The Story of the Western Movie Star Who Quit Hollywood to Bomb Tokyo During WWII 

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American Stories. In a career
spanning more than four decades and appearing in one hundred
and forty nine movies, Western star Tim Holt could be
seen on the big screen in films such as Stagecoach,
My Darling, Clementine, and Swiss Family Robinson. Here to tell
another Hollywood goes to War's story is Roger McGrath. McGrath

(00:33):
is the author of Gunfighters, High Women and Vigilantes, Violence
on the Frontier, a US marine and former history professor
at UCLA, Doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel
documentaries and is a regular contributor here at Our American Stories,
Here's McGrath.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
One of the most handsome and recognizable faces from the movies,
especially westerns of the late nineteen thirties through the year
early nineteen fifties, was Tim Holt. He appeared more than
seventy movies, several of them considered classics, including Stagecoach in
nineteen thirty nine, Swiss Family Robinson in nineteen forty, The

(01:15):
Magnificent Ambersons in nineteen forty two, My Darling Clementine in
nineteen forty six, and The Treasurer of the Sierra Madre
in nineteen forty eight. Audiences loved him in his supporting
roles in these major productions, but also in his leading
man roles in dozens of b westerns. What has generally

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forgotten about Tim Holt was his World War II service
as a B twenty nine bammadeer, for which he was
awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, and four
Air medals. Tim hold is born Charles John Holt the
Third in nineteen nineteen in Bevere Hills, California. His father,

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known as Jack Holt, is a leading man in silent
films when Tim is born. Gifted with a strong voice,
Jack has no problem making the transition to talkies. All
the other he appears in some eighty silence and then
another eighty talkies, making him one of the most prolific
actors in the history of Hollywood. Tim Holt's mother is

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the former Margaret Woods, the daughter of business tycoon. Her
father is so upset with her marrying an actor that
he disowns her. He later relents, well he should have,
because Jack and Margaret Holt stay married for thirty five
years until Jack dies of a heart attack. Although Tim

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Holt grows up in Beverly Hills. As a son of
an actor, his childhood and that of his two sisters
is remarkably normal. He does everything typical Boys of the
nighte teen twenties, nineteen thirties New Nonetheless, he also, whenever possible,
accompanies his dad on location, shoots, and appears as a
child actor in two movies. For high school, his father

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sends him off to Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana.
The school has rigorous academic standards and strict discipline. Olt
plays on the football and polo teams and is also
a member of the school's famed black Horse Troop. When
later called upon to ride a horse in Westerns, Tim

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Holt is in his element, Holt excels in the classroom. Also,
for most of his time at Culver Military Academy, Holt's
roommate is Hal Roach Junior, son of the famous Hollywood
producer Hal Roach. Holroach Junior was no slouch either. He's
captain of the academy's football team that goes undefeated. Another

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school chum of Tim Holtz is Bud Edicker, who will
later direct dozens of Westerns. Betaker said, Holt walks in
the evenings down the dormitory hall, wearing a six gun
and holster and practices quick draw. Betaker said, Holtwood exclaim,
I'm going to be a Western star someday. Holt graduates

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from Culver Military Academy in nineteen thirty six with honors,
ranking fourteenth in a class of one hundred and fifteen.
He returns to Beverly Hills and roles at UCLA. However,
he soon drops out of college and joins the Westwood
Theater Guild to develop his acting skills. Holt's a natural

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and gets his first credited movie role Instell of Dallas
in nineteen thirty seven, storring Barbara Stanwick. The movie is
both a critical and commercial success. Holt plays one of
the suitors of Stanwick's daughter, and he received good reviews.
In nineteen thirty eight, he appears in five movies, including

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The vaw West of Tombstone, in which he shares the
lead with Harry Carey. Nineteen thirty nine is another five
movie year for Tim Holt. In the Spirit of Culver,
he plays an officer in a story about the very
school he himself graduated from. The Covert Military Academy. His

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most memorable performance in nineteen thirty nine, though is impossibly
the greatest Western ever made. John Ford's Stagecoach Holt is
the young, handsome cavalry officer, Lieutenant Blanchard, who leads a
troop of cavalry accompanying the stagecoach for part of its journey.

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Had a bit more than thirty one minutes into the movie,
there's a fork in the road. A stage coach takes
the right fork, which is the way to Lordsburg. Following orders,
the cavalry takes the left fork. Tim Holt halts his
horrors and watches the stagecoach as it rolls away. He

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takes off his hat and, with a wide smile on
his face, vigorously waves his hat at the departing stage coach.
Luise Platt, playing Missus Mallory, the pregnant wife of one
of Holt's fellow cavalry officers, leans out a side window
in the stage, smiles, and waves her handkerchief back at hold.

