re: World War 2 soldiers who went on to be famous

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On 9 April 1917 he was shot in the left knee by a sniper at the Second Battle of Arras in France. After a succession of operations, doctors were forced to amputate his leg. Marshall remained hospitalised for 13 months. He later recalled in private that after his injury, he had initially over-dramatised his loss and was wrapped up in self-pity and bitterness. Before long, however, he decided he wanted to return to the theatre and learned how to walk well with a prosthetic leg in order to do so.

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Using his own money for travel, Marshall visited many military hospitals during the war. In particular, he focused on encouraging soldiers with amputations to keep a positive attitude and not to think of themselves as handicapped or limited. Despite his usual reluctance to discuss his own injury, he talked freely about his personal experiences in order to give these amputees tips on how to use and adjust to their new artificial limbs.

Although mostly kept private, a 1945 article in Motion Picture Magazine reported, against Marshall's wishes, on his work at military hospitals. The author Patty De Roulf insisted that his story needed to be told to help injured veterans and their families and to show that "Marshall is doing one of the finest war jobs any human being can do." She interviewed one young officer, who recalled:

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Herbert Marshall gave me back my life. When I found out I had a metal claw instead of a hand, I was completely broken...Then one day, while I was in the hospital, we were told Herbert Marshall, the film star, was coming to talk to us. I was disgusted with the idea. A collar ad, I thought, coming to give us a Pollyanna speech!

It turned out to be anything but that. Mr. Marshall talked real sense into us. He followed it up with demonstrations, actually showing us what he could do. Before he left, we were convinced that if he had been able to lead a normal life, we could do the same.

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The article also quoted a veteran with a double amputation (left leg and right foot), who praised Marshall for showing him how to dance with a prosthetic leg. He considered the actor's advice and example to be his Ten Commandments. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Head of the Allied Forces in Europe, noted in private that, of all the film stars he met in Europe during the war, he was most impressed with Marshall and Madeleine Carroll (who worked as a nurse at field hospitals).

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