unclear.
After the war, Stewart remained in the U.S. Army Reserve, then went into the Air Force Reserve when the Air Force became a separate service in 1947. His postwar reserve assignment was with the Strategic Air Command as deputy director of operations. He was nominated for promotion to brigadier general by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957, but the promotion was opposed by Maine Congresswoman Margaret Chase Smith.
Two years later, after he was reassigned from Strategic Air Command to the Air Force Office of Information in the Pentagon, Stewart’s promotion was approved. In 1968, just before his retirement, Stewart flew one last combat mission as an observer on a B-52 mission over Vietnam. The following year his stepson, Marine Lieutenant Ronald McLean, was killed in Vietnam. President Ronald Reagan promoted Stewart to the retired rank of major general. His military decorations included two Distinguished Flying Crosses and four Air Medals.
The Humble Jimmy Stewart
Jimmy Stewart not only shunned wartime publicity, but after the war he refused to discuss his military experiences publicly or with the media and forbade any mention of it by his publicists. He also refused to make any war movies, expressing his view that it was “not the same.” The closest he ever came to a war movie was the 1955 film Strategic Air Command, in which his character, Lt. Col. “Dutch” Holland, had been a World War II B-24 pilot although the movie itself was set in the 1950s Air Force. He was interested in aviation, however, and made several movies with aviation themes, including Spirit of St. Louis, about Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight across the Atlantic.
Although he kept his wartime service out of the public eye, Jimmy Stewart maintained contact with many of his wartime friends and participated in reunions. A representative of the Eighth Air Force spoke at his funeral in 1997."
"Legendary actor Jimmy Stewart piloted a bomber over Germany and retired after a lengthy military career.
By Sam McGowan
Jimmy Stewart is arguably the only prewar American actor of superstar magnitude to have served in a sustained combat role during World War II, and the only one to have served in a position of command. He was also one of only a handful of men to progress from private to full colonel in less than five years.
Jimmy Stewart: Actor and Aviator
James Maitland Stewart was a native of Indiana, Pennsylvania, where his father ran a hardware store, which makes him a true product of Main Street America. Indiana is far different from Philadelphia or even nearby Pittsburgh. Located in western Pennsylvania, it lies in a region with close ties to the American frontier of the early 1800s. Like many other Americans of his age, Stewart came from a family with military service in its background. Both of his grandfathers were Civil War veterans, and his father had fought in the Spanish-American War. As a boy, Stewart actually wanted to pursue a career in the military but was dissuaded by his father. A shy and reclusive youth, he spent much of his time building model airplanes, a hobby he continued into adulthood.
Stewart took his first airplane ride right after World War I when a barnstorming pilot stopped outside the town for a few days. Jimmy was around 10 or 12 years old at the time. His father’s successful business provided the family with wealth and political connections. Jimmy’s father enrolled him in Mercersburg Academy, a prestigious college preparatory school in southern Pennsylvania, at age 16. He was home with an illness when Charles Lindbergh made his historic transatlantic flight in an airplane that had been designed by Mercersburg alumnus Benjamin Franklin Mahoney.
Stewart’s personal ambition was to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and become a Navy pilot. His father, however, thought otherwise, and the young man enrolled at Princeton University in 1928. It was at Princeton that he developed an interest in acting and became friends with fellow actor Henry Fonda, who also shared Stewart’s interest in model airplanes. Stewart and Fonda, who was not a Princeton student, were members of an intercollegiate dramatic team. After Stewart’s graduation, the two young men went to New York to try their luck on Broadway. They took screen tests, then went to Hollywood, with Fonda preceding. He was at the station to meet Stewart, who stepped off the train carrying a model of a Martin bomber they had been working on while sharing an apartment in New York.
Immediately after he arrived in Hollywood, Stewart began taking flying lessons at Mines Field Airport—now Los Angeles International—where he encountered members of the Hollywood community such as Robert Taylor, Tyrone Power, and Frances Langford, who were flying out of the field. Taylor would later serve as an instructor pilot with the Navy.
Stewart Enlists
By the spring of 1941, Stewart was a successful movie star and an accomplished pilot with a commercial license and more than 300 hours in his logbook. He owned his own airplane, a Stinson 105, and was an investor in Thunderbird Field, a new venture in Phoenix that had a contract to train Army pilots. Had he waited until after Pearl Harbor to enlist, Stewart would have been a good candidate for the Army’s service pilot program, a program offering commissions and ratings as noncombat pilots to men with significant civilian flying experience.
Stewart, however, decided to enlist after he received his draft notice in October 1940 in the very first draft and had been in the Army for several months before Pearl Harbor. When he reported for his physical, the lanky actor was found to be underweight, a finding that would have caused most men to breathe a deep sigh of relief. But the notice had stirred a patriotic chord in the young man from America’s heartland, and he was determined to answer his country’s call. He appealed the decision. He passed the weigh-in the second time around. He said later that he had a friend manning the scales, while others have reported that he filled up on bananas. On March 22, 1941, the actor became a U.S. Army Air Corps private.
An Uncommon Commision
Just how Stewart received his aeronautical rating as a military pilot is a mystery. At age 32 when he was drafted, he was beyond the cutoff age of 27 for aviation cadet training. He was a college graduate, however, from one of the country’s most prestigious schools, and was thus eligible for an officer’s commission. He also was a rated commercial pilot. At some point he applied for a commission and a rating as a pilot based on his civilian flying experience. Since his commission was dated January 19, 1942, he may have been commissioned in conjunction with the newly initiated service pilot program, although he was apparently given a military pilot rating since service pilots were restricted to noncombat duty. By that time he had been in the Army for almost 10 months and wore the chevrons of a corporal. He was stationed at Moffett Field outside San Francisco, where he remained for a time as an officer.
Stewart’s experience in becoming a U.S. Army pilot is very unique. Prior to World War II, there was only one way to become a rated pilot, and that was through completion of an undergraduate pilot training course as either an aviation cadet or an already commissioned officer. In late 1941, the Army began hiring civilian pilots to serve under contract to ferry airplanes and perform other nonmilitary duties. When war broke out, many of these men were considered for military service in limited-duty status.
Stewart, however, was already in the Army when he was considered for commissioning and rating as a pilot and may have been rated and commissioned through a different route. Instead of being assigned to ferry airplanes or fly transports, he became an instructor pilot in the Training Command. He underwent an evaluation and was considered competent as a military pilot without attending a formal pilot training course. Stewart’s status as a graduate of an Ivy League university and his leadership potential may have been factors in his ultimate military career. Even so, his progress is unique.
Legendary actor Jimmy Stewart piloted a bomber over Germany and retired after a lengthy military career.
While serving as a squadron operations officer, Major Jimmy Stewart discusses a mission with pilots in the spring of 1944.
Stewart on the Sidelines
Although Stewart had his heart set on becoming a combat pilot, the Army was less enthusiastic about using a man of his notoriety in a combat role. He was more valuable as a recruiting tool. Shortly after he was commissioned, he was called to Washington, D.C., to attend President Franklin Roosevelt’s March of Dimes rally and make the rounds of a number of parties and galas. Now that the United States had entered the war, the image of a Hollywood star in uniform wearing silver pilot wings was a surefire recruiting tool for the Air Corps. The patriotic Stewart, however, wished to serve as a soldier; he did not want to play a role as a show pony and was determined to do everything in his power to get an operational assignment with a combat unit. When he returned to Moffett, he signed up for instrument and multi-engine training along with night and formation flying.
After receiving a rating as a multi-engine pilot, Stewart was sent to Mather Field near Sacramento for instructor training and qualification as a multi-engine instructor pilot. The former actor’s next assignment was at Kirtland Field at Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he flew twin-engine Beechcraft AT-11s carrying bombardier training cadets on flights over the bombing range. It was an ideal assignment for a future bomber pilot—his role was to carry young bombardier trainees and their instructor over the practice ranges to drop dummy bombs on targets outlined in the desert. His responsibility was to fly a straight and level course over the bombing range until the student bombardier took control of the airplane with his sophisticated computerized bombsight to make the drop. It was routine duty, but while his passengers were learning to drop bombs, Stewart was learning to be a bomber pilot.
Whenever he had time off, Stewart headed for Los Angeles to see his Hollywood friends. Many had also joined the service. His good friend Henry Fonda enlisted in the Navy. Burgess Meredith, who had been Stewart’s housemate before the war, had also joined the Army Air Forces and was in training to become an intelligence officer. During one visit toward the end of 1942, he met up with his old buddy Clark Gable, who had just completed an officer training course in Miami and had orders sending him to gunnery school. Gable was expecting to go overseas upon completion of the course to gather material for a movie he was making for the Air Corps.
In early 1943, Stewart transferred to Gowen Field at Boise, Idaho, in a new role as a four-engine instructor pilot. Prior to the assignment he went through a four-engine course at Hobbs, New Mexico, to check out as a first pilot, or aircraft commander. Upon completion of the course, which used Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, he went to the Combat Crew Processing Center at Salt Lake City, Utah, where he expected to be assigned to a combat unit and begin training for overseas duty.
