James Arness, 3rd Infantry, wounded at Anzio, Bronze Star winner. Played Marshall Matt Dillon on the long running American tv series, "Gunsmoke". texag57
Texas, thanks for adding photo of the great James Arness, who appeared for many years in leading role on ‘Gunsmoke’. For viewers interest, his brother and fellow actor was the late Peter Graves, who appeared in many TV series and films.
It would be neat if something about his brother’s military service would turn up. I remember him well in the “Mission Impossible” tv shows.
John Wayne was a good friend of Jim Arness and introduced Arness at the beginning of the first show of the Gunsmoke series.
I think it strange that most actors who fought in WW2 were very quiet about it (Audi Murphy aside who made “To Hell & Back”) while those who chose not to fight often portrayed war heroes on screen. John Wayne in particular was very belicose in his trumpeting of the virtues and valour of American fighing men & women but didn’t actually join them because it would interupt his career. Whereas David Niven rejoined the British Army, his good friend Errol Flynn showed no compunction to fight for Britain, Australia or the USA except on screen.