We Are The Mighty

On May 20, 1908, it was early spring in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and the weather was beautiful. A young woman by the name of Elizabeth Ruth, married to Alexander Maitland Stewart, presented his new son to her husband. Together they named him James Maitland Stewart.

His father, Alexander M. Stewart, ran the family business, started by his father called the J.M. Stewart and Company Hardware Store. His mother loved music and was a pianist. The family was religious and regularlly attended church. James Stewart from an early age had an interest in airplanes.

In the early years of aviation pilots would purchase airplanes and go around the country performing flying stunts and selling rides to make money. This was called barnstorming. As a young boy, Jimmy saved money from his paper route to get a ride in a biplane, but only after spending weeks convincing his mother it was safe.

Like most kids named James he became known simply as "Jimmy". Jimmy grew up with two sisters, Virginia and Mary, in Indiana, PA, and growing up in a small town instilled the values of honesty, hard work, and an urge to serve others. 

A family photograph of James Stewart with his mother, father, and sisters Virginia and Mary.

Jimmy attended the Wilson Model School for his primary education where he was an average student and didn't get very good grades. He then attended the Mercersburg Academy Boarding School, and then on to Princeton in 1928. At Princeton Stewart majored in architecture and became a member of the Princeton Charter Club.

Upon graduation from Princeton Jimmy found himself in the Great Depression, which ran from 1929 through 1933. He found a scarcity of jobs, so when a friend of his suggested he spend the summer preparing a show for Boradway with the University Players in Cape Cod.

When the show moved to Broadway in New York City, Jimmy Stewart followed right along, and soon found himself moving from bit parts, to small parts, then leading roles until, in 1935, he was discovered by Hollywood. In 1935, Stewart signed a contract with MGM studios and began his film career. With the strong morality he portrayed both on and off the screen, he epitomized the "American ideal" in the mid-twentieth century.

Jimmy Gets His License

Stewart always had a passion for airplanes, and with his new contract with MGM, he fianlly had the resources to take his flying lessons and purchase an airplane. In 1935 Jimmy had earned his private pilots license. 

He then bought a Stinson 105 to boost his flying hours and because he knew it was the same model airplane the Army Air Corps was using to train pilots. He was sure the United States was going to get into the war in Europe, so he wanted to continue the family tradition of serving in the Army by becoming an army pilot.

Below is a photograph with his Stinson Voyager. 

A photograph of Jimmy Stewart and actress Margaret Sullivan with Stewart's Stinson airplane.

Specifications of a Stinson Voyager:

• Crew: one;
• Capacity: two passengers;
• Length: 25 feet 2 inches;
• Wingspan: 33 feet 11 inches;
• Height: 7 foot 6 inches;
• Empty weight: 1,294 pounds;
• Gross weight:  2,400 pounds;
• Powerplant: Continental A-75-3 air-cooled 75 horsepower engine;
• Maximum speed: 146 mph;
• Range: 350 miles;
• Service ceiling: 10,500 feet
• Rate of climb: 430 feet per minute.

Jimmy Stewart was well aware of the family's tradition of serving in the military. You see, one of Jimmy Stewart's relatives, one Fergus Moorhead, served in the Revolutionary War. In the Civil War his maternal grandfather was a General in the Union Army. Jimmy's father, Alex, served both in the Spanish-American War and in World War I. 

In 1940 President Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act requiring all men between the ages of 21 and 36 to register with local draft boards. In October of 1940 Jimmy was drafted into the U.S. Army with a draft number of 310. Others, like Clark Gabel, joined the fray.

At that time Jimmy weighed only 138 pounds, was 6 foot 3 inches tall, so the induction doctors turned him down for being too skinny. Not to be deterred, Jimmy started eating spaghettie twice a day, along with steaks and milshakes. He needed to get to 143 pounds in order to be accepted.

To reach that weight he went to Don Loomis, noted for his ability to help people gain or lose weight. After a little while Jimmy tried to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps, but was still considered underweight. After a conversation with the induction doctor he convinced him to fudge a few ounces to get him over the limit. 

A photograph of Jimmy Steward being sworn in to the US Army in 1941.

He spent his first nine months in basic training at Moffet Field, CA, where he studied for, and passed the exam to become a commissioned officer. His 400 hours of flying time got him into the air cadet program, but not without a fight. Stewart was in his 30s; most pilots were in their early 20s. He was also underweight.

When he arrvied at Fort MacArthur Jimmy was hounded by cameramen, even when he was issued his underwear! One old soldier saw what was going on and remarked sympathetically, "You poor bastard." Stewart's salary had dropped from $ 12,000 per week to a measly $ 21 per month. But, true to form, he sent 10% of his monthly pay, $ 2,10, to his agent each month.

Stewart first became an instructor pilot teaching in the  AT-9 at Mather Field, California. 

A Curtiss-Wright AT-9 Jeep twin-engine trainer aircraft during WW II.