The other pilots in his class were recent graduates of advanced pilot training, and they received assignments to combat groups that were forming up for duty overseas. Stewart, however, was not a graduate of an Army pilot training program, and his status was somewhat murky. It is probable that since he was one of the first pilots to be rated on the basis of civilian flying experience, he had not been rated as a service pilot but had been given regular pilot wings instead. He went to Boise and the 29th Bombardment Group as an instructor pilot. The 29th had served on antisubmarine patrol missions in the Caribbean at the beginning of the war, then had moved to Boise to serve as a training group for combat units preparing for duty overseas. Shortly after his arrival, Stewart was promoted to captain and given a new assignment as a squadron commander.
Transferred to a Combat Group Command Position
After he had been at Boise for several months, a rumor reached Stewart’s ears that he was going to be taken off flying status and reassigned to the audiovisual service. Another rumor was that he was going to be sent on a perpetual War Bond tour. The rumors were more than Stewart could take. Up to this point he had not tried to pull rank, position, or status, but he had had enough. He paid a visit to the group commander, Colonel Walter Arnold, and stressed his desire for an assignment to a combat group. Arnold was sympathetic, and instead of giving him a pep talk about the needs of the service and sending him on his way, Arnold decided to do something on his behalf. He recommended Stewart to fill a vacancy in the 445th Bombardment Group, which had passed through Boise a few weeks earlier and was in the third phase of training at Sioux City, Iowa. The 703rd Bombardment Squadron needed an operations officer, someone with considerable heavy bomber and command experience, and Stewart had both. The group had activated at Gowen Field several months earlier, and Stewart was well known to its senior officers.
Stewart’s transfer came at a time when the Army Air Forces was in the process of phasing out the B-17. Nearly all of the new groups still in the pipeline for overseas duty were equipping with B-24s. Larger and considerably faster than the famous B-17, the B-24 had much greater range, and the Army Air Forces senior leadership preferred it as the long-range heavy bomber until the Boeing B-29 Superfortress became available in significant numbers. With only a couple of exceptions, by late 1943 all of the new heavy bomber groups departing for Europe were equipped with B-24s, while all of the B-17s in the Pacific were being replaced.
Some of the overseas commanders, particularly Maj. Gen. James H. Doolittle, did not agree with the decision. Doolittle was particularly adamant about continued B-17 production after he took command of the Eighth Air Force, to which Stewart would soon be assigned, but that was still well into the future in the summer of 1943. Although he had reportedly been training new pilots in B-17s, Stewart’s future would be in B-24s. According to author Starr Smith, who served with him in England, Stewart had not been checked out in the B-24 prior to his arrival at Sioux City, but the transition presented no difficulty to a pilot with his experience.
From Sioux City to Great Britain
As a squadron operations officer, Stewart was responsible for his new unit’s aircrews. His role was to supervise the assignment and training of the squadron’s aircrew personnel and to ensure that they were all proficient. If a crew had problems, it was up to the operations officer to solve them or reassign crewmembers to make up effective crews. Stewart was an operations officer for only three weeks before he was moved up to take command of the squadron, a job that gave him new responsibilities. As a squadron commander, he became responsible for all squadron personnel, including the enlisted ground crews who took care of the big B-24s and the administrative personnel who were responsible for keeping squadron records and preparing written orders. His primary role was to maintain discipline and morale while carrying out orders he received from group headquarters.
By November, the 445th Bombardment Group had completed all its training requirements for operational service and was deemed ready for transfer overseas. Preparations for the invasion of Western Europe were under way, and the focus was on defeating the Luftwaffe and gaining control of the skies over the planned invasion beaches in France.
As the squadron commander, Stewart had no crew of his own. So he departed for Europe with the crew commanded by Lieutenant Lloyd Sherrard. Sherrard was an experienced pilot and had checked Stewart out in the B-24 when he joined the squadron at Sioux City. Stewart and the Sherrard crew left from the Ferrying Command departure point at Morrison Field at West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 15, 1943.
First Combat Missions of the 445th
After their arrival at Tibenham, the men of the 445th did not go right into combat. It was November 1943, and the Army Air Forces had been in combat for almost two years, during which it had learned many lessons. One of the lessons was that newly arrived groups needed a shakedown period of theater indoctrination before beginning operational missions. The 445th was assigned to the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing, commanded by Brig. Gen. Edward J. “Ted” Timberlake. The youngest general officer in the Army, Timberlake was the most experienced B-24 commander in VIII Bomber Command and arguably the most respected, if not the most capable, of the command’s wing commanders. He took his 93rd Bomb Group to England in the summer of 1942 and led it until he was promoted to command a provisional bombardment wing.
While other young generals were sent back to the United States to new assignments, Timberlake remained in Europe with the Eighth Air Force as a combat wing commander for the duration of the war. A few days before Stewart transferred to the 445th, Timberlake’s B-24s flew the famous low-level attack on the Ploesti oil fields in Romania. He was a no-nonsense commander who expected the best from the men who served under him, which meant he wanted his officers and their crews to be the best in the business. For more than two weeks the 445th flew practice missions to make sure that all crews were ready for combat. Stewart and his operations officer flew with each of the crews in the squadron and talked to each member to make sure they knew their jobs and were ready for combat.
On December 13, 1943, the 445th flew its first combat mission, a strike on the U-boat pens at Kiel. Stewart led the group’s high squadron, taking them in over the target at 27,000 feet. His next mission was to Bremen on December 16, when he flew as lead pilot for the 445th Group. On Christmas Eve Stewart again led the group, this time on a mission against German rocket-launching sites in the Pas de Calais. With more than 2,000 bombers and fighters participating, it was the largest Eighth Air Force mission of the war to date.
Stewart’s Crucial Decision at Ludwigshafen
It was on the January 7, 1944, mission to Ludwigshafen that Stewart came to the attention of superior officers above his group. Stewart was again leading the group. As they were departing the target area, he realized that the group he was following, the 389th Bomb Group, was 30 degrees off course. He called the other group lead and informed him of the error, but the other officer insisted they were on course. Stewart knew that the course was wrong and that it was taking both groups away from the protection of the main formation. Nevertheless, he advised the other group leader that he was sticking with him, knowing that the decision was akin to signing his own death warrant.
As Stewart feared, the German radar operators saw that the two groups had become separated from the bomber stream and vectored several squadrons of fighters to the attack. They were about 30 miles south of Paris when approximately 60 Luftwaffe fighters came in for the attack. The lead pilot, whose navigator had made the mistake, paid for his error as his B-24 went down. Stewart ordered his group to close up their formation for protection. His formation did not lose any planes, but 17 B-24s went down that day. Stewart’s decision to stick with his sister group rather than abandoning them to their fate in spite of the navigational error saved the other group from complete annihilation. Colonel Milton W. Arnold, the 389th commander, sent a letter to 445th commander Colonel Robert H. Terrill commending Stewart for his actions. Shortly after the mission, Stewart was promoted to major.
The day after the Ludwigshafen mission, the Eighth Air Force command structure underwent some changes. For reasons that have never been fully explained, General Carl Spaatz, who had taken command of the new U.S. Strategic Air Forces, Europe, decided to send Eighth Air Force commander Ira Eaker to the Mediterranean and bring Maj. Gen. James H. Doolittle to England to take command of the Eighth. It was not a popular decision, and it became even less popular when Doolittle announced that the mission requirement for Eighth Air Force bomber crews had been increased from 25 to 30.
“Big Week”
Many Eighth Air Force crewmen came to believe that Doolittle was using them to get his name in the papers. The intensity of combat was increasing, and casualties among the bomber crews were mounting. During their first 21 days in combat the 445th lost six crews, an average of two a week. Group personnel saw 61 of their comrades listed as missing in action in less than a month. Such casualty rates had become common throughout VIII Bomber Command and would quickly rise as the workload increased in early 1944 in preparation for the invasion.
In early 1944, Spaatz and his deputy commander for operations, Maj. Gen. Fred Andrews, approved a plan for Operation Argument, a massive week of heavy bomber attacks on targets in Germany that has since come to be known as “Big Week.” On the opening day of the operation, Stewart flew as deputy lead of the 2nd Bombardment Wing. The mission was planned for blind bombing using radar, but the weather over the target was suitable for visual bombing conditions, so Stewart moved into the lead. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for the mission. Stewart flew two other missions during the intense week, a mission to Gotha and a third to Nuremberg, during which he led the 445th formation.
Stewart’s Stardom Within the Air Corps
During three months in combat, Stewart had achieved a reputation not only in his squadron but also in the group and wing. To many of the combat crews he had become a lucky charm. Missions on which he led either the squadron, the group, or the wing seemed to be successful, in that bombing results were usually good and casualties were generally light. He was popular with the officers and enlisted men under his command. But rumors began circulating that he had become too important to the higher-ups to risk on missions and that he was going to be transferred and perhaps grounded. In early March, the Eighth Air Force began a series of missions against Berlin, which had not previously seen American aircraft in its skies. The missions were hazardous and costly—the first two alone cost the Eighth Air Force more than 1,000 men. Stewart, however, was conspicuously absent from all of the Berlin missions until March 22, when he led the 2nd Bombardment Wing to the most heavily defended target in Germany. It was his 12th combat mission.
