There’s an airplane that we built that that never sort of a training airplane for the war and a lot of the flyers from the war bought these airplanes and barnstormed around the land. >> Jimmy Stewart [music] played heroes on screen. But for years after World War II, he refused to talk about the real [music] war he fought in the sky.
He flew 20 combat missions over Germany as a B-24 bomber pilot, led men into deadly flak, [music] and came home a changed man. Hollywood buried the story. The army [music] buried the records. But his crew never forgot. After Stewart’s death in 1997, >> [music] >> the men who flew beside him finally spoke. Their memories confirmed rumors that had followed him for decades about fear, about loss, and about a movie star [music] who refused to hide.
The star who walked [music] away from Hollywood. In February 1941, 10 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, one of [music] Hollywood’s biggest movie stars decided to give up his career. James Stewart [music] had just received an Oscar for The Philadelphia Story and was earning millions at [music] the prestigious Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, MGM.
Suddenly, the 35-year-old actor decided to join the army. Stewart began his service in the army in February 1941 and qualified for flight school after only a month, earning his wings as an army flyer and the rank of second lieutenant. The decision to join the military was not easy for Stewart [music] as military service ran in his blood.
His father had served in two wars and James had been taught from an early age that it was his patriotic duty. [music] At first, the army did not know what to do with Stewart as studio boss Louis B. Mayer did not want to waste a future movie [music] star in enemy fire. Well, the army did not want to lose such a popular actor in the war.
As such, for nearly 2 years, Stewart was kept away from the front lines. Following his promotion to first lieutenant in July 1942, he was [music] sent to Kirtland Army Airfield in Albuquerque, New Mexico to serve as a flight instructor training bombardiers. >> [music] >> He later transferred to Hobbs Army Airfield to convert to the four-engine B-17 [music] Flying Fortress before arriving at the Combat Crew Processing Center >> [music] >> in Salt Lake City in early 1943, where he was preparing to head to the front lines. Instead, Stewart was sent
to an operational training unit in Idaho as an instructor. Stewart continued serving as a flight instructor and was promoted to captain in July 1943. In addition, >> [music] >> he was promoted to the post of squadron commander. At the same time, he realized that at 35, he was too old to fly combat missions.
And there were even whispers [music] that he would be forced to leave active duty and go back to Hollywood to make training films and war bonds. As such, [music] Stewart pulled every string to get back to the front. It was only in the fall of 1943 that a sympathetic commanding officer helped him get an assignment leading a squadron in the 445th Bombardment Group, which was training its crews in B-24 Liberators for the Pacific Theater.
Arrival >> [music] >> in England. In November 1943, Stewart gets his first taste of real combat. He is posted to England as part of the 445th Bombardment Group of the 8th Air Force and assigned to a remote and perpetually wet village [music] of Tibenham, East Anglia. The bright lights of the movie studios have been replaced by the whine of aircraft engines.
Here, Stewart finds himself surrounded by younger men, all of whom have admired him on the screen and are now astonished to meet their movie idol in the flesh. The colonel takes command of the 703rd Bomb Squadron, 445th Bomb Group, where he flies the four-engine B-24 Liberator. The B-24 was a problematic aircraft, which was less maneuverable at low altitudes [music] than the famous B-17 Flying Fortress and comparatively had a short range.
However, it carried a larger payload and was able to operate at medium altitudes, [music] from which the B-17 could not take off. Stewart later wrote that he could not handle a B-24 in formation at high altitudes, but the medium altitudes were his friend. On December 20th, 1943, Stewart completed his first combat mission.
He is, perhaps, the oldest man on the battlefield, giving orders to young pilots [music] who looked up to him. The conditions in which the aircraft were flown were severe. [music] At -40°, crews had to clear the masks of their oxygen lines to [music] be able to breathe. Missions sometimes had to be undertaken alone as the escorts could only accompany bombers so far.
