Quo Vadis, Where are we going?: Jimmy Stewart's War

Friday, November 7, 2014

Jimmy Stewart's War

Savannah is famous for a few things beside antebellum houses, being the end of Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1865 or Paula Deen’s store today (Yep, it’s still open). Savannah is not only the home of the Savannah College of Arts and Design and one of America’s easiest deep sea ports to enter and leave. Savannah was the home, and birth place, of the World War 2 Eighth Army Air Corps.

The Mighty Eighth, as it came to be known, was formed initially by a group of six men, including some of the great air commanders of the future war like Carl Spatz of Boyertown PA, and Jimmy Doolittle who led the first bomb run over Tokyo after Pearl Harbor.

They started meeting in a room at the Georgia National Guard Armory before the US entered the war to plan the heavy bomber air force , before there were any bombers at all, we would need to defeat Germany when we entered the war.

Then they had to sell their ideas to the army and the president. Then they had to build the bomber command. The Eighth was the part of that air force that went to England and grew into the mightiest collection of air war machines and men ever seen in one place in the world.

60,000 plus men, 26,000 of whom would be dead, wounded, or missing by 1945. And one of them would be James Jimmy Stewart, star of the silver screen, who joined the Air Corps at the beginning of the war, worked his way up through the ranks as hard as anyone and was a General in the Air Force Reserve when that arm of the service was officially begun after WW 2. Oh, and he still made great movies for many years thereafter.

Today the Mighty Eighth is remembered at its own museum next to the now small army air field from which all of its planes were flown to England (unless shipped by freighter in sections) to be used in the daylight bombing raids against the Nazis. Located outside Savannah in its suburb of Pooler, Georgia, this not-so-small museum was wonderfully put together.

Included in the museum are not only souvenirs of war, mementos of devastation by high impact and incendiary, bullets and flak, but learning experiences of many kinds. They involve multi-sensory movies, live interaction, and a memorial garden where every unit of the European campaign is remembered.

Of course there are planes, uniforms, and mementos of some of the famous men and women who fought the Nazis in the air or on the ground with the Eighth.

Also included are displays of the Tuskegee Airmen. This all Negro air fighter and bomber wing formed out of students of the Tuskegee Alabama Institute trained in Florida and fought as hard to get into the war with the segregated War Department as they did later against the Nazi’s. The recent movie RED TAILS tells the story of some of the fighter pilots.

The Women’s Air Corps, WASPS, is included in another adjunct display. These were women who signed up to fly planes, not just build them, though Rosie the Riveter was another powerful female force against Hitler and Tojo. After the war these women had to wait several decades to be recognized as WW 2 veterans at all.

The newest section now being developed is for SAC, the Strategic Air Command. For the Eighth Air Force did not get put to bed after WW2. In fact, today it is based in Louisiana and its record is only brightened by its service in every war we have fought loudly, and the cold war we fought mostly in silence.

My voluminous pictures are as always posted in Facebook.