It turned out that the rumors of Stewart’s transfer were true, although his days of combat flying were not completely over. He was relieved of command of the 703rd Bombardment Squadron and transferred to the 453rd Bombardment Group at Attleborough to assume the role of group operations officer. On March 30, 1944, he assumed his new position as assistant to the group commander, Colonel Ramsey Potts. Stewart’s new assignment put him in a close relationship with another of the Liberator superstars. Ramsey Potts had been a squadron commander in the 93rd Bombardment Group under Timberlake, who had previously introduced Stewart to him. After leading his squadron on the infamous low-level mission against Ploesti, Potts had risen to the rank of colonel and was given command of the 453rd Bombardment Group two weeks before Stewart’s transfer when the group’s original commander was shot down. As the group operations officer, Stewart was responsible for all of the details of planning the group’s participation in the missions to which it was assigned and for briefing the crews for each mission.
Stewart’s new assignment was based on merit rather than fame. Potts did not ask for him. The group’s previous commander and operations officer had both been lost only a few weeks before, and morale in the group was correspondingly low. Stewart had a good reputation as a combat leader and as a commander who was popular with his men, officers and enlisted alike. Timberlake personally picked Stewart for the assignment to complement Potts.
Over the next few weeks the two new arrivals worked to bring the group back up to par. As operations officer, Stewart was not expected to fly every mission, but he often went up in the group assembly ship to look over the formations as the group was assembling and occasionally flew missions as a member of a combat crew. Unlike the combat crewmembers, he had no quota of missions to fly before he could be rotated home. As a staff officer, he was to remain overseas as long as he was needed. The Allies were getting ready for the Normandy invasion, and the mission tempo had picked up. Stewart flew a total of 20 (some sources say 21) missions with the 445th and 453rd Groups. Those are the missions for which he received credit.
“We Hit Berlin, Didn’t We?”
Jimmy Stewart was no doubt the most famous officer to serve in a combat unit in World War II; he was also the most publicity shy. He was serving in the military purely for patriotic reasons and did not wish to capitalize on his military service in any manner, an attitude he maintained for his entire life. Members of the media were well aware that he was in England serving as a squadron commander with a Liberator group and were anxious to interview him. Stewart, however, refused all interviews and generally avoided contact with the press. The Army, however, took advantage of his notoriety by issuing press releases announcing his promotions and assumptions of new positions. A news release was sent out after his mission to Berlin in which he was quoted commenting on the intensity of the flak and fighters. When asked if the mission was unusual, he responded with “Unusual? We hit Berlin, didn’t we?”
Transferred to Timberlake’s Staff
Sometime in June, Stewart received another promotion, this time to lieutenant colonel. Shortly afterward, on July 2, he transferred to 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing headquarters to become Timberlake’s executive officer. In his new capacity he shared an office with Lieutenant Cal Stewart, no relation, who had come to England in 1942 with the 93rd Bombardment Group as a radio operator but had been reassigned to the squadron orderly room because of his civilian experience as a newspaperman in his native Nebraska. Timberlake authorized him to begin publishing a group newspaper, the first military newspaper in the European Theater. When he was promoted to brigadier general, Timberlake took Stewart with him as his orderly, then had him commissioned and made him his aide. The two Stewarts became good friends and equally loyal to their boss.
With his move to headquarters, Jimmy Stewart was off combat flying, but as a staff officer he was not due to return to the United States. Even though he was no longer assigned to combat duty, Stewart would sometimes manage to get on a mission. He frequently flew with the 389th Group, which had become the 2nd Bombardment Wing’s pathfinder group. Equipped with specially modified airplanes featuring radar and electronic navigational equipment for blind bombing, pathfinder squadrons provided crews to lead formations and allowed bombing through the clouds. Although the Army Air Forces still maintained a pretense of “daylight precision bombing,” the Eighth Air Force adopted British-developed electronic bombing methods beginning in the fall of 1943.
Stewart also occasionally went along on missions with his two previous groups, then later flew missions with the groups in the 20th Bombardment Wing. None of those missions were credited to him.
When Stewart transferred to Timberlake’s staff, rumors started that he was being groomed for command of his own group. Although Eighth Air Force commander Doolittle would say later that if the war in Europe had continued Stewart would have become a group commander, it never happened. In September 1944, Timberlake transferred to command of the 20th Bombardment Wing, which included his old group, the 93rd, and Stewart went with him. After serving for a few months as Timberlake’s executive officer, Stewart returned to the 2nd Bombardment Wing as operations officer.
Promotion to Colonel
In February 1945, Stewart was promoted again, this time to full colonel, and became 2nd Bombardment Wing chief of staff under Colonel Milton Arnold, whose attention Stewart had attracted with his actions in response to the straying 389th Group almost a year before. Stewart had risen from buck private to full colonel in only four years. It was a record achieved by few men. Only one other Hollywood type served in a combat role with similar rank; producer Merian Cooper had flown combat in World War I and returned to active duty as a colonel at the beginning of the war. Cooper served in China with Claire Chennault and in the Southwest Pacific in a staff position. Cowboy actor Tim McCoy, also a World War I veteran, held the rank of brigadier general in the Army reserve but did not serve overseas in World War II.
Stewart, now a full colonel, was still with the 2nd Bombardment Wing when the war in Europe came to an end. Timberlake had been replaced by Colonel Milton Arnold in August 1944, and Stewart had assumed a position as Arnold’s operations officer in December. In February 1945, Stewart became Arnold’s chief of staff. Three days after VE Day, Stewart replaced Arnold as commander of the 2nd Bombardment Wing.
Continued Service After the War
The war had ended, and Stewart’s new role was to preside over the demobilization of the wing and movement of its personnel back to the United States for separation or reassignment to the Pacific. He was in his new position for only some four weeks. Although Starr Smith relates that Stewart remained in command until the wing transferred back to the United States in September, official records indicate that he was replaced in June. His position until he returned to the United States aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth is unclear.
After the war, Stewart remained in the U.S. Army Reserve, then went into the Air Force Reserve when the Air Force became a separate service in 1947. His postwar reserve assignment was with the Strategic Air Command as deputy director of operations. He was nominated for promotion to brigadier general by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957, but the promotion was opposed by Maine Congresswoman Margaret Chase Smith.
Two years later, after he was reassigned from Strategic Air Command to the Air Force Office of Information in the Pentagon, Stewart’s promotion was approved. In 1968, just before his retirement, Stewart flew one last combat mission as an observer on a B-52 mission over Vietnam. The following year his stepson, Marine Lieutenant Ronald McLean, was killed in Vietnam. President Ronald Reagan promoted Stewart to the retired rank of major general. His military decorations included two Distinguished Flying Crosses and four Air Medals.
The Humble Jimmy Stewart
Jimmy Stewart not only shunned wartime publicity, but after the war he refused to discuss his military experiences publicly or with the media and forbade any mention of it by his publicists. He also refused to make any war movies, expressing his view that it was “not the same.” The closest he ever came to a war movie was the 1955 film Strategic Air Command, in which his character, Lt. Col. “Dutch” Holland, had been a World War II B-24 pilot although the movie itself was set in the 1950s Air Force. He was interested in aviation, however, and made several movies with aviation themes, including Spirit of St. Louis, about Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight across the Atlantic.
Although he kept his wartime service out of the public eye, Jimmy Stewart maintained contact with many of his wartime friends and participated in reunions. A representative of the Eighth Air Force spoke at his funeral in 1997."
Jimmy Stewart's rise from Private to Colonel
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Jimmy Stewart was too modest to recount his war experiences and there is very little material on his tour as bomber pilot. I found this audio clip from 1990 ...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for reminding us about WWII decorated Army Air Corps veteran and wonderful actor James Maitland Stewart
Images:
1. Officers of the 703rd Bomb Squadron, including Jimmy Stewart (highlighted in back row), stand before a Consolidated B-24 Liberator.;
2. Lt. Gen. Martial Valin, chief of staff, French air force, awards the Croix de Guerre with Palm to Colonel Stewart for exceptional services in the liberation of France
Extensive background from jimmy.org/about-jimmy-biography/
"JAMES MAITLAND STEWART: A BIOGRAPHY James Maitland Stewart, the oldest child and only son of Alexander and Elizabeth Jackson Stewart, was born in his parent’s home at 975 Philadelphia Street in Indiana, Pennsylvania on May 20, 1908. After Jimmy’s arrival, the family expanded to include two sisters, Mary Wilson and Virginia Kelly.
Alex (pronounced Alec) Stewart owned the local hardware store. The J.M. Stewart & Co. hardware store had been founded in 1848. Alex purchased a share of the business from his father, James Maitland Stewart in 1905, and assumed sole ownership in 1923. The hardware store, known locally as “the big warehouse”, was a Philadelphia Street institution.
The Stewart’s could trace their roots in Indiana County to 1772, when Jimmy’s third great-grandfather Fergus Moorhead first arrived in what is now Indiana County from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. After Fergus was captured by Indians in July, 1776 his wife and three children returned to Franklin County. He was held captive a total of eleven months. The Moorheads returned to Indiana County, but not until Fergus served with the Cumberland County Militia in the Revolutionary War. Elizabeth Ruth Jackson, known as Bessie, was from Apollo, Pennsylvania, a small town about twenty-five miles west of Indiana. The Jacksons could trace their ancestry back to 1773 and she also had a relative that served in the Revolutionary War. Her father Col. Samuel Jackson, served during the Civil War. She had graduated Wilson College in Franklin County and was thirty-one years old at the time of her wedding on December 19, 1906. Bessie was once described by the local paper as a “lady of regal bearing, dignified and quite proper.”
