Jimmy Stewart : bomber pilot

336 Pages·2006·4.98 MB·English

by  Smith

Colonel Jimmy Stewart
JIMMY STEWART
BOMBER PILOT
STARR SMITH
WALTER CRONKITE
FOREWORD BY
In memory of two members of my family, now deceased, who served as flying
officers in the Army Air Corps/United States Air Force in World War II and
beyond: My brother, Colonel James W. Smith, who was on active duty for more
than thirty years, and my brother-in-law, First Lieutenant Chandler “Chuck”
Clover, who flew B-24 Liberators in the Pacific in World War II. And to my
colleagues—the Liberator combat crewmen of the Eighth Air Force in the ETO
in World War II.
“Jimmy Stewart was that rare public man who performed his duty without
calling attention to himself. Stewart has found his biographer in Starr Smith, a
man who knew Stewart, who knew the World War II Army Air Corps, and who
surely knows how to write.”
—Wayne Flynt, professor of history, Auburn University

“This is an excellent biography of a distinguished airman and fine human
being, not a Hollywood star in uniform but a dedicated officer whose primary
interest was the campaign of the Eighth Air Force. It is the work of a very
accomplished writer, one who really knows his craft. When you turn the last
page, you cannot but have a clear understanding of Jimmy Stewart’s character.”
—Roger A. Freeman, air power historian and author, The Mighty Eighth

“Several senior-officer mentors, recognizing Stewart’s competence as more
than merely respectable, secured him combat assignments when Hollywood and
the air force would probably rather have kept him making training films... Smith
dishes no dirt, possibly because, like other Stewart limners before him, he found
none to dish.”
—American Library Association, Booklist
CONTENTS

Foreword by Walter Cronkite
A Daughter’s Tribute by Kelly Stewart Harcourt
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 Home in Pennsylvania
CHAPTER 2 A Farewell to Hollywood
CHAPTER 3 Bad News at Salt Lake City
CHAPTER 4 Colonel Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower In Louisiana
CHAPTER 5 A Winter in Boise
CHAPTER 6 A Summer in Sioux City
CHAPTER 7 The Wright Crew
CHAPTER 8 Combat Life at Tibenham
CHAPTER 9 A Mission to Bremen
CHAPTER 10 Brunswick and Berlin
CHAPTER 11 New Ways at Old Buc
CHAPTER 12 Jimmy and Andy—“The Buzzin’ Twins”
CHAPTER 13 D-day—The Sixth of June
CHAPTER 14 Ed Murrow and Jimmy Stewart in London
CHAPTER 15 The Bombing of Switzerland
CHAPTER 16 A Farewell to the ETO
Postscripts
A. Gloria

B. The General

C. The Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana

D. The Mighty Eighth Air Force Heritage Museum

E. Folded Wings

Thanks
Epilogue
Bibliography
Periodicals and News Sources
Index
FOREWORD

W
e met—Jimmy Stewart and I—in an atmosphere as far removed from
Hollywood’s make-believe as it was possible to imagine. It was in Britain during
World War II on an American Liberator bomber base. Both of us were there on
business. I was a war correspondent. Jimmy was a squadron commander in the
445th Bombardment Group, assigned—as were the rest of the U.S. Eighth Air
Force and Royal Air Force’s entire heavy bomber fleet—to bomb Nazi Germany
to its knees.
Captain Stewart had been on duty in England for a few weeks before the word
leaked out that this famous movie star was in such perilous action as flying
bombers against the enemy. The word was probably spilled in one of the G.I.
bars, perhaps a Red Cross club, by one of Stewart’s enlisted men on weekend
leave in London.
When I applied to visit Stewart’s group, Eighth Air Force Headquarters
pretended no knowledge that he was in the British Isles, let alone flying missions
and commanding aircrews.
The denial stories didn’t hold up for long—but an instantly imposed ban
against any press visits to Stewart’s base proved harder to break. We
correspondents covering the air war finally broke the ban by appealing to the
same modest, unselfish motivation that had caused Stewart to impose the press
blackout in the first place. We simply pointed out that the courage under fire,
heroics, and daring exploits of bringing crippled bombers back to base by his
combat crews were not making their hometown newspapers as was the case with
all the rest of the Eighth Air Force.
I heard later that Stewart was crushed when he was made to realize how his
closed gates had denied the press access to his own aircrews.
But Stewart’s modesty remained undaunted. He opened his base to the press,
and ordered that he was not available to meet the press in an interview. He
yielded just a little bit on this with one or two of us, not to submit to an interview
but for an occasional informal chat with a stern warning that his remarks were
not for publication.
I have met a few movie stars and I’ve found many of them in real life not to
be so different as themselves in reel life, but of them all, I think that Jimmy
Stewart was most like those modest heroes he portrayed. The occasional times
after the war when we met at small parties, he seemed to enjoy our short chats,
and the war was mentioned only when he or I inquired of mutual friends with
whom one or the other of us had lost touch.
Now journalist Starr Smith—wartime Eighth Air Force intelligence officer
who worked with Jimmy Stewart briefing the combat crews for their daring
daylight raids on German targets—has raised the curtain on Stewart’s gallant
service as a bomber pilot and air combat commander in World War II. It’s a true
story of personal knowledge, with sharp insight, and told with skill, respect, and
admiration.
—Walter Cronkite
New York City
November 2004
Walter Cronkite in his war correspondent uniform in England in World War II while covering
the Eighth Air Force.