From there he went to bombardier school at Kirkland Field, NM, followed in December of 1942 with a transfer to the four-engine school at Hobbs, NM. He finally was transfered to the headquarters of the Second Air Force in Salt Lake City, Utah. He wanted more than desk duty, so he was sent to Gowen Field in Boise, Idaho, where he became an instructor in the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. 

Flying Becomes Serious

During his time at Gowen Field Jimmy experienced his roommate being killed in an accident, and three of his trainees were lost in another accident. One of his former students remembered that "Stweart was known for being one of the few officers who never left the airfield tower until every single airplane had returned safely."

Being an instructor can be dangerous, and once on a night flight, Jimmy left the copilot seat to check on some equipment in the nose of the aircraft while he let the navigator sit in the copilot's seat. All at once the number one engine on the right side exploded, sending pieces of metal into the cockpit knocking the pilot senseless.

With an engine on fire and the wind tearing through the cockpit windows, the navigator froze at the controls, leaving no one to fly the airplane. Stewart rushed back to the cockpit, threw the navigator out of his seat, hit the fire extinguisher for the engine on fire, and then landed with only three engines running.

In March of 1943 stewart was transferred to the 703 Squadron, 445th Bomb Group, in Sioux City, Iowa, as Operations Officer. Jimmy felt he would never be allowed combat duty, so he appealed to his commander, 30 year old Lt. Col. Walter E. Arnold Jr. Arnold understood Stewart's concern and recommended to the commander of the 445th Bomb Group, a B-24 Liberator unit that was being prepared for deployment to Europe.

Stewart was promoted to Captain and on November 11, 1943, Captain Stewart led a group of 24 B-24H Liberators to England via Florida, Brazil, Senegal, and Morocco. Stewart finally got his way, and deployed to RAF Tibeham, Norfolk, England in the fall of 1943, as the commanding officer of the 703^rd Bomb Squadron, 445^th Bomb Group, flying the B-24H “Liberator,” a four-engine heavy bomber.

An image of a flight of B-24H Liberators

The B-24H Liberator Specifications

• Crew: 11 (pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, radio operator, nose turret, top turret, 2 waist gunners, ball turret, tail gunner)
• Length: 67 feet i inches
• Wingspan: 110 feet
• Height: 18 feet 
• Empty weight: 36,500 pounds
• Maximum takeoff weight: 65,000 pounds
• Powerplants: 4 Pratt & Whitney R-1830-35 1200 hp turbosupercharged radial engines
• Maximum speed: 290 mph
• Range: 2,100 miles
• Service ceiling: 28,000 feet
• Guns: 10 .50 caliber M2 browning Machine guns
• Bombs: 
  • Short range (~400 miles): 8,000 pounds
  • Long range (~800 miles): 5,000 pounds
  • Very long range (~1,200 miles): 2,700 pounds

Note: If you would like to purchase a beautiful mahogany model of the B-24 you can purchase one here: B-24 Model

After a few shakedown flights Stewarts first mission was to bomb the U-boat facilities at Kiel on December 13, 1943, in a B24 named "Nine Yanks and a Jerk."

Stewart’s first combat mission was to bomb the U-boat facility Kilian in Kiel, Germany.

Stewart finally had what he always wanted - to fly combat flights in the war. He was finally in combat, but soon he was shocked by the flak from anit-aircraft guns while the bombers yawed right and left, pitched up and down, while flak explosions burst all around them. None of the planes were lost that day, but soon enough bodies would begin to fall.

B-24 bombers in flight over Germany with flak bursting all around them.

During his time in England Stewart actually flew on 20 missions in addition to his duties as the deputy commander of the 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing. Stewart's crews would return from a mission and tell him what happened on the mission.

The combat missions that Stewart flew were not without peril. Flight crews faced temperatures of -40 degrees Farenheit in their unpressurized planes, and had to constantly knock ice off of their oxygen masks. Some missions were too far to have constant fighter protection, so the bombers flew alone, facing enemy fighters.

On one mission, a raid on the city of Gotha, Germany, led to the loss of 13 aircraft and 130 men all during onhe mission. For more than 2 hours Nazi fighters poured death and destruction to the men from every direction. Nazi aircraft would actually follow the planes down to make sure there were no survivors.

Those who survived told of bodies flying through the air, airplanes exploding in mid-air, of Nazi aircraft using cables with bombs attached to bring the aircraft down. As the weeks went on all of this death and destruction weighed heavily on Stewart. He was a perfectionist, and so he was always hard on himself, worn down by the demanding flights that become more and more dangerous, resulting in more and more losses.

After a mission to Ludwigshafen, Germany, on January 7, 1944, Jimmy Stewart was promoted to Major and awarded the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) on February 20, 1944, for his actions as the deputy commander of the wing. However, to show you the character of Jimmy Stewart, he refused the promotion until the pilots in his group received promotions as well.

On one trip during the winter of 1944, an anti-aircraft shell burst in the wheel well of the plane, creating a large hole between the pilot and co-pilot, and through which they could see the German countryside miles down. Stewart lost his map case and parachute in the explosion, and when the plane landed, it cracked in half. Stewart remarked to one of the ground crew, “Sergeant, somebody sure could get hurt in one of these damned things.”