From his mother and grandfather, J.M. Stewart came Jim’s reserved, dignified manner, as well as the distinctive, deliberate way of thinking and speaking. When Jimmy was five years old, his dad purchased a house atop “Vinegar Hill” at 104 North 7th Street, with a view overlooking downtown Indiana. The Stewart children would slide down the stairway of their home on an Oriental rug, present magic shows and impromptu plays in the basement, and circle the top of Vinegar Hill in a horse-drawn rig. This remained the family home until Alex’s death in 1961.
The Stewart’s had a close-knit and highly principled family life. They held hands and said grace at every meal. Music and reading were focal points of the family’s time together. Elizabeth Stewart was an accomplished musician and pianist, and she passed this gift on to her children. When Alex Stewart was given an accordion by a customer as payment of a debt at his store, he originally gave it to his daughter Virginia (Ginny) to play, but as she was too small to handle it, it was given to Jim, so that the instrument did not “go to waste.” Jim also played the piano, as did his sister Ginny. Mary (Doddie) played the violin.
The Stewart family was members of the Calvary Presbyterian Church of Indiana, where Alex and Bessie sang in the choir. Jimmy’s happy childhood left a lasting impression. He was self-possessed and self-confident. He valued hard work and knew exactly who he was. As long as his activities fell within the range that his father deemed acceptable, Alex would indulge his only son.
When President Harding’s funeral train was passing thru a town about 20 miles from Indiana, Bessie said Jim could not go see it since it would be in the middle of the night. Alec on the other hand thought that his boy should see a piece of history and wakened Jimmy up and they went to see the train. When the train was coming close gave Jimmy two pennies to put on the track. The train of course flattened them. Jimmy & Alec carried these for years. After his death Jimmy found Alec’s penny in his desk drawer.
Plays were presented to neighbor hood children, inspired by the various artifacts his father sent home from France during World War I. Model planes were built and launched from the roof of the house. Homemade radios were built and sold. Jimmy became a Boy Scout and remained active with this organization as an adult. Stewart’s formal education began in Indiana at The Model School, now Wilson Hall, on the campus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He attended The Model School through ninth grade.
In 1923 his parents enrolled him at Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg Pennsylvania, an all-boys school known for its strong religious emphasis at the time Stewart attended.
Jimmy would have been quite content to return to Indiana and would have preferred to stay with his family and friends, but Alex wanted Jim to attend his alma mater Princeton University. Alex had graduated from Princeton in 1898. At Mercersburg, Stewart was active in a variety of activities. He played on the football team for three years, and in his first year at the Academy, he was on the track team. He was art editor for the yearbook KARUX from 1926 to 1928, and he was also a member of the John Marshall Literary Society. Jimmy was active in the choir and glee club, the Stoney Batter drama club, it was here that he had his first real on stage role in “The Frog Prince”, and was elected to play his accordion in the school’s Marshall Orchestra.
During his first summer break, Stewart returned to Indiana Pennsylvania to work as a brick loader for a local construction company and on highway and road construction jobs where he painted lines on the roads.
Over the following two summers, he took a job as an assistant with his friend, Bill Neff, a professional magician. He and Neff played the Pennsylvania-Chautauqua circuit and Stewart’s job was to play his accordion during any “awkward” moments. This gave the young entertainer even more exposure to on-stage performances. He graduated from Mercersburg Academy in 1928. Although Jimmy would have preferred to attend the Naval Academy, Alex‘s mind was made up and Stewart entered his father’s alma mater, Princeton University, in the fall of 1928. His ability to play the accordion enabled him to join the Triangle Club and appear in their production of The Golden Dog, even though there was a ban on freshmen appearing in any Triangle Club productions. He was invited back for the following year by the Triangle to perform a solo on his accordion, “So Beats My Heart for You.” He and the future director-producer Josh Logan performed together in a production of The Tiger Smiles during his junior year and two other productions during his senior year. One production was for the Triangle Club, and the other with Princeton’s Theater Intime. He was also on the cheerleading squad in his junior year and head cheerleading in his senior year.
Although he initially considered engineering, Jimmy finally settled on architecture as his course of study, at which he excelled. He so impressed his professors with his thesis on an airport design that he was awarded a scholarship for graduate studies. His interest in aviation had begun as a boy and was to be a lifelong passion. Stewart became a member of Princeton’s Charter Club in 1929. The Charter Club sponsored weekend jazz parties with the biggest names in the business. One particular weekend event headlined Bix Beiderbecke, Bud Freeman, Jimmy Dorsey and Charles Teagarden. T hough he was becoming more and more involved in performing at this time, Stewart still insisted that he would pursue his graduate studies and a career in architecture. He graduated from Princeton University in 1932. Economic factors greatly influenced what Stewart actually did after his graduation.
A fire had devastated the family’s business in 1929 and his father was in the process of rebuilding. Stewart’s sister Mary had been accepted in an art program at Carnegie Tech, while Virginia had been accepted a Vassar. Because of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed Stewart questioned whether he would find employment as an architect.
Two weeks after graduation, he received an offer from friend Josh Logan to join the University Players, a summer stock group based in West Falmouth on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and he accepted. Logan wanted him to play his accordion in the tea room next to the theater and to do some small walk-on parts. Stewart arrived in Falmouth in the summer of 1932 and began to learn his craft in earnest. While there he met another soon-to-be famous actor, Henry Fonda. At Falmouth, Stewart played the accordion, worked as a stagehand, designed sets, and generally learned the theatre business from the inside out.
In 1932, when the Players had the opportunity to stage Carrie Nation on Broadway, he played a number of small roles that included a constable, a vigilante, an innocent bystander and gardener. While living in New York, he roomed with Henry Fonda and began a friendship that would endure until Fonda’s death in 1982. Though Carrie Nation ran only seven weeks on Broadway, Stewart caught the attention of the critics. He also got favorable reviews for his roles in other Broadway plays, Goodbye Again (1932), Spring in Autumn (1933), and All Good Americans (1933). Goodbye Again had a nine month Broadway run before moving to Boston, where he was then cast inWe Die Exquisitely. He left to become stage manager for Camille (1933), starring Jane Cowl, and moved back to Broadway to play Sergeant O’Hara inYellow Jack (1934). This performance earned him a screen test with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). In the midst of these and other stage performances, Stewart had also done a screen test for the Fox movie studio and was cast in his first moving picture, a Warner Brothers two-reel comedy, Art Trouble(1934). Neither Warner Brothers nor Fox offered him a contract. While waiting to hear from MGM, Stewart was cast in Journey at Night. However, the play closed after the second night and Stewart went home to Indiana, Pennsylvania. Two months later, MGM called him to Hollywood. His friend Henry Fonda met him at the train station. Jimmy was to play the part of a cub reporter in a Chick Sale short, Important News (1936). MGM then cast the 6’3” Stewart in the role of another newspaper man named “Shortie” in the filmMurder Man (1936), starring Spencer Tracy.
From 1935 to 1939 Stewart appeared in 29 motion pictures. In those four years he played a doctor, lawyer, teacher, newspaperman, mechanic, executive, hayseed, soldier, skater, farmer, football star, speed driver, detective, and even a murderer. During this period, he appeared with most of the acclaimed actresses of the time including Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Margaret Sullavan, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Ginger Rogers, Claudette Colbert, Jean Arthur and Elinor Powell. In addition to film, Stewart also did voice work for the studios and radio networks, includingThe Lux Radio Theater, The Screen Guild Theater, and MGM’s promotional program, Good News of 1938. The year 1939 was pivotal for Stewart. He performed in his first western, Destry Rides Again, opposite Marlene Dietrich. His performance as Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes To Washington earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor and elevated him to true “star” status. He would make nine more pictures before playing the role that would finally win him the Oscar, that of reporter Mike Conner in The Philadelphia Story. He co-starred in that film with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, John Howard and Ruth Hussey. The film received six Oscar nominations, but only Stewart and Donald Ogden Stewart, for best screen play, walked away with a statue. Jimmy appeared in 55 motion pictures after The Philadelphia Story. Other performances that won him the Oscar nomination for best actor were It’s A Wonderful Life, released in 1946,Harvey, released in 1950, and Anatomy of a Murder, released in 1959. He worked with Hollywood’s most notable directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Anthony Mann and Frank Capra. Of all the directors he worked with, Capra was the one who best captured what was to become the Stewart trademark, the myth of the common man struggling against great odds, the American who was at the same time “tough but vulnerable.”
The passionate Sicilian-American and the young man from Indiana, Pennsylvania somehow shared a commonality of values both on and off screen that made them friends for life. When Stewart received his Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1985, it was Capra he singled out as having the most profound influence on his career. Stewart’s life off-screen was as interesting and demanding as his career in films.
