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re: Anyone else miss The Duke?
Posted on 8/18/14 at 9:24 am to Jim Rockford
Posted on 8/18/14 at 9:24 am to Jim Rockford
Yeah, that's what he did.
The charges of Wayne being a “draft dodger” are not new and with a simple Google search one can find any number of far left types absolutely blowing their “peace and love” credentials over Wayne and his lack of service in World War II. The truth is far more complex and even “hidden in plain sight” than one would think.
Upon graduating from Glendale High School in 1925, Wayne applied to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, hoping to live out his dream of being a career Naval officer. He came close but was instead chosen the first alternate candidate.
By the start of World War II Wayne had been suffering for years from a badly torn shoulder muscle incurred in a body surfing accident that cost him his football scholarship at USC in 1927. He also had a bad back from performing his own stunts during ten years acting in “B” Westerns. Moreover, he suffered from a chronic ear infection, resulting from hours of underwater filming on Cecil B. De Mille’s Reap the Wild Wind in 1941. Had Wayne actually undergone a pre-induction physical, he might indeed have been classified 4-F.
According to Randy Roberts and James Olson’s top notch John Wayne American, as a married but separated father of four and thirty-four years old in 1942 Wayne was classified by the Selective Service as 3-A (deferred for family dependency). In 1944 as the U.S. Military feared a manpower shortage he was reclassified 1-A (draft eligible). There is no record that he disputed this reclassification but his employer, Republic Studios, did and requested he be given a 2-A classification (deferred in the national interest, i.e., war bond drives, visiting the troops, etc.). Selective Service records for World War II are spotty at best, many having been destroyed, but surviving records indicate these claims were filed “by another,” i.e. Republic Studio’s legal department. In fact, a letter from Republic Studios head Herbert Yates threatened to sue Wayne for breach of contract should he leave the studio for volunteer military service, though it is doubtful he would have carried through with the threat. But Wayne was indeed Republic’s biggest moneymaker during the war and that studio’s only “A” star at the time.
Yet, according to director John Ford’s grandson, in 1943 John Wayne tried to get a commission in the Marine Corps and get attached to Ford’s O.S.S. (the forerunner of the C.I.A.) Field Photographic Unit. In Pappy; the Life of John Ford, Dan Ford says emphatically “…that the billets were frozen in 1943. John (Ford) couldn’t get Wayne in as an enlisted man, much less an officer.”
The charges of Wayne being a “draft dodger” are not new and with a simple Google search one can find any number of far left types absolutely blowing their “peace and love” credentials over Wayne and his lack of service in World War II. The truth is far more complex and even “hidden in plain sight” than one would think.
Upon graduating from Glendale High School in 1925, Wayne applied to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, hoping to live out his dream of being a career Naval officer. He came close but was instead chosen the first alternate candidate.
By the start of World War II Wayne had been suffering for years from a badly torn shoulder muscle incurred in a body surfing accident that cost him his football scholarship at USC in 1927. He also had a bad back from performing his own stunts during ten years acting in “B” Westerns. Moreover, he suffered from a chronic ear infection, resulting from hours of underwater filming on Cecil B. De Mille’s Reap the Wild Wind in 1941. Had Wayne actually undergone a pre-induction physical, he might indeed have been classified 4-F.
According to Randy Roberts and James Olson’s top notch John Wayne American, as a married but separated father of four and thirty-four years old in 1942 Wayne was classified by the Selective Service as 3-A (deferred for family dependency). In 1944 as the U.S. Military feared a manpower shortage he was reclassified 1-A (draft eligible). There is no record that he disputed this reclassification but his employer, Republic Studios, did and requested he be given a 2-A classification (deferred in the national interest, i.e., war bond drives, visiting the troops, etc.). Selective Service records for World War II are spotty at best, many having been destroyed, but surviving records indicate these claims were filed “by another,” i.e. Republic Studio’s legal department. In fact, a letter from Republic Studios head Herbert Yates threatened to sue Wayne for breach of contract should he leave the studio for volunteer military service, though it is doubtful he would have carried through with the threat. But Wayne was indeed Republic’s biggest moneymaker during the war and that studio’s only “A” star at the time.
Yet, according to director John Ford’s grandson, in 1943 John Wayne tried to get a commission in the Marine Corps and get attached to Ford’s O.S.S. (the forerunner of the C.I.A.) Field Photographic Unit. In Pappy; the Life of John Ford, Dan Ford says emphatically “…that the billets were frozen in 1943. John (Ford) couldn’t get Wayne in as an enlisted man, much less an officer.”
1
Posted on 8/18/14 at 9:33 am to VetteGuy
OTOH, Jimmy Stewart was rejected multiple times for being severely underweight, and went to extremes to put on enough pounds to make the standard, finally being accepted into the Air Corps and flying missions over Germany as a bomber pilot.
Did John Wayne do everything he possibly could? That's between him and his conscience. But he's not the only one who faced hurdles, and got in.
Did John Wayne do everything he possibly could? That's between him and his conscience. But he's not the only one who faced hurdles, and got in.
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