Hollywood Goes to War

Hollywood celebrities in World War II

Wartime volunteers come from all walks of life. Many hear the call and leave behind comfortable, safe, cushy lives to risk everything for the nation. In World War II, some of these men were successful Hollywood actors who easily could have afforded to stay out of military service, but chose to do the dangerous and honorable thing, nevertheless. This article is about two such actors.
 
British actor David Niven (1910-1983) played in about a hundred movies including The Guns of Navarone, The Pink Panther, Around the World in 80 Days and Death on the Nile, known for his depiction of suave gentlemen. He was born into a military family: his father served in World War I and died at Gallipoli when David was 5 years old; his maternal grandfather was an officer killed by the Zulus in the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879.

Niven attended several schools as a child. He was an incorrigible prankster, and faced frequent corporal punishment. One expulsion sank his prospects at the elite Eton College, and he settled on a military career. His poor math skills made him ineligible for service in the navy, so he enrolled at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, where he did well and cultivated the air of “officer and gentleman” that later became his acting trademark. Being of Scottish descent, he had his heart set on joining a Scottish unit. When filling in his form, he named the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as his first choice, the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) as his, and, jokingly, “anything but the Highland Light Infantry” as his third, since the last wore tartan trousers rather than kilts. To his chagrin, that one ended up being his unit.

He was made a lieutenant in 1933 but considered his career to be a dead end in the peacetime army. The last straw for him was mandatory attendance at a lecture on machine guns, which interfered with his plans for dinner with a young lady. When the general holding the lecture asked if there were any questions, Niven asked “Could you tell me the time, sir? I have to catch a train.” The insubordination earned him an immediate arrest. That, in turn, led to Niven and the officer guarding him downing a bottle of whisky. The drunk and now friendly guard allowed him to escape, and Niven boarded a ship headed for America, resigning his commission by telegraph on September 6, 1933.

He had a few false starts in America: a whisky salesman, a rodeo promoter, and a “gun-man” cleaning and shining rifles for American hunters in Mexico. He eventually started acting and slowly but surely became a well-known star. (One of his first film roles was a small uncredited part in the 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty, which starred the other subject of this article, Clark Gable. When World War II broke out, Niven returned home to serve. He was the only British actor in Hollywood to do so and ignored the Embassy’s advice to stay. Meeting not-yet-Prime Minister Winston Churchill at a dinner party in early 1940, Churchill told him: "Young man, you did a fine thing to give up your film career to fight for your country. Mark you, had you not done so it would have been despicable."
 
Once back in Britain, Niven received commando training and became the commander of ‘A’ Squadron in the misleadingly named GHQ Liaison Regiment, better known as Phantom, where he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel by the war’s end. Phantom was a unit born as No 3 British Air Mission during the Battle of France. Its job was to stay in forward positions and send back information about the movements of “bomb lines,” areas devoid of Allied troops and thus safe to bomb. The task was later expanded: patrols of up to 11 men stayed at the front (and sometimes behind enemy lines) monitoring troop movements and listening in on Allied tank radio communications. They then used small, specially-made radios to report back to Corps HQ, giving them clear and up-to-date information on the battle faster than the information could filter through any other line of command.
 
Niven also acted in two films while serving, both before the D-Day landings: the war drama The Way Ahead, and a biopic titled The First of the Few about the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire fighter. (The Supermarine Spitfire) He was also involved in organizing Operation Copperhead (Operation Bodyguard), a short-lived deception operation in which an actor pretended to be General Montgomery (Montgomery - Part I) to confuse German intelligence.

Over the course of the war, Phantom patrols served in Africa, Italy, Southeast Europe and, of course, France. In Normandy, some jumped with the other paratroopers the night before, while the rest, including Niven, landed on D+1 to move around and report back on the location of all British, Canadian and American troops after the chaos of the night jumps and the first day. (Jumping into chaos)
 
Phantom was also present in other significant battles. During Operation Market Garden (Operation Market Garden), Phantom officers were the only line of communication between the trapped British airborne at Arnhem and the XXX Corps unsuccessfully trying to relieve them. It was these same officers who brought Major General Urquhart’s famous, desperate message from the besieged forces: “... unless physical contact is made with us early 25 Sept...consider it unlikely we can hold out long enough ...”