While he was building his reputation as an actor, the rest of the world was about to go to war. German occupation in numerous countries in the early part of 1940 led Congress on September 16, 1940 to pass the Selective Service Bill, “the draft”, this bill called for 900,000 men between the ages of 20 and 36 to be drafted each year. Stewart’s draft number was 310. When his number was called and he appeared at Draft Board No. 245 in West Los Angeles in February 1941, the 6’3” Stewart weighed only 138 pounds, 5 pounds under the acceptable weight level. He was turned down. Stewart wanted to fly and serve his country but by May of 1941 he would have been too old to get into flight school. He went home ate everything he could that was fattening and went back and enlisted in the Army Air Corps, he passed the physical with an ounce to spare. While others tried to avoid the draft, he actually wanted to serve in the military. Later he would actually campaign to see combat.
Jimmy was already a licensed pilot. Interested in aviation as a child, he had taken his first flight while still in Indiana from one of the barnstorming pilots that used to travel the Midwest. As a successful actor in 1935 Jimmy was able to afford flying lessons. He received his pilot’s license in 1935 and bought his first airplane. In 1938 he gained his commercial pilot’s license. He often flew cross country to visit his parents in Pennsylvania, navigating by the railroad tracks.
In the military, he was to make extensive use of his pilot’s training. In March 1941 at age 32, he reported for duty as Private James Stewart at Fort McArthur and was assigned to the Army Air Corps at Moffett Field. To comply with the regulations of the Air Corps proficiency board, Stewart required additional 100 flying hours and bought them at a nearby field, at this own expense. He then took and passed a very stiff proficiency board examination. In January 1942 Stewart was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant. He was then sent to Mather Field in California as a twin engine instructor this included both the B-17 and B-24. Much to his dismay, Stewart stayed stateside for almost two years, until commanding officers finally yielded to his request to be sent overseas. In November 1943, now a Captain and Operations Officer for the 703rd Squadron, 445th Bombardment Group of the Eight Air Force, he arrived in Tibenham, England. In March of 1944 he was transferred to the 453rd Bombardment Group at Old Buckenham. While stateside, Stewart flew B-17’s (The Flying Fortress). In England he flew B-24’s (The Liberator) and did so for the remaining years of the war. Stewart’s war record included 20 dangerous combat missions as command pilot, wing commander or squadron commander. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters, The Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, and the French Croix de Guerre with Palm. At the end of the war he had risen to the rank of Colonel. After the war he remained with the US Air Force Reserves and was promoted to Brigadier General in 1959. His tuxedo and dress blues with all the correct medals are on display at The Jimmy Stewart Museum. He retired from the Air Force in 1968 (mandatory retirement age) and received the Distinguished Service Medal. When the war was over, Jimmy returned home to a hero’s welcome in Indiana, Pennsylvania, immortalized by Life magazine cover that showed him posing in full uniform on top of a building with the golden cupola of the Indiana County Courthouse in the background draped with a “Welcome Home Jim” banner and a large lighted wooden “V”ictory sign – his father is said to have put these up.
But he was concerned about his career. No longer under contract with MGM, he wondered whether or not he could still act. Radio supplied some acting roles while he waited for a screen part. His first post-war radio appearance was the Lux Radio Theatre version of Destry Rides Again. Director and friend (and now ex-Colonel) Frank Capra supplied his next role with an offer to play the part of George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life (1946). Though the film was not a commercial success at the time, it was enough to revive Stewart’s faith in his acting abilities and his career. Stewart remained an independent actor working without a studio contract.
In 1950, an ailing Universal Studios approached the actor with the suggestion that he appear in the western film Winchester ’73 and also the film version ofHarvey. Although Universal couldn’t afford to pay Stewart his usual salary, acting on advice of his agent Lew Wasserman, Stewart agreed to work for a percentage of the profits. This gave Jimmy the opportunity to do the part of Elwood P. Dowd that he had wanted. Both films were major successes. Profits aside, the deal established precedent, shifting the balance of power from the studio to the star and began a gradual erosion of the old studio system of movie making.
In 1949, James Stewart, distinguished actor, trend setter and military hero, added one more part to his growing repertoire, that of a family man. He met Gloria Hatrick McLean in the summer of 1948 when he accepted a dinner invitation to the home of Gary and Rocky Cooper. The 31 year old Gloria stole Stewart’s heart. She was beautiful, outgoing, well educated and she liked to play golf. She loved animals and the outdoors, and she was not an actress. When Stewart married her on August 9, 1949, they had a ready-made family. Gloria had two children, Ronald then five and Michael, three, from a previous marriage. Stewart, for years considered one of the most eligible bachelors in Hollywood, was 41 years old. In the fall of 1950, the Stewarts learned they were to become parents of twins. On May 7, 1951, fraternal twins Kelly & Judy were born. The Stewarts lived in Beverly Hills where many other celebrities resided. Yet their son Michael says they “were raised with that small-town Christian Presbyterian ethic that nobody owes you a living. If you have bad breaks, get up and move on. That was the attitude of both my parents, and it never changed.”
After his retirement from the military, Jimmy and Gloria traveled a lot. They became very interested in safaris, zoos and wildlife conservation efforts. He continued making films and appeared on numerous television shows, includingThe Jack Benny Show. Stewart had his own television show on NBC in1971,The Jimmy Stewart Show, followed by Hawkins on CBS in 1973. Later, he would make many memorable appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Through these appearances, movie re-runs, and the release of his films to video, another generation became familiar with his work. It’s A Wonderful Life, one of his personal favorites, became a television Christmas tradition, viewed annually by millions. In 1970, co-starring with Helen Hayes, he revived his role of Elwood P. Down in Harvey on stage in New York and again in 1975 in London. In 1976, when his friend Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for President, Stewart helped by campaigning extensively for him in California. He served as an Elder at the Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church and did television commercials for Firestone tires and Campbell’s soup. A recording of his poetry book, Jimmy Stewart and His Poems, was nominated for a 1991 Grammy Award in the spoken-word category. Jimmy and Gloria Stewart became increasingly active in philanthropic affairs over the years. His signature charity event, The Jimmy Stewart Relay Marathon Race, held each year since 1982, has raised millions of dollars for the Child and Family Development Center at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
Professionally, he became a champion for the preservation of film and a powerful opponent in the fight against the colorization of classic films. He advocated his platform in hundreds of interviews and even testified before Congress on the topic. In the meantime, his career achievements were being honored by every major film festival and center, including Cannes, Berlin, Monterey and The Kennedy Center. In 1985, when Stewart received The Lifetime Achievement Award from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he had already become one of Hollywood’s most highly honored and deeply loved stars. He has been the recipient of many coveted awards and the subject of countless tributes that recognize not only his professional successes, but his character and patriotism.
In 1967 the Pennsylvania Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts was awarded to Jimmy Stewart. The American Film Institute has recognized the magnitude of Jimmy’s accomplishments by awarding him the coveted Life Achievement Award in 1980 for fundamentally advancing the art of American Film. In presenting the award, the AFI summed up many aspects of his enduring presence: “In a career of extraordinary range and depth, Jimmy Stewart has come to embody on the screen the very image of the typical American. Whether flying the ocean as Charles Lindbergh, going to Washington as Senator Jefferson Smith, or playing an ordinary man who somehow never got around to leaving his home town, Stewart has captured the essence of American hopes, doubts, and aspirations. His idealism, his determination, his vulnerability, and above all, his basic decency shine through every role he plays…..”
In 1983 on his 75th birthday his hometown of Indiana unvailed a statue of their native son in front of the County Chourthouse. There is a fiberglass rendering of this statue in The Jimmy Stewart Museum. In 1990, his alma mater, Princeton University, awarded him it highest alumni honor, The Woodrow Wilson Award, for outstanding public service. He had been awarded an honorary master’s degree in 1947 and had served as a University trustee from 1959-1963. The American Red Cross presented Stewart with their Humanitarian Award for service to his fellow man. The National Council of the Boy Scouts of America presented Stewart with the Silver Buffalo Award (on display at the Museum) for his “distinguished service to boyhood”.
Stewart’s life was not without adversity, however in July 1953 Stewart’s mother Elizabeth passed away. His father died in December of 1961. His stepson, Ronald, a commissioned Marine officer, was killed in Vietnam in June of 1969, just two months after Jimmy and Gloria had visited him while they were on a USO tour. In February 1994, Jimmy lost his beloved wife of nearly 45 years, Gloria.
In 1995 on the occasion of Stewart’s 87th birthday, The Jimmy Stewart Museum, along with a new terminal at the Jimmy Stewart Airport, were dedicated with the help of daughters Judy and Kelly in his hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania. Today visitors come to Indiana from around the world to learn more about his life and career and to see where he grew up and acquired the values he embraced thoughout his life – hard work, love of country, love of family, love of community and most of all love of God.
Jimmy Stewart passed away on July 2, 1997, at the age of 89. He was mourned by fans worldwide. Perhaps the greatest tribute of the American Film Institute was the observation that James Stewart is an actor “so beloved by the movie going public that they call him “Jimmy”, just like a member of the family.” And so he remains, our Jimmy. America still needs heroes, and Jimmy Stewart continues to fill the bill."