At one point, during one of the winter missions over Germany, a shell from an anti-aircraft gun tore through the wheel well of his airplane, opening a large fissure between the pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats, from which [music] the crew could see the rolling hills of Germany far below. >> [snorts] >> Stewart survives this encounter, >> [music] >> as do many others.
News of the famous actor service star spreads [music] throughout the base as he does not hesitate to undertake dangerous missions and makes a point of not picking out [music] easy targets for himself. He shares the hardships of his men saying, >> [music] >> “I just can’t sit here and send these fellows to death without knowing myself what I am sending them into.
” And so, from this point on, the perception of Colonel Stewart is etched in the minds of his soldiers for [music] the duration of the war, becoming a lucky squadron leader. By early [snorts] 1944, odd things had begun to happen to Stewart’s missions. To many combatant crews, >> [music] >> he was an increasingly fortunate pilot to have along.
Every mission he led as a squadron, >> [music] >> group, or wing commander had met with good bombing results and few casualties. It was not just coincidence, either. Stewart was [music] the kind of pilot who would pore over every mission beforehand, analyzing the situation as though it were some kind of puzzle to be solved rather [music] than a danger to be survived.
Stewart was promoted to the rank of major in January of 1944, but not before he refused to accept the promotion until such time as his own pilots achieved [music] the same rank. He was a good leader, in other words, and one who understood that his men’s [music] well-being came before his own successes, despite quietly suffering the mental toll of his [music] responsibilities.
One of Stewart’s most notable real-world instances of leadership excellence occurred during a mission to Ludwigshafen, when a navigational [music] error had placed one sister bomb group in a range of hostile forces. Rather than allow the group to be destroyed as a matter of course, Stewart [music] ordered his formation to remain with the sister group instead of pulling away and leaving them to their fate, a far more prudent decision that likely saved all of their lives.
The commander of the saved group even sent a formal [music] letter to Stewart’s own commander, praising him and requesting that he be promoted for his actions. A few days later, Stewart was given his field promotion to the rank of major. There were also rumors on base that Stewart had begun to be considered too important by his commanders to continue to risk in missions and would soon be reassigned and grounded [music] for good.
Other rumors suggested that he was in fact being prepared to take on an entire group of his own in the near [music] future. In the end, it would turn out that both stories might have had at least a little truth to them. Big Week [music] and the mission that nearly broke him. In February 1944, during what was known as Big Week in the Air War, [music] Stewart faced his 10th combat mission as a group or wing leader deep in German territory.
[music] The escort fighters were stretched to the limit and the mission that day involved hitting a number of targets in the German city of Fürth. The target of the flight was an aircraft factory near the city of Fürth. Stewart’s plane, [music] the Dixie Flyer, was one of those that dropped a full bomb load on target, [music] greatly hampering Germany’s capacity to produce military aircraft [music] and completely destroying the airfield.
As the plane turned to head back to base [music] after the bombs had been released, a shell from a German gun fired right through the middle of the plane. The impact nearly sent Stewart, who was in the co-pilot seat, out of the plane. But for the fact that he was harnessed in his seat, he would have been killed instantly.
This mission was one of the closest calls that Stewart had during his combat tour. >> [music] >> And it was one of the missions that came closest to finishing his career as a fighter pilot. Stewart went on to complete two more missions as the group leader for the 445th, >> [music] >> one of which was a bombing mission against the heavily defended city of Berlin.
Missions to Berlin were amongst the most feared missions of the Eighth Air Force, since the defenses surrounding the capital of Germany were second [music] to none. Stewart had personally taken part in approximately a dozen bombing missions during his tour in the 445th and seen many of his friends killed and maimed.
>> [music] >> He knew that any given mission had the potential to take another comrade away from him >> [music] >> and that he was responsible for the lives of those under him. In one particularly devastating mission, 13 planes from the 445th were shot down and about 130 men lost their lives compared to the enemy.
