On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy led a surprise military strike against the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The following day, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war against Japan, thus thrusting the United States fully into World War II.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, thousands of American men enlisted in the various branches of the armed forces to help their country in the fight against the Axis Powers. Many of these were established Hollywood stars, others became recognizable movie stars in the post-war period. Here are five male actors who served in World War II before they were famous.
1. Paul Newman (1925-2008)
After graduating from high school in June 1943, Newman volunteered for the U.S. Navy Air Corps and enrolled in the V-12 pilot training programme at Yale University. When his colourblindess was discovered, he was sent to a traditional boot camp in Newport, Rhode Island, and received training as a rear-seat radioman and gunner in torpedo bombers. Qualifying as an aviation radioman third class in 1944, Newman was shipped out to Barbers Point, Hawaii, and assigned to a series of torpedo squadrons based in the Pacific. He and his crewmates were responsible mainly for training replacement pilots and air crewmen in a variety of skills, including carrier landings. The various units in which he served were stationed at different locations throughout the war: Eniwetok, Guam, Okinawa, and finally Saipan, where he arrived in January 1945 and would remain until the Japanese surrender in September of that year.
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| LEFT: Paul Newman in his Navy uniform. RIGHT: Aerial view of Ewa Field (near) and Barbers Point Naval Air Station (beyond) in Hawaii (January 20, 1943). |
Shortly before the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945, Newman was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill as a radioman-gunner in an Avenger torpedo bomber. The pilot of his aircraft developed an ear infection and was grounded, as were Newman and his other crewmates. The rest of their squadron flew to the Bunker Hill to carry out their mission. On May 11, the vessel was struck and severely damaged by two Japanese kamikaze planes, which resulted in the death of several hundred crewmen and airmen, including members of Newman's unit. When his squadron broke up, Newman was assigned to a Carrier Aircraft Service Unit operating out of Seattle, Washington, and was honorably discharged in January 1946.
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| USS Bunker Hill burning after being struck by kamikaze planes (May 11, 1945). |
2. Charles Durning (1923-2012)
Durning enlisted in the U.S. Army in January 1943 and received basic training at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts, and later at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Promoted to Private First Class, he was shipped out to England in February 1944 to prepare for the Allied invasion of Normandy. Initially assigned to the 386th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, Durning was transferred to the 17th Replacement Depot and landed at Omaha Beach after D-Day. On June 15, 1944, he was hit by shrapnel from a land mine set off by long range German artillery and suffered a concussion, multiple lacerations to the face and wounds to his head, chest, legs, left foot, hands and fingers. In December, after six months of recovery, he was declared «physically fit for full field duty.»
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| LEFT: Charles Durning in Europe during the war. RIGHT: Troops from the 1st Infantry Division landing on Omaha Beach during Operation Overlord (June 6, 1944). |
Following his release from the hospital, Durning was transferred to the 10th Replacement Control Depot and was later placed on temporary duty with the 159th Infantry Regiment, which was sent to the front lines to reinforce the regiments in the 106th Infantry Division that were decimated in the Battle of the Bulge. After V-E Day, he was reassigned to the 398th Infantry Regiment, 100th Infantry Division, and engaged in occupational duties until his discharge in January 1946.
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| American soldiers in the snow-covered Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge. |
3. Art Carney (1918-2003)
Carney enlisted in the United States Army in December 1943 and was assigned as a Private to the 28th Infantry Division. He landed at Normandy in July 1944, seven weeks after D-Day, and took part in Operation Cobra, an Allied offensive launched by the U.S. First Army under Lieutenant General Omar Bradley to break through German defenses around Saint-Lô, France.
In August 1944, while manning a machine gun, Carney was hit by shrapnel from a German mortar shell, which severely wounded him in his right leg. After receiving field treatment, he was taken to an Army hospital in England and, nine months later, was shipped back to America. As a result of his injury, he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. He was honorably discharged in 1945.
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| LEFT: Portrait of Art Carney in 1953. RIGHT: U.S. infantrymen on the advance through Normandy towards Brittany after the capture of Saint-Lô (July 1944). |
4. Charlton Heston (1923-2008)
Heston enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in 1944 and received training as a radio operator and gunner abroad B-25 Mitchell bombers. Assigned to the 77th Bombardment Squadron of the Eleventh Air Force, he was sent to the Alaskan Aleutian Islands to join in the fight against the Japanese invaders. He flew several combat missions over the Kuril Islands of northern Japan, most of the time under extreme weather conditions.
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| LEFT: Charlton Heston at his apartment in New York in 1950. RIGHT: A B-25 Mitchell bomber of the 77th Bombardment Squadron serving in the Aleutian Campaign. |
One day in 1945, as the Americans were planning for a possible invasion of Japan from the Aleutians, an aircraft returning from a mission got caught in a crosswind and crashed onto the island where Heston was stationed. As he and others ran to help get the pilots out of their cockpits, he slipped on a patch of ice and was run over by an ambulance. He was then sent to Elmerdorf Field in nearby Anchorage, Alaska, and after he recovered, he was assigned to the base control tower. He was discharged as a Staff Sergeant in March 1946.
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| LEFT: American troops unloading supplies for the Aleutian Islands Campaign (1943). RIGHT: Elmerdorf Army Airfield in Anchorage, Alaska (August 1941). |
5. James Arness (1923-2011)
Arness was drafted into the U.S. Army in March 1943 and received basic training at Camp Butner, North Carolina. Assigned as a rifleman with the 2nd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division, Arness was in the first wave of troops that landed at Anzio Beachead in January 1944 to take part in Operation Shingle, the Allied invasion of Italy. Due to his height (he was 6'7''/2.01 m), he was the first man to be ordered off his landing craft to determine the depth of the water; it came up to this waist.
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| LEFT: James Arness in his U.S. Army uniform. RIGHT: James Arness with his brother, actor Peter Graves, who served in the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1944 to 1945. |
In February 1944, while on a patrol, Arness was severely wounded after being shot in the right leg by German machine gun fire. He was taken to the 95th Evacuation Hospital near the coast, and later evacuated to the United States, where he was sent to the 91st General Hospital in Clinton, Iowa. As a result of his injuries and a subsequent infection, his leg was two centimeters shorter. Arness was honorably discharged as a Corporal in January 1945.
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| LEFT: Men of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division landing at Anzio in Januarty 1944. RIGHT: U.S. tanks rolling from an LST landing craft onto the Anzio beachead in May 1944. |
Stay tuned for more «Hollywood at War» articles. For now, you can also read Stars Who Served (Part I), Stars Who Served (Part II), The Female Front and The Hollywood Canteen.
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SOURCES:
Arness, James King "Jim" at ww2gravestone.com
Carney, Arthur William, PVT at army.togetherweserved.com
Charlton Heston's World War II service at military.com
Cpl. James Arness - Military Timeline at army.togetherweserved.com
Paul Newman: A Biography by Marian Edelman Borden (Greenwood, 2011)
Paul Newman: A Life by Shawn Levy (Harmony Books, 2009)
Charles Durning's military file (National Archives and Records Administration at St. Louis)
«Charles Durning's War: Heroism, Exaggeration, Fabrication?» by Steve Karras (May 14, 2013)
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