"Jimmy Stewart was too modest to recount his war experiences and there is very little material on his tour as bomber pilot. I found this audio clip from 1990 when he spoke at Princeton about his life and briefly about WW2. The entire audio clip can be found at princeton dot edu.
Nearly two years before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Stewart had become a private pilot and had accumulated over 400 hours of flying time and was considered a highly proficient pilot. Along with musician/composer Hoagy Carmichael, seeing the need for trained war pilots, Stewart teamed with other Hollywood moguls and put their own money into creating a flying school in Glendale, Arizona which they named Thunderbird Field. This airfield trained more than 200,000 pilots during the War, became the origin of the Flying Thunderbirds, and is now the home of Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Later in 1940, Stewart was drafted into the Army Air Corps but was rejected due to a weight problem. The USAAC had strict height and weight requirements for new recruits and Stewart was five pounds under the standard. To get up to 148 pounds he sought out the help of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's muscle man, Don Loomis, who was legendary for his ability to add or subtract pounds in his studio gymnasium. Stewart subsequently attempted to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps but still came in under the weight requirement although he persuaded the AAF enlistment officer to run new tests, this time passing the weigh-in,with the result that Stewart successfully enlisted in the Army in March 1941. He became the first major American movie star to wear a military uniform in World War II.
Since the United States had yet to declare war on Germany and because of the Army's unwillingness to put celebrities on the front, Stewart was held back from combat duty, though he did earn a commission as a Second Lieutenant and completed pilot training. He was later stationed in Albuquerque, NM, becoming an instructor pilot for the B-17 Flying Fortress.
For the thirty-six-year-old Stewart, combat duty seemed far away and unreachable, and he had no clear plans for the future. But then a rumor that Stewart would be taken off flying status and assigned to making training films or selling bonds called for his immediate and decisive action, because what he dreaded most was the hope-shattering spector of a dead end." So he appealed to his commander, a pre-war aviator, who understood the situation and reassigned him to a unit going overseas.
In August 1943 he was finally assigned to the 445th Bombardment Group in Sioux City, Iowa, first as Operations Officer of the 703rd Bombardment Squadron and then its commander. In December, the 445th Bombardment Group flew its B-24 Liberator bombers to RAF Tibenham, England and immediately began combat operations. While flying missions over Germany, Stewart was promoted to Major. In March 1944, he was transferred as group operations officer to the 453rd Bombardment Group, a new B-24 outfit that had been experiencing difficulties. As a means to inspire his new group, Stewart flew as command pilot in the lead B-24 on numerous missions deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. These missions went uncounted at Stewart's orders. His "official" total is listed as 20 and are limited to those with the 445th. In 1944, he twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions in combat and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He also received the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. In July 1944, after flying 20 combat missions, Stewart was made chief of staff of the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing of the Eighth Air Force. Before the war ended, he was promoted to colonel, one of only a few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years.
At the beginning of June 1945, Stewart was the presiding officer of the Court-Martial of a pilot and navigator who were charged with dereliction of duty when they accidentally bombed the Swiss city of Zurich the previous March - the first instance of US personnel being tried over an attack on a neutral country. The Court acquitted the accused.
Stewart did not often talk of his wartime service, perhaps due to his desire to be seen as a regular soldier doing his duty instead of as a celebrity. He did appear on the TV series, The World At War to discuss the 14 October 1943, bombing mission to Schweinfurt, which was the center of the German ball bearing manufacturing industry. This mission is known in USAF history as Black Thursday due to the incredibly high casualties it sustained; in total 60 aircraft were lost out of 291 dispatched, as the raid consisting entirely of B17s was unescorted all the way to Schweinfurt and back due to the current escort aircraft available lacking the range. Fittingly, he was identified only as "James Stewart, Squadron Commander" in the documentary."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoY8Cj1larg
FYI LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SFC William Farrell SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke 1stSgt Eugene Harless SSG William Jones SSG Diane R.
Images:
1. Officers of the 703rd Bomb Squadron, including Jimmy Stewart (highlighted in back row), stand before a Consolidated B-24 Liberator.;
2. Lt. Gen. Martial Valin, chief of staff, French air force, awards the Croix de Guerre with Palm to Colonel Stewart for exceptional services in the liberation of France
Extensive background from jimmy.org/about-jimmy-biography/
"JAMES MAITLAND STEWART: A BIOGRAPHY James Maitland Stewart, the oldest child and only son of Alexander and Elizabeth Jackson Stewart, was born in his parent’s home at 975 Philadelphia Street in Indiana, Pennsylvania on May 20, 1908. After Jimmy’s arrival, the family expanded to include two sisters, Mary Wilson and Virginia Kelly.
Alex (pronounced Alec) Stewart owned the local hardware store. The J.M. Stewart & Co. hardware store had been founded in 1848. Alex purchased a share of the business from his father, James Maitland Stewart in 1905, and assumed sole ownership in 1923. The hardware store, known locally as “the big warehouse”, was a Philadelphia Street institution.
The Stewart’s could trace their roots in Indiana County to 1772, when Jimmy’s third great-grandfather Fergus Moorhead first arrived in what is now Indiana County from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. After Fergus was captured by Indians in July, 1776 his wife and three children returned to Franklin County. He was held captive a total of eleven months. The Moorheads returned to Indiana County, but not until Fergus served with the Cumberland County Militia in the Revolutionary War. Elizabeth Ruth Jackson, known as Bessie, was from Apollo, Pennsylvania, a small town about twenty-five miles west of Indiana. The Jacksons could trace their ancestry back to 1773 and she also had a relative that served in the Revolutionary War. Her father Col. Samuel Jackson, served during the Civil War. She had graduated Wilson College in Franklin County and was thirty-one years old at the time of her wedding on December 19, 1906. Bessie was once described by the local paper as a “lady of regal bearing, dignified and quite proper.”
From his mother and grandfather, J.M. Stewart came Jim’s reserved, dignified manner, as well as the distinctive, deliberate way of thinking and speaking. When Jimmy was five years old, his dad purchased a house atop “Vinegar Hill” at 104 North 7th Street, with a view overlooking downtown Indiana. The Stewart children would slide down the stairway of their home on an Oriental rug, present magic shows and impromptu plays in the basement, and circle the top of Vinegar Hill in a horse-drawn rig. This remained the family home until Alex’s death in 1961.
The Stewart’s had a close-knit and highly principled family life. They held hands and said grace at every meal. Music and reading were focal points of the family’s time together. Elizabeth Stewart was an accomplished musician and pianist, and she passed this gift on to her children. When Alex Stewart was given an accordion by a customer as payment of a debt at his store, he originally gave it to his daughter Virginia (Ginny) to play, but as she was too small to handle it, it was given to Jim, so that the instrument did not “go to waste.” Jim also played the piano, as did his sister Ginny. Mary (Doddie) played the violin.
The Stewart family was members of the Calvary Presbyterian Church of Indiana, where Alex and Bessie sang in the choir. Jimmy’s happy childhood left a lasting impression. He was self-possessed and self-confident. He valued hard work and knew exactly who he was. As long as his activities fell within the range that his father deemed acceptable, Alex would indulge his only son.
When President Harding’s funeral train was passing thru a town about 20 miles from Indiana, Bessie said Jim could not go see it since it would be in the middle of the night. Alec on the other hand thought that his boy should see a piece of history and wakened Jimmy up and they went to see the train. When the train was coming close gave Jimmy two pennies to put on the track. The train of course flattened them. Jimmy & Alec carried these for years. After his death Jimmy found Alec’s penny in his desk drawer.
Plays were presented to neighbor hood children, inspired by the various artifacts his father sent home from France during World War I. Model planes were built and launched from the roof of the house. Homemade radios were built and sold. Jimmy became a Boy Scout and remained active with this organization as an adult. Stewart’s formal education began in Indiana at The Model School, now Wilson Hall, on the campus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He attended The Model School through ninth grade.
In 1923 his parents enrolled him at Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg Pennsylvania, an all-boys school known for its strong religious emphasis at the time Stewart attended.
Jimmy would have been quite content to return to Indiana and would have preferred to stay with his family and friends, but Alex wanted Jim to attend his alma mater Princeton University. Alex had graduated from Princeton in 1898. At Mercersburg, Stewart was active in a variety of activities. He played on the football team for three years, and in his first year at the Academy, he was on the track team. He was art editor for the yearbook KARUX from 1926 to 1928, and he was also a member of the John Marshall Literary Society. Jimmy was active in the choir and glee club, the Stoney Batter drama club, it was here that he had his first real on stage role in “The Frog Prince”, and was elected to play his accordion in the school’s Marshall Orchestra.
During his first summer break, Stewart returned to Indiana Pennsylvania to work as a brick loader for a local construction company and on highway and road construction jobs where he painted lines on the roads.
