Actors, Politicians, and Celebrities

As long as it wasn't cloudy and he could use star shots!

But think about it. There he is getting a star shot and giving the crew a lecture on the stars that he was using.

Mind you, his star shots would be accurate!

 

very true.

 

Ian Smith the late prime minister of Rhodesia was a pilot. He crash landed his plane and was badly burnt in face. later on he crashed again but this time he spent time with Italian partisans and helped them in their attacks.

 

And don't forget Roald Dahl was a PRU pilot in africa.

 

And don't forget Roald Dahl was a PRU pilot in africa.

I am sure it was on Mossies, as he wrote a ghost story about a mossie marking the spot of a downed vampire.

 

actually, i think he was in Spit's. not sure. but he did use the RAF's gremlins fro a story in the early 50's. Have you ever read his version of Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Pigs?

 

Not film stars but as Robert Runcie, later Archbishop of Canterbury, is mentioned above, Guards Armoured Division contained several other young officers who went on to be famous: Peter, Lord Carrington, later Foreign Secretary, William Whitelaw, Mrs Thatcher's unflappable right-hand man and the beloved cricket commentator Brian 'Johnners' Johnston MC.

 

Enoch Powell ended the war as a Intelligence brigadier attached to Montys staff.

 

Both Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe served, and indeed first met, while serving with the Royal Artillery in North Africa during WW2.

I've read somewhere the story goes a little like this...

While on a training exercise, Milligan's crew were setting up their Field Gun. Somehow the gun, at the top of a ridge at the time, broke loose it's mount and rolled down the slope.
At seeing this, Milligan ran down the hill to warn others that may be in it's path.
He was supossedly quoted to have shouted, whilst running down... "Has anyone seen a big gun?".

A Lance bombardier, at the bottom of the hill was heard to reply... "What colour?"

The Lance Bombardier was Harry Secombe.

I'm sure this is how it went, but I cant find any reference to it at the moment.

 

It was Seacombe who was looking for the gunner! I think its in Rommel Gunner Who!

 

Ah...!

Other way round.

Thanks morse, happy to be corrected.

Excellent story though.

 

This has a bit about his aircraft!

It was soon after this incident, in November 1939, that he joined the Royal Air Force. After a 600-mile car journey from Dar-es-Salaam to <ST1:pNairobi</ST1:p he was accepted for flight training with 16 other men, 13 of whom would later die in air combat. With 7 hours and 40 minutes experience in his De Havilland Tiger Moth he flew solo, and hugely enjoyed watching the wildlife of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comhttp://www.ww2talk.com/forum/ /><st1:City w:st=<ST1http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/ /><st1:City w:st=<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = " /><st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1:pKenya</ST1:p</st1:country-region> during his flights. He continued on to advanced flying training at RAF Habbaniya (50 miles west of <st1:City w:st="on">Baghdad</st1:City>) in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1:pIraq</ST1:p</st1:country-region>. Following six months of flying Hawker Harts he was made a Pilot Officer and assigned to No. 80 Squadron RAF, flying obsolete Gloster Gladiators. Dahl was surprised to find that he would not be trained in aerial combat, or even how to fly the Gladiator.<O:p</O:p
On September 19, 1940, Dahl was to fly his Gladiator from Abu Suweir in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>, on to Amiriya to refuel, and again to Fouka in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1:pLibya</ST1:p</st1:country-region> for a second refuelling. From there he would fly to 80 Squadron's forward airstrip 30 miles south of Mersah Matruh. On the final leg, he could not find the airstrip and, running low on fuel and with night approaching, he was forced to attempt a landing in the desert. Unfortunately, the undercarriage hit a boulder and the plane crashed, fracturing his skull, smashing his nose in, and blinding him. He managed to drag himself away from the blazing wreckage and passed out. Later, he wrote about the crash for his first published work (see below). It was found in a RAF inquiry into the crash that the location he had been told to fly to was completely wrong, and he had mistakenly been sent instead to the no man's land between the British and Italian forces.
<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
Dahl was rescued and taken to a first-aid post in Mersah Matruh, where he regained consciousness, but not his sight, and was then taken by train to the Royal Navy hospital in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pAlexandria</ST1:p</st1:City>. There he fell in love with a nurse, Mary Welland, who was the first person he saw when he regained his sight after eight weeks. The doctors said he had no chance of flying again, but in February 1941, five months after he was admitted to the hospital, he was discharged and passed fully fit for flying duties. By this time, 80 Squadron were at Elevsis, near <ST1:p<st1:City w:st="on">Athens</st1:City>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Greece</st1:country-region></ST1:p, fighting alongside the British Expeditionary Force against the Axis forces with no hope of defeating them. Now upgraded to the Hawker Hurricane, in April 1941 Dahl flew one across the Mediterranean Sea to finally join his squadron in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1:pGreece</ST1:p</st1:country-region>, six months after becoming a member.<O:p</O:p
There he met a cynical Corporal who questioned how long his brand-new aircraft would survive, along with just 14 other Hurricanes and four Bristol Blenheims in the whole of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><ST1:pGreece</ST1:p</st1:country-region>, against around a thousand enemy aircraft. 80 Squadron's Squadron Leader was similarly unenthusiastic about having just one new pilot. However, he became friends with David Coke, who, had he not been killed later in the war, would have become the Earl of Leicester.<O:p</O:p
Dahl saw his first action over <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:pChalcis</ST1:p</st1:City>, where Junkers Ju-88s were bombing shipping. With just his lone Hurricane against the six bombers, he managed to shoot one down. He writes about all these incidents in his autobiography Going Solo. During the Greek Campaign, he scored five confirmed kills in total.<O:p</O:p

 

I think Rod Steiger was in US Navy. Not ww2 but Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes) Liverpool Scottish ww1.

 

Born in April 1925, Steiger left school and his comfortable home on Long Island at the age of 16 to fight on a destroyer in the Pacific Fleet, in 1941.

 

Thanks for that. I now have to wonder about who I was thinking of.

 

Heres a few that might have been missed.
Christopher Lee (Dracula etc) Intelligence Officer with the RAF in the Nth Africa campaign and later with SOE I believe.
Lesley Nielson (Naked Gun etc) - Mid Upper Gunner on Lancasters with the RCAF.

 

There must be quite a list of actor and actresses who served in WW2. Can you name them and the armed service they served in?

 

Page sodding 12 this was on. Have a gander at this one first folks, then see if you can find some more.

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/barracks/6322-film-stars-war.html

 

"Professor" Jimmy Edwards.
Actually James Keith O'Neill B 23 Mar 1920, D 7 Jul 1988.
British comedian and actor. Flt Lt (DFC). Shot down piloting a Dakota at Arnhem. His 'trade-mark' handle-bar moustache was to hide the scars of plastic surgery.