One of the Eighth’s finest squadron commanders was Maj. James Maitland Stewart, a Princeton honors graduate known to all as Jimmy Stewart, the Hollywood movie idol. After being drafted in 1940 at age thirty-two, the rail-thin, six-foot-four son of an Indiana, Pennsylvania, hardware store merchant had tried to get into the Army Air Force but failed to meet the weight requirement for his height, 148 pounds, by five pounds. Desperately wanting to serve (he later called the draft “the only lottery I ever won”), he appealed the decision, over the heated protests of Louis B. Mayer, his dictatorial
...more