Over the following two summers, he took a job as an assistant with his friend, Bill Neff, a professional magician. He and Neff played the Pennsylvania-Chautauqua circuit and Stewart’s job was to play his accordion during any “awkward” moments. This gave the young entertainer even more exposure to on-stage performances. He graduated from Mercersburg Academy in 1928. Although Jimmy would have preferred to attend the Naval Academy, Alex‘s mind was made up and Stewart entered his father’s alma mater, Princeton University, in the fall of 1928. His ability to play the accordion enabled him to join the Triangle Club and appear in their production of The Golden Dog, even though there was a ban on freshmen appearing in any Triangle Club productions. He was invited back for the following year by the Triangle to perform a solo on his accordion, “So Beats My Heart for You.” He and the future director-producer Josh Logan performed together in a production of The Tiger Smiles during his junior year and two other productions during his senior year. One production was for the Triangle Club, and the other with Princeton’s Theater Intime. He was also on the cheerleading squad in his junior year and head cheerleading in his senior year.
Although he initially considered engineering, Jimmy finally settled on architecture as his course of study, at which he excelled. He so impressed his professors with his thesis on an airport design that he was awarded a scholarship for graduate studies. His interest in aviation had begun as a boy and was to be a lifelong passion. Stewart became a member of Princeton’s Charter Club in 1929. The Charter Club sponsored weekend jazz parties with the biggest names in the business. One particular weekend event headlined Bix Beiderbecke, Bud Freeman, Jimmy Dorsey and Charles Teagarden. T hough he was becoming more and more involved in performing at this time, Stewart still insisted that he would pursue his graduate studies and a career in architecture. He graduated from Princeton University in 1932. Economic factors greatly influenced what Stewart actually did after his graduation.
A fire had devastated the family’s business in 1929 and his father was in the process of rebuilding. Stewart’s sister Mary had been accepted in an art program at Carnegie Tech, while Virginia had been accepted a Vassar. Because of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed Stewart questioned whether he would find employment as an architect.
Two weeks after graduation, he received an offer from friend Josh Logan to join the University Players, a summer stock group based in West Falmouth on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and he accepted. Logan wanted him to play his accordion in the tea room next to the theater and to do some small walk-on parts. Stewart arrived in Falmouth in the summer of 1932 and began to learn his craft in earnest. While there he met another soon-to-be famous actor, Henry Fonda. At Falmouth, Stewart played the accordion, worked as a stagehand, designed sets, and generally learned the theatre business from the inside out.
In 1932, when the Players had the opportunity to stage Carrie Nation on Broadway, he played a number of small roles that included a constable, a vigilante, an innocent bystander and gardener. While living in New York, he roomed with Henry Fonda and began a friendship that would endure until Fonda’s death in 1982. Though Carrie Nation ran only seven weeks on Broadway, Stewart caught the attention of the critics. He also got favorable reviews for his roles in other Broadway plays, Goodbye Again (1932), Spring in Autumn (1933), and All Good Americans (1933). Goodbye Again had a nine month Broadway run before moving to Boston, where he was then cast inWe Die Exquisitely. He left to become stage manager for Camille (1933), starring Jane Cowl, and moved back to Broadway to play Sergeant O’Hara inYellow Jack (1934). This performance earned him a screen test with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). In the midst of these and other stage performances, Stewart had also done a screen test for the Fox movie studio and was cast in his first moving picture, a Warner Brothers two-reel comedy, Art Trouble(1934). Neither Warner Brothers nor Fox offered him a contract. While waiting to hear from MGM, Stewart was cast in Journey at Night. However, the play closed after the second night and Stewart went home to Indiana, Pennsylvania. Two months later, MGM called him to Hollywood. His friend Henry Fonda met him at the train station. Jimmy was to play the part of a cub reporter in a Chick Sale short, Important News (1936). MGM then cast the 6’3” Stewart in the role of another newspaper man named “Shortie” in the filmMurder Man (1936), starring Spencer Tracy.
From 1935 to 1939 Stewart appeared in 29 motion pictures. In those four years he played a doctor, lawyer, teacher, newspaperman, mechanic, executive, hayseed, soldier, skater, farmer, football star, speed driver, detective, and even a murderer. During this period, he appeared with most of the acclaimed actresses of the time including Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Margaret Sullavan, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Ginger Rogers, Claudette Colbert, Jean Arthur and Elinor Powell. In addition to film, Stewart also did voice work for the studios and radio networks, includingThe Lux Radio Theater, The Screen Guild Theater, and MGM’s promotional program, Good News of 1938. The year 1939 was pivotal for Stewart. He performed in his first western, Destry Rides Again, opposite Marlene Dietrich. His performance as Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes To Washington earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor and elevated him to true “star” status. He would make nine more pictures before playing the role that would finally win him the Oscar, that of reporter Mike Conner in The Philadelphia Story. He co-starred in that film with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, John Howard and Ruth Hussey. The film received six Oscar nominations, but only Stewart and Donald Ogden Stewart, for best screen play, walked away with a statue. Jimmy appeared in 55 motion pictures after The Philadelphia Story. Other performances that won him the Oscar nomination for best actor were It’s A Wonderful Life, released in 1946,Harvey, released in 1950, and Anatomy of a Murder, released in 1959. He worked with Hollywood’s most notable directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Anthony Mann and Frank Capra. Of all the directors he worked with, Capra was the one who best captured what was to become the Stewart trademark, the myth of the common man struggling against great odds, the American who was at the same time “tough but vulnerable.”
The passionate Sicilian-American and the young man from Indiana, Pennsylvania somehow shared a commonality of values both on and off screen that made them friends for life. When Stewart received his Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1985, it was Capra he singled out as having the most profound influence on his career. Stewart’s life off-screen was as interesting and demanding as his career in films.
While he was building his reputation as an actor, the rest of the world was about to go to war. German occupation in numerous countries in the early part of 1940 led Congress on September 16, 1940 to pass the Selective Service Bill, “the draft”, this bill called for 900,000 men between the ages of 20 and 36 to be drafted each year. Stewart’s draft number was 310. When his number was called and he appeared at Draft Board No. 245 in West Los Angeles in February 1941, the 6’3” Stewart weighed only 138 pounds, 5 pounds under the acceptable weight level. He was turned down. Stewart wanted to fly and serve his country but by May of 1941 he would have been too old to get into flight school. He went home ate everything he could that was fattening and went back and enlisted in the Army Air Corps, he passed the physical with an ounce to spare. While others tried to avoid the draft, he actually wanted to serve in the military. Later he would actually campaign to see combat.
Jimmy was already a licensed pilot. Interested in aviation as a child, he had taken his first flight while still in Indiana from one of the barnstorming pilots that used to travel the Midwest. As a successful actor in 1935 Jimmy was able to afford flying lessons. He received his pilot’s license in 1935 and bought his first airplane. In 1938 he gained his commercial pilot’s license. He often flew cross country to visit his parents in Pennsylvania, navigating by the railroad tracks.
In the military, he was to make extensive use of his pilot’s training. In March 1941 at age 32, he reported for duty as Private James Stewart at Fort McArthur and was assigned to the Army Air Corps at Moffett Field. To comply with the regulations of the Air Corps proficiency board, Stewart required additional 100 flying hours and bought them at a nearby field, at this own expense. He then took and passed a very stiff proficiency board examination. In January 1942 Stewart was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant. He was then sent to Mather Field in California as a twin engine instructor this included both the B-17 and B-24. Much to his dismay, Stewart stayed stateside for almost two years, until commanding officers finally yielded to his request to be sent overseas. In November 1943, now a Captain and Operations Officer for the 703rd Squadron, 445th Bombardment Group of the Eight Air Force, he arrived in Tibenham, England. In March of 1944 he was transferred to the 453rd Bombardment Group at Old Buckenham. While stateside, Stewart flew B-17’s (The Flying Fortress). In England he flew B-24’s (The Liberator) and did so for the remaining years of the war. Stewart’s war record included 20 dangerous combat missions as command pilot, wing commander or squadron commander. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters, The Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, and the French Croix de Guerre with Palm. At the end of the war he had risen to the rank of Colonel. After the war he remained with the US Air Force Reserves and was promoted to Brigadier General in 1959. His tuxedo and dress blues with all the correct medals are on display at The Jimmy Stewart Museum. He retired from the Air Force in 1968 (mandatory retirement age) and received the Distinguished Service Medal. When the war was over, Jimmy returned home to a hero’s welcome in Indiana, Pennsylvania, immortalized by Life magazine cover that showed him posing in full uniform on top of a building with the golden cupola of the Indiana County Courthouse in the background draped with a “Welcome Home Jim” banner and a large lighted wooden “V”ictory sign – his father is said to have put these up.
But he was concerned about his career. No longer under contract with MGM, he wondered whether or not he could still act. Radio supplied some acting roles while he waited for a screen part. His first post-war radio appearance was the Lux Radio Theatre version of Destry Rides Again. Director and friend (and now ex-Colonel) Frank Capra supplied his next role with an offer to play the part of George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life (1946). Though the film was not a commercial success at the time, it was enough to revive Stewart’s faith in his acting abilities and his career. Stewart remained an independent actor working without a studio contract.
In 1950, an ailing Universal Studios approached the actor with the suggestion that he appear in the western film Winchester ’73 and also the film version ofHarvey. Although Universal couldn’t afford to pay Stewart his usual salary, acting on advice of his agent Lew Wasserman, Stewart agreed to work for a percentage of the profits. This gave Jimmy the opportunity to do the part of Elwood P. Dowd that he had wanted. Both films were major successes. Profits aside, the deal established precedent, shifting the balance of power from the studio to the star and began a gradual erosion of the old studio system of movie making.