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The broad smile on Halt's face slowly fades as he
watches the stage move farther away, knowing it will soon
be beyond the cavalry's protection. How with an expression of concern
on his face, Holt firmly pulls his hat back down
on his head and adjusts his holster as if to

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say it's back to business, and rides off to catch
up with the cavalry troop leading. At the same time
is the music that is the theme of the stagecoach
throughout the movie, the Melody of will Bury Me Not
on the Lone Prairie. It's a scene that can be

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watched over and over again. Another john Ford jem, It's
a Tim Holt gem as well. He plays his part
with subtlety and nuance. It's four movies for Tim Holton
in nineteen forty including starring roles in three of the
movies Laddie, the Fargo Kid and Wagon Train, and a

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strong supporting role in Swiss Family Robinson. His production increases
to seven movies in nineteen forty one, six of them
as the lead in westerns. Nineteen forty two is Tim
Holt's banner year. Not only does he star as the
lead in seven westerns, but his strong supporting role in

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the highly acclaimed The Magnificent Ambersons shows off his acting
chops in an unlikely role as the spoiled son of
a wealthy family. Tim Holt certainly is the Western action
star he told Bud Betteker back at the Culver Military
Academy he would someday be. But he's also an accomplished actor.

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By the end of nineteen forty two, Tim Holt is
still only twenty three years old, yet he's one of
the busiest actors in Hollywood, having appeared in more than
thirty movies. However, he's also an American patriot, and after
he appears in four movies in nineteen forty three, he
says goodbye to Hollywood and joins the Army Air Forces.

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As a graduate of the Culver Military Academy. It's not
surprising he excels an officer's and has commissioned a second lieutenant.
He then goes to fight school. The dime he finishes
his training, the Army Air Forces is in desperate need
Obamadier's for its newest plane, the B twenty nine super Fortress.

(09:16):
Holt now goes through intensive training on the Norden bomb site.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
And we've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Western star Tim Holt and what a career he
had seven movies alone in nineteen forty one. By the
age of twenty three. He'd start in two classics, john
Ford's Stagecoach and Orson Wells's Magnificent Ambersom's and he dropped that,

(09:41):
left that behind, like so many stars and directors of
his day, to head off to America's armed forces. When
we come back, more of Tim Holt's story, more of
our Hollywood goes to War series. Here on our American stories,

(10:08):
and we continue with our American stories. After starring in
some of the greatest motion pictures of its day, tim
Holt said goodbye to Hollywood, joined the Army Air Forces
and became a bamadeer on their newest plane, the B
twenty nine super Fortress. Holt went through training on the
Norden bomb site, the same sighting mechanism used to aim

(10:30):
the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. Jordan's
production effort was on a similar scale to the Manhattan Project.
The overall cost was one point one billion dollars. Let's
return to McGrath and the story of Tim Holt.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
The Nordon bomb site is said to be so accurate
that Obambadeer again drop a bomb in a pickle barrel
from twenty thousand feet The bombsite is a top secret
instrument removed after each flight and kept under guard. The
NORDON consists of a telescopic site and a mechanical calculator

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that computes bomb trajectory, accounting for the plane's speed altitude
in drift. Also, and importantly, the site is linked to
the plane's automatic pilot by what is called automatic flight
Control Equipment or AFCEE. As bombedeer operates the NORDON bomb site,

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he is through the AFCE flying the plane. Holt impresses
his superiors, who keep him stateside for several months as
an instructor, and then more months working with both the
Navy and the Marines on bombing tactics. In April nineteen
forty five, Holt, now a first lieutenant, is off to

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the Pacific as a bombadier on a B twenty nine
in the sixty second Bombardment Squadron, part of the thirty
ninth Bombardment Group. By May, he's flying off airstrips on
Guam to bomb the Home Islands of Japan. It's a
three thousand mile round trip, and the B twenty nines

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not only have to deal with Japanese fighters over the
Home Islands, but also with engine fires and mechanical and
electrical failures on the long flight. Altogether, the Army Air
Forces lose more than four hundred B twenty nines in
the long Distant raids. Alt flies twenty two missions, his

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first against the Otaki oil refinery on Japan's main island, Hanshoe.
His last is against industrial sites in the city of Isasaki,
also on Hanshoe. On that final flight, he drops his
bombs early on the morning of August fourteen, Japan surrender