Phantom patrols were responsible for giving first news on many other events during the war. They were the first to report on the closing of the Falaise Pocket (The Falaise Pocket), they provided some of the first information on concentration camps, and they tracked the movement of German armor during the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, when American and Soviet troops linked up for the first time at the Elbe River on April 25, 1945, a Phantom patrol attached to the U.S. 1st Army was sent to the planned location in advance, witnessing and reporting on the historic moment.
 
David Niven’s exploits in Phantom are little-known, as the actor remained tight-lipped about his wartime experience for the rest of his life. He shunned the limelight given to celebrities who served, and scorned journalists who covered the war with florid prose. He once said: “Anyone who says a bullet sings past, hums past, flies, pings, or whines past, has never heard one – they go crack!” He once explained the reason behind his silence and humility: “I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war.”

A few details arose about Niven from other witnesses, nevertheless. It is sometimes said he was “unofficially” present at the disastrous Dieppe Raid, (The Dieppe Raid) but there is no solid evidence to this claim. What seems more certain is that on one occasion, just before a fight that was likely to result in heavy casualties, he cheered up his men with a quip: “Look, you chaps only have to do this once. But I’ll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn!” Later, during the Battle of the Bulge, he was stopped by an American sentry. Knowing that Otto Skorzeny’s men were in the area masquerading as Allied troops (The Griffin That Didn’t Fly), the guards asked everyone they met questions to which only “a true American” would know the answer, often sports trivia specific to American championship – and Niven, of course, wasn’t American. When asked who won the World Series in 1943, he replied “Haven't the foggiest idea, but I did co-star with Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother!”, at which moment the American recognized him and let him pass.

Our other subject is William Clark Gable (1901-1960), the star of such films as Gone With the Wind, It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, Run Silent, Run Deep, and many others. Born to an oil well driller father and a mother who died when he was 10 months old, young Gable worked at oil fields and as a horse manager. He gradually broke into the world of theater and screen acting, and was an acclaimed star by the time America entered World War II.

Gable married actress Carole Lombard, his third wife, in 1939. The following years were the happiest in Gable’s life, but the idyll was cut short by tragedy. On January 16, 1942, Lombard was flying home from a war bond promotion tour when her plane crashed, killing everyone on board. Gable was emotionally and physically shattered, losing 20 pounds in a month. He enlisted in the U.S. Army later that year, almost certainly as a way to cope with the personal loss. It might also have been a way to honor Lombard’s memory, as she was encouraging him to do so before her death. After a public announcement of Gable’s intention, Commanding General of the USAAF Henry “Hap” Arnold offered him a special assignment in aerial gunnery.

Of the five recorded flights, one, an attack on a chemical plant in Norway, was the longest mission flown by the 8th Air Force up to that point. Another, a large raid on Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley, was the most dangerous flight for the 8th to date, with 25 planes out of 330 shot down by the enemy. During an attack on his plane, Gable was wedged behind the gunner in the cramped top turret, shooting footage of German planes making five passes at the bomber formation. As he was handling his camera, a 20mm shell penetrated the bomber from below. Gable and the gunner dodged death: the shell cut off the heel of Gable’s boot, flew past him and exited the plane a foot from his head, all without exploding. When later pressed by reporters, Gable said he didn’t even notice the shell at the time and only saw the exit hole later.

Gable probably didn’t know that his actions over Europe earned him the attention of an unlikely fan: Adolf Hitler himself. He was Hitler’s favorite actor, probably in part due to his Rhinelander and Bavarian ancestry, and the Führer offered a significant bounty to whoever captured the actor unscathed.