In 1949, James Stewart, distinguished actor, trend setter and military hero, added one more part to his growing repertoire, that of a family man. He met Gloria Hatrick McLean in the summer of 1948 when he accepted a dinner invitation to the home of Gary and Rocky Cooper. The 31 year old Gloria stole Stewart’s heart. She was beautiful, outgoing, well educated and she liked to play golf. She loved animals and the outdoors, and she was not an actress. When Stewart married her on August 9, 1949, they had a ready-made family. Gloria had two children, Ronald then five and Michael, three, from a previous marriage. Stewart, for years considered one of the most eligible bachelors in Hollywood, was 41 years old. In the fall of 1950, the Stewarts learned they were to become parents of twins. On May 7, 1951, fraternal twins Kelly & Judy were born. The Stewarts lived in Beverly Hills where many other celebrities resided. Yet their son Michael says they “were raised with that small-town Christian Presbyterian ethic that nobody owes you a living. If you have bad breaks, get up and move on. That was the attitude of both my parents, and it never changed.”
After his retirement from the military, Jimmy and Gloria traveled a lot. They became very interested in safaris, zoos and wildlife conservation efforts. He continued making films and appeared on numerous television shows, includingThe Jack Benny Show. Stewart had his own television show on NBC in1971,The Jimmy Stewart Show, followed by Hawkins on CBS in 1973. Later, he would make many memorable appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Through these appearances, movie re-runs, and the release of his films to video, another generation became familiar with his work. It’s A Wonderful Life, one of his personal favorites, became a television Christmas tradition, viewed annually by millions. In 1970, co-starring with Helen Hayes, he revived his role of Elwood P. Down in Harvey on stage in New York and again in 1975 in London. In 1976, when his friend Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for President, Stewart helped by campaigning extensively for him in California. He served as an Elder at the Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church and did television commercials for Firestone tires and Campbell’s soup. A recording of his poetry book, Jimmy Stewart and His Poems, was nominated for a 1991 Grammy Award in the spoken-word category. Jimmy and Gloria Stewart became increasingly active in philanthropic affairs over the years. His signature charity event, The Jimmy Stewart Relay Marathon Race, held each year since 1982, has raised millions of dollars for the Child and Family Development Center at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
Professionally, he became a champion for the preservation of film and a powerful opponent in the fight against the colorization of classic films. He advocated his platform in hundreds of interviews and even testified before Congress on the topic. In the meantime, his career achievements were being honored by every major film festival and center, including Cannes, Berlin, Monterey and The Kennedy Center. In 1985, when Stewart received The Lifetime Achievement Award from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he had already become one of Hollywood’s most highly honored and deeply loved stars. He has been the recipient of many coveted awards and the subject of countless tributes that recognize not only his professional successes, but his character and patriotism.
In 1967 the Pennsylvania Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts was awarded to Jimmy Stewart. The American Film Institute has recognized the magnitude of Jimmy’s accomplishments by awarding him the coveted Life Achievement Award in 1980 for fundamentally advancing the art of American Film. In presenting the award, the AFI summed up many aspects of his enduring presence: “In a career of extraordinary range and depth, Jimmy Stewart has come to embody on the screen the very image of the typical American. Whether flying the ocean as Charles Lindbergh, going to Washington as Senator Jefferson Smith, or playing an ordinary man who somehow never got around to leaving his home town, Stewart has captured the essence of American hopes, doubts, and aspirations. His idealism, his determination, his vulnerability, and above all, his basic decency shine through every role he plays…..”
In 1983 on his 75th birthday his hometown of Indiana unvailed a statue of their native son in front of the County Chourthouse. There is a fiberglass rendering of this statue in The Jimmy Stewart Museum. In 1990, his alma mater, Princeton University, awarded him it highest alumni honor, The Woodrow Wilson Award, for outstanding public service. He had been awarded an honorary master’s degree in 1947 and had served as a University trustee from 1959-1963. The American Red Cross presented Stewart with their Humanitarian Award for service to his fellow man. The National Council of the Boy Scouts of America presented Stewart with the Silver Buffalo Award (on display at the Museum) for his “distinguished service to boyhood”.
Stewart’s life was not without adversity, however in July 1953 Stewart’s mother Elizabeth passed away. His father died in December of 1961. His stepson, Ronald, a commissioned Marine officer, was killed in Vietnam in June of 1969, just two months after Jimmy and Gloria had visited him while they were on a USO tour. In February 1994, Jimmy lost his beloved wife of nearly 45 years, Gloria.
In 1995 on the occasion of Stewart’s 87th birthday, The Jimmy Stewart Museum, along with a new terminal at the Jimmy Stewart Airport, were dedicated with the help of daughters Judy and Kelly in his hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania. Today visitors come to Indiana from around the world to learn more about his life and career and to see where he grew up and acquired the values he embraced thoughout his life – hard work, love of country, love of family, love of community and most of all love of God.
Jimmy Stewart passed away on July 2, 1997, at the age of 89. He was mourned by fans worldwide. Perhaps the greatest tribute of the American Film Institute was the observation that James Stewart is an actor “so beloved by the movie going public that they call him “Jimmy”, just like a member of the family.” And so he remains, our Jimmy. America still needs heroes, and Jimmy Stewart continues to fill the bill."
"Jimmy Stewart was too modest to recount his war experiences and there is very little material on his tour as bomber pilot. I found this audio clip from 1990 when he spoke at Princeton about his life and briefly about WW2. The entire audio clip can be found at princeton dot edu.
Nearly two years before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Stewart had become a private pilot and had accumulated over 400 hours of flying time and was considered a highly proficient pilot. Along with musician/composer Hoagy Carmichael, seeing the need for trained war pilots, Stewart teamed with other Hollywood moguls and put their own money into creating a flying school in Glendale, Arizona which they named Thunderbird Field. This airfield trained more than 200,000 pilots during the War, became the origin of the Flying Thunderbirds, and is now the home of Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Later in 1940, Stewart was drafted into the Army Air Corps but was rejected due to a weight problem. The USAAC had strict height and weight requirements for new recruits and Stewart was five pounds under the standard. To get up to 148 pounds he sought out the help of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's muscle man, Don Loomis, who was legendary for his ability to add or subtract pounds in his studio gymnasium. Stewart subsequently attempted to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps but still came in under the weight requirement although he persuaded the AAF enlistment officer to run new tests, this time passing the weigh-in,with the result that Stewart successfully enlisted in the Army in March 1941. He became the first major American movie star to wear a military uniform in World War II.
Since the United States had yet to declare war on Germany and because of the Army's unwillingness to put celebrities on the front, Stewart was held back from combat duty, though he did earn a commission as a Second Lieutenant and completed pilot training. He was later stationed in Albuquerque, NM, becoming an instructor pilot for the B-17 Flying Fortress.
For the thirty-six-year-old Stewart, combat duty seemed far away and unreachable, and he had no clear plans for the future. But then a rumor that Stewart would be taken off flying status and assigned to making training films or selling bonds called for his immediate and decisive action, because what he dreaded most was the hope-shattering spector of a dead end." So he appealed to his commander, a pre-war aviator, who understood the situation and reassigned him to a unit going overseas.
In August 1943 he was finally assigned to the 445th Bombardment Group in Sioux City, Iowa, first as Operations Officer of the 703rd Bombardment Squadron and then its commander. In December, the 445th Bombardment Group flew its B-24 Liberator bombers to RAF Tibenham, England and immediately began combat operations. While flying missions over Germany, Stewart was promoted to Major. In March 1944, he was transferred as group operations officer to the 453rd Bombardment Group, a new B-24 outfit that had been experiencing difficulties. As a means to inspire his new group, Stewart flew as command pilot in the lead B-24 on numerous missions deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. These missions went uncounted at Stewart's orders. His "official" total is listed as 20 and are limited to those with the 445th. In 1944, he twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions in combat and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He also received the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. In July 1944, after flying 20 combat missions, Stewart was made chief of staff of the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing of the Eighth Air Force. Before the war ended, he was promoted to colonel, one of only a few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years.
At the beginning of June 1945, Stewart was the presiding officer of the Court-Martial of a pilot and navigator who were charged with dereliction of duty when they accidentally bombed the Swiss city of Zurich the previous March - the first instance of US personnel being tried over an attack on a neutral country. The Court acquitted the accused.
Stewart did not often talk of his wartime service, perhaps due to his desire to be seen as a regular soldier doing his duty instead of as a celebrity. He did appear on the TV series, The World At War to discuss the 14 October 1943, bombing mission to Schweinfurt, which was the center of the German ball bearing manufacturing industry. This mission is known in USAF history as Black Thursday due to the incredibly high casualties it sustained; in total 60 aircraft were lost out of 291 dispatched, as the raid consisting entirely of B17s was unescorted all the way to Schweinfurt and back due to the current escort aircraft available lacking the range. Fittingly, he was identified only as "James Stewart, Squadron Commander" in the documentary."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoY8Cj1larg
FYI LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SFC William Farrell SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke 1stSgt Eugene Harless SSG William Jones SSG Diane R.
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