James Stewart, died in 1997, was, is, and will always be one of the bravest men to come out of Hollywood.
There were other brave actors who joined up in WW2, David Niven, Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, and others. But something about Stewart appealed to me.
Sometime after Europe went to war in 1939, he tried to enlist in the US Air Corps in November 1940, a full year before Pearl Harbour. He already held a pilot’s license. He was rejected for being too light but kept trying. He finally made it by reaching and surpassing the minimum weight by one ounce. Hollywood offered him a fortune to return but he stayed where he was earning $21/month.
Because of his standing, when war broke out he was offered a cushy job as a flight instructor. He refused this and insisted on being posted to a theatre of war, either Europe or the Pacific.
He flew on many bombing raids over enemy territory including Berlin and Bremen earning awards such as, Air Medal, Oak Leaf Cluster, and a DFC.
At war’s end, he returned home a 100-carat hero and was offered a ticker-tape parade. He turned it down.
What I really admired about him was the fact that he did not want to be known as a hero. It was something he felt he had to do. He had an ‘anti-hero’ clause inserted into his studio contract where he forbade the studios to promote him as a war hero. He never spoke of his exploits during the war.
At his burial, he received full military honours and 3 volleys of musketry.
EDIT – Several people have enquired about Audie Murphy. As far as I’m concerned Audie was in a class of his own and everyone else is second division. But I restricted the answer to actors during war time. Audie became an actor after the war. I did a bit on Audie here –