These were not numbers to Stewart, just men that [music] he had trained and prepared and seen off to battle. A new command and a secret role in D-Day. Shortly after his run over Berlin, Stewart [music] reluctantly accepted a transfer away from the 445th to the 453rd Bomb Group at Old Buckenham, >> [music] >> where he became a chief of staff figure briefing the crews of his new group, including the bombing runs in June 1944 paving the way for the D-Day landings.
To his lasting regret, >> [music] >> Stewart did not fly on any of those tactical missions himself. When the men of the 453rd first heard they were getting a Hollywood movie star as their new operations officer, they were not impressed. They suspected it might [music] be little more than a publicity stunt, an opportunity for an actor to have a few easy missions and then get shipped home.
But Stewart was serious, working through the nights planning missions >> [music] >> and staying in the control tower until the last crew had returned safely. One veteran, [music] Walter Strowinsky, recalled that Stewart was known to be one of the few officers who never left the airfield tower until every single plane had returned and was accounted for.
A small habit that meant a great deal to the men flying under his watch. Stewart briefed [music] his bomber crews before the D-Day missions, telling them they would be able to look down and see the mightiest fleet ever assembled crossing toward the Normandy coast. When the crews returned hours later, they complained [music] to Stewart that they had seen nothing at all because of the heavy cloud cover.
It was a strange, almost [music] anticlimactic footnote to one of the most important operations of the entire war, and Stewart had not even had the option to see it for himself. By the end of his combat service, Stewart had flown 20 combat missions with the 703rd Squadron, [music] striking oil refineries, ammunition plants, chemical factories, German air bases, and other military [music] targets.
He continued to rise through the ranks until by the end of the war, he served [music] as chief of staff of the Second Combat Bomb Wing. Stewart [music] personally brought that wing home aboard the Queen Elizabeth, and legend [music] has it shook the hand of every single man in his organization as they came ashore in New York.
His awards were true testament to a combat record that went beyond mere symbolism. By the end of his WWII service, Stewart had earned multiple Distinguished Flying Crosses along with the Croix de Guerre of a Palm presented to him personally [music] by the French Air Force. The silence that followed. When Stewart returned home in August 1945, [music] the man who stepped off the boat looked different from the one who had set it down.
He’d lost enough weight to look sickly on the already thin frame he could scarcely have survived on. He rarely slept, and if he did, said witnesses, he had nightmares [music] about planes exploding and men falling through the sky screaming. He was depressed, unable to concentrate, >> [music] >> and refused to talk to anyone about what he’d been through in the war.
His acting career [music] seemed to be all but over. From 1941 to 1945, Stewart had not made a single film. Upon returning to Hollywood, he discovered he was no longer welcome at MGM and had to rebuild [music] it from the ground up at Universal Studios. Stewart’s reaction to all of this was to remain silent. He seldom spoke publicly about his wartime experiences, did not give interviews about his time in combat, [music] and abjectly refused to ever star in a World War II picture.
An easy way to capitalize [music] on his own story. Even decades later, radio hosts who tried to draw him out about the subject >> [music] >> found that Stewart rarely spoke about his wartime service, even when pressed. There remained room for speculation >> [music] >> and not all of it holds up under closer examination.
Fact checkers have noted that some of the most [music] detailed claims about Stewart’s specific nightmares and symptoms mainly trace back to a single interview he gave decades [music] later to his fellow World War II flyer, Barry Shalito. And that other primary sources describe his weight loss and change in demeanor without going into the same level of detail.
According to Shalito, Stewart changed [music] in appearance during his time overseas, losing weight he could not have afforded, >> [music] >> and became what airmen at the time referred to as flak-happy, a term used for the psychological toll of sustained combat, a condition that would today be recognized as post-traumatic [music] stress.
Biographer Robert Matzen, who spent years researching Stewart’s wartime record for his book on the subject, >> [music] >> found more direct evidence closer to home. Matzen said that Stewart’s own wife spoke of the symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress lasting long after the war, including nightmares, sweats, and shakes, and that Stewart sometimes had to step back from work commitments because the pressure of his perfectionism and his command responsibilities had become too much to bear.
