B29 Nose Art B24 9 Yanks and a Jerk

Jimmy Stewart had adult a dear of aviation long before he became a famous player. He took his starting time aeroplane ride in a Curtiss biplane while he was in high schoolhouse—15 minutes for $15 that he had saved while working around the family'south 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 shop, complete with a model of the Spirit of St. Louis that he congenital. The nineteen-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 aeroplane closer to the Eiffel Tower he had fashioned.

Nearly two years before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Stewart had go a private pilot and had accumulated over 400 hours of flying time and was considered a highly expert pilot. Forth with musician/composer Hoagy Carmichael, seeing the demand 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 accept. I've never run into it before, so I'g posting it for anybody 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-iii, he weighed only 138 pounds.

When the Army turned him down equally too skinny, he started eating spaghetti twice a twenty-four hours, supplemented with steaks and milkshakes. To become upward 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 assistance people add or decrease pounds in his studio gymnasium. Stewart afterward attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps, only still came in underweight. Determined to achieve his goal of becoming a military airplane pilot, he successfully convinced the Ground forces doctor into adding an ounce or ii and so he could enlist and on March 22, 1941, he was inducted as a private in the U.Due south. Regular army

He was sent to Fort MacArthur, Calif., where cameramen hounded him, post-obit him even when he was issued his underwear. Witnessing all that unwanted attending, one one-time soldier remarked sympathetically, "Yous poor bastard." Stewart'southward bacon dropped from $12,000 per calendar week to $21 per month, but he dutifully sent a ten percent cut ($2.10) to his agent each calendar month.

Stewart was held back from combat duty, though he did earn a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant and completed pilot training.

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

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

For the 30-half dozen-year-former Stewart, combat duty seemed far away and unreachable, and he had no clear plans for the future. Merely so a rumor that Stewart would be taken off flying condition and assigned to making training films or selling bonds called for his firsthand and decisive action, because what he dreaded well-nigh 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 Urban center, Iowa, first as Operations Officer of the 703rd Battery Squadron and and so 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 Feb 1944, Stewart earned the Distinguished Flight Cross, for belongings the formation together during Luftwaffe fighter attacks and heavy antiaircraft burn down, 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 every bit grouping operations officer to the 453rd Bombardment Group, a new B-24 outfit that had been experiencing difficulties. As a ways to inspire his new grouping, Stewart flew as command pilot in the lead B-24 (Nine Yanks and a Wiggle) on numerous missions deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. These missions went uncounted at Stewart's orders.

His "official" total is listed equally 20 and are limited to those with the 445th. In 1944, he twice received the Distinguished Flight 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, afterwards flight 20 combat missions, Stewart was made chief of staff of the 2nd Gainsay Battery Wing of the Eighth Air Force. Earlier the state of war ended, he was promoted to colonel, one of only a few Americans to ascension from private to colonel in four years.

He directed the bombing operations of approximately 48 Liberators, as well as still existence permitted to brand occasional combat flights equally 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, just non 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 equally fly operations officer and main of staff for the 2nd Combat Bomb Wing. By war'southward end, Stewart had reached the rank of colonel and had been awarded a number of decorations, including two Distinguished Flying Crosses and 3 Air Medals.

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

Throughout his years in the Reserves, Stewart maintained familiarity equally 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 lot can't recall why, it might exist 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://world wide web.historynet.com/mr-stewart-goes-to-vietnam.htm
https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/20-february-1966/
http://www.b24bestweb.com/b24bestweb-Famous.htm

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