Smith Starr - Jimmy Stewart : bomber pilot

Colonel Jimmy Stewart

STARR SMITH

FOREWORD BY WALTER CRONKITE

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 colleaguesthe 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 Stewarts character.

Roger A. Freeman, air power historian and author, The Mighty Eighth

Several senior-officer mentors, recognizing Stewarts 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

W e metJimmy Stewart and Iin an atmosphere as far removed from Hollywoods 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, assignedas were the rest of the U.S. Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Forces entire heavy bomber fleetto 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 Stewarts enlisted men on weekend leave in London.

When I applied to visit Stewarts 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 didnt hold up for longbut an instantly imposed ban against any press visits to Stewarts 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 Stewarts 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 Ive 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 Smithwartime Eighth Air Force intelligence officer who worked with Jimmy Stewart briefing the combat crews for their daring daylight raids on German targetshas raised the curtain on Stewarts gallant service as a bomber pilot and air combat commander in World War II. Its 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.

Left to right, Judy, Kelly, Jimmy, and Gloria Stewart in 1988.

M y fathers experiences during World War II affected him more deeply and permanently than anything else in his life. Yet his children grew up knowing almost nothing about those years. Dad never talked about the war. My siblings and I knew only that he had been a pilot, and that he had won some medals, but that he didnt see himself as a hero. He saw only that he had done his duty.

Starr Smiths book has opened a door for me into this part of my fathers life. Mr. Smith conveys with great skill what it meant to fly in the Eighth Air Force during the war; to be Operations Officer of a Bomb Group; what was involved, for example, in the planning and execution of missions. Above all, Mr. Smith, who worked with my father during that time, shows us what he was like as an individual in this role of pilot and leader. I know the war held terrible memories for my father, as it must for anyone who lived through the combat. But he was also deeply proud to have served his country. He would feel honored by this book.

Kelly Stewart Harcourt
University of California, Davis

O n a bright, crisp day in early fall 1945, the majestic Queen Elizabeth arrived at Pier 50 in New York City after a danger-free voyage from Europe. Aboard was Colonel Jimmy Stewart, the renowned Hollywood movie star, and, now, the commander of the Second Combat Wing of the famous Eighth Air Force. Along with Stewart and his troops on the Queen Elizabeth that day were soldiers, sailors, and airmen returning to America after their victorious battles in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). Although they had no way of knowing itand no inclination to think about it on that joyful day in New Yorkfor millions of Americans who served their country, World War II would be the primal point, the defining years of their lives. Time would be measured, friendships and dates remembered, events and experiences recalledall based on before the war, during the war, after the war, and the war years. Jimmy Stewart was no different. Jonathan Coe, author of Jimmy Stewart: A Wonderful Life,