Jimmy Stewart, the great actor, had more WW2 missions and even Vietnam combat bombing mission you didn't know about

Jimmy Stewart had developed a love of aviation long before he became a famous actor. He took his first airplane ride in a Curtiss biplane while he was in high school—15 minutes for $15 that he had saved while working around the family's J.M. Stewart Hardware Store in Pennsylvania.

When Charles Lindbergh made his historic ocean crossing from New York to Paris in 1927, Stewart created a window display of it for the store, complete with a model of the Spirit of St. Louis that he built. The 19-year-old Stewart would race across the street to the newspaper office to get updates of Lindbergh's progress off the teletype, then return to the store window to move the model plane closer to the Eiffel Tower he had fashioned.

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.



Now for the stuff you may have learned, or might not have. I've never come across it before, so I'm posting it for everyone else that admires the B17 and B24 crews, and Jimmy Stewart:

In octopber of 1940 Stewart was drafted into the U.S. Army. His draft number was 310, but though he was 6-foot-3, he weighed only 138 pounds.

When the Army turned him down as too skinny, he started eating spaghetti twice a day, supplemented with steaks and milkshakes. To get up to 143 pounds, he sought out the help of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's muscle man and trainer Don Loomis, who was noted for his ability to help people add or subtract pounds in his studio gymnasium. Stewart later attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps, but still came in underweight. Determined to achieve his goal of becoming a military pilot, he successfully convinced the Army doctor into adding an ounce or two so he could enlist and on March 22, 1941, he was inducted as a private in the U.S. Army

He was sent to Fort MacArthur, Calif., where cameramen hounded him, following him even when he was issued his underwear. Witnessing all that unwanted attention, one old soldier remarked sympathetically, "You poor bastard." Stewart's salary dropped from $12,000 per week to $21 per month, but he dutifully sent a 10 percent cut ($2.10) to his agent each month.

Stewart was held back from combat duty, though he did earn a commission as a Second Lieutenant and completed pilot training.

In December 1942, he requested transfer to the four-engine school at Hobbs, N.M. Finally, he reported to the headquarters of the Second Air Force in Salt Lake City. Still looking for more than desk duty, Stewart was sent to Gowen Field in Boise, Idaho, and the 29th Bombardment Group, where he became a flight instructor on B-17 Flying Fortresses.

Captain James Stewart with pilots of his squadron in Marrakesh on the way to England. November 1943

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.

As squadron commander of the Brunswick mission over Germany in February 1944, Stewart earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, for holding the formation together during Luftwaffe fighter attacks and heavy antiaircraft fire, and for directing a bombing run in which the bombs were accurately released over the target.

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 (Nine Yanks and a Jerk) 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.

He directed the bombing operations of approximately 48 Liberators, as well as still being permitted to make occasional combat flights as a pilot. He flew eight more such missions, including one over the heart of Berlin, in which he lost several of his men. Badly shaken, but not physically injured, Stewart recuperated in the hospital for several weeks and, reluctantly, agreed to end his combat flying. For the rest of the war, he conducted combat briefings at Hethel Airfield in England while serving as wing operations officer and chief of staff for the 2nd Combat Bomb Wing. By war's end, Stewart had reached the rank of colonel and had been awarded a number of decorations, including two Distinguished Flying Crosses and three Air Medals.

Jimmy Stewart also rode along on at least one mission in Viet Nam (http://www.historynet.com/mr-stewart-goes-to-vietnam.htm). He was in Vietnam on an active duty reserve tour, to see how bombers were supporting the troops in Vietnam.

Throughout his years in the Reserves, Stewart maintained familiarity as a SAC bomber pilot in the B-36, then the B-47, and finally the B-52.

If the name Hoagy Carmichael rings a bell, but you can't recall why, it might be you recall the Dual Ghia he was selling in the magazine ad I posted years ago http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/01/dual-ghia-in-classifieds-and-hoagy.html

Top image from http://www.historynet.com/mr-stewart-goes-to-vietnam.htm
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/20-february-1966/
http://www.b24bestweb.com/b24bestweb-Famous.htm