George Bailey and a wounded man’s performance. The clearest on-screen evidence of Stewart’s internal struggle may be his performance in It’s a Wonderful Life, released [music] in 1946 soon after his return from combat. The role required Stewart to play a man on the edge of suicide, and much of what audiences saw on screen was unrehearsed, unscripted flashes of raw emotion coming through a man who had recently lived through his own trauma overseas.
During the famous bridge scene, Stewart was not supposed to cry or show such intense emotion. But when he did, and the scene ended, >> [music] >> he reportedly stayed on the bridge set crying while the cast and crew watched in silence. His co-star Donna Reed noticed the tension [music] on set, and there was open discussion among the cast about the weight of playing a man in that state [music] of despair, particularly given what was happening across the country as veterans returned home from the war carrying similar
burdens. Biographer Robert Matzen suggested Stewart likely did not have the same emotional capacity before the war, and that the trauma he carried home enabled a rawness in his performance that had not existed in his earlier films. In a real sense, the role functioned almost like an early form of exposure therapy for Stewart, letting him channel real anger, sadness, and [music] darkness into a fictional character rather than confronting it directly in his personal life.
Stewart carried this weight for the rest of his life. Decades later, he still recalled that the nightmares came every night, [music] describing them in vivid detail. The sound of flak bursting around [music] the cockpit, planes hit and burning and spinning out of formation, and the recurring image of an explosion beneath him >> [music] >> lifting the plane with the feeling that this was the end.
This was not a man performing trauma for sympathy. It was a private struggle that occasionally slipped out in interviews he otherwise tried to avoid. After his [music] death, his crew finally confirmed it. James Stewart died in July 1997 at the [music] age of 89. By then, he had spent more than five decades mostly avoiding the subject of his war record in public.
But among the surviving men of the 445th >> [music] >> and 453rd Bomb Groups, the truth about his service had never really been a secret. It simply had not reached a wide audience while he was alive to downplay it. One fellow pilot from Stewart’s 701st Squadron, a man named Shank, who flew 11 combat missions over Germany in 1945 and survived a devastating crash landing that killed [music] three of his crew and left him permanently injured, gave an interview to the Northwest Herald in July 1997 >> [music] >> describing his time serving alongside
Jimmy Stewart in World [music] War II. Interviews like this, given by ordinary airmen rather than movie studios, [music] became some of the clearest confirmation of what Stewart’s record had actually looked like on the ground. Stewart’s connection to military service did not end when the fighting stopped in 1945.
[music] He remained in the Army Reserve and later the Air Force Reserve when it was formed, and in 1959 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. [music] Remarkably, in 1966, at the age of 58, >> [music] >> he flew as an observer aboard a bomber over North Vietnam, adding one more combat flight to a service record [music] that had already spanned more than two decades before finally retiring from military service in 1968.
The commanding officer [music] of that Vietnam mission, Colonel Amos, later described the experience as [music] a great honor for his crew, calling Stewart the same modest gentleman in person that audiences had seen in his films. Someone [music] who was a keen observer and a quiet doer rather than someone seeking attention [music] for his service.
The mission was kept largely secret at the time, partly because of its almost [music] deadly consequences and partly because Stewart simply preferred it that way. What makes Stewart’s story stand apart from a typical Hollywood war narrative is this combination of confirmed heroism and genuine reluctance to be treated as a hero.
He did not invent his war record and just [music] as importantly, he never inflated it either. If anything, he spent the rest of his life quietly underselling it. The rumors that followed him for decades about narrow escapes in German skies, but [music] a lucky squadron leader who refused to let his men fly into danger without him, about nightmares that never fully went away, >> [music] >> were not tabloid inventions dreamed up after his death.
According to the crew members who flew beside him and the historians who later pieced together his service record, those rumors were in almost every detail [music] that mattered, true. James Stewart never wanted to be remembered as a war hero, but the men who flew beside him never forgot what he did. If you enjoyed [music] this story, like, subscribe, and share for more forgotten stories from history.