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Later that day. When the surrender is announced, Holts B
twenty nine, with almost six feet of its left wing
shot away and one hundred and seventy five bullet holes
in its fuselage, is limping home to Guam. Holt and
several other crew members are nursing wounds. Late in the
fall of nineteen forty five, Holt returns home. His decorations

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include the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, and the
Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. In January nineteen
forty six, is released from active service. Within a few months,
tim Holt is back to acting. When john Ford begins
shooting My Darling Clementine during the spring of nineteen forty six,

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Holt is hired to play Virgil Irb in a dramatic
and highly fictionalized version of the urban Clanton feud in Tombstone, Arizona,
culminating in the shootout at the Ok Corral. Plain Wyatt
Up in the lead role is Henry Fonda. Victim Mature
plays Doc Holliday, and Ward Bond is Morganer. Walter Brennan

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plays Old Man Clinton. A big budget western, My Darling Clementine,
is both a box office and critical success. In nineteen
forty seven, Tim Holt stars in three B westerns. Towards
the end of the year, he begins work on a
movie that will be released in January nineteen forty eight,

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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Holt plays Humphrey Bogart's
mining partner in the Tale of Gold, Greed and Treachery
in the Mountains of Mexico.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Not for a moment, did I haven't tend to rob
your do you any harm?

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Just like I said, I'd fight for you and yours,
just the same as I'd fight for the old man's.
It really may not give me back my gun, my pal.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
It going to be better the way things are to
separate tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Or even tonight.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
I would suit you, fine, wouldn't it?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Why me more than you.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Say you could fall on me from behind, sneak up
and shoot me in the back.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
All right, I'll go first and wait for.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Me on the trail, ambush me. Why wouldn't I do
it right here now? If I meant to kill you,
I'll tell you why, because you're yeller. You haven't got
nerve enough to pull the trigger while I'm looking here
straight in the eye. If you think like that, there's
nothing to do with to tie you up every night.
I'll tell you what. I'll make you a little bet.
Three times thirty five is one hundred and five. I'll
bet you one hundred and five thousand dollars you go

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to sleep before I do.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
The movie will be nominated for Best Picture and John
Houston will win Oscars for Best Director in Best Writing.
Walter Houston will be awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
The movie is a hit in every way and remains
one of the top movies ever made. Holt stars in

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five B westerns in nineteen forty eight and another five
in nineteen forty nine. Nineteen fifty through nineteen fifty two
would be more of the same, although he has a
strong supporting role in nineteen fifty one in His Kind
of a Woman, a big budget film starring Robert Mitcham

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and Jane Russell. After nineteen fifty two, Tim Holt appears
in only three more movies. One is The Monster That
Challenged the World, a science fiction yard about a deadly
creature from the sea invading waterways in California. Holt stars
as a Navy officer who is tasked with tracking now

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in the Monster. By the early nineteen fifties, tim Holt
simply stops caring much about Hollywood. In the late nineteen forties,
he had bought a ranch in Oklahoma, near the town
of Hera. He escapes to his ranch as often as
he can. In nineteen fifty two, he marries his third wife,

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and by the next year the two of them are
living on the ranch full time. They will have three
children together. Holt also has one child from his first marriage.
Holt is now living the life he dreamed of for years.
While working in Hollywood. He rides in rodeos, becomes the

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general manager of a country in Western music station, and
buys an interest in a traveling rodeo show. After twenty
years what he considers an idyllic life, is struck by
cancer and dies. In nineteen seventy three, the governor of
Oklahoma declares Tim Holt Day in the town of Hera

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names one one of its roads, tim Holt Drive. Although
tim Holt had strong supporting roles and occasionally starring roles
in movies that were not Westerns, He's best remembered as
a Western hero. However, that was all play acting. In
real life, he was a real hero find twenty two

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missions over Japan, facing heavy ant aircraft fire and swarms
of Japanese fighters and coming home with the Distinguished Flying Cross,
the Purple Heart and four Air Metals.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Had a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Roger McGrath who was a frequent contributor here on our
American Stories. And what a story he told about actor
Tim Holt. And the greatest part of his life was
the real life part he played helping commandeer and bomb

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into some mission of the Japanese war Machine, four Air Medals,
a Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart, and of course
his movie parts. The most memorable hands down his work
and treasure of the Sierra Madre. Playing Humphrey Bogart's mining partner,

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the story of Tim Holt, the Western star part and
the war hero part. Here on our American stories