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40 Insights into the Lives of Famous War Veterans

Khalid Elhassan July 13, 2019 26 min

8. Gable’s studio went behind his back to yank him out of combat

Captain Clark Gable. Robert F. Dorr Collection

Gable’s brushes with death alarmed the folk at MGM, who had no wish to lose their most valuable actor. So the studio worked its connections to have Gable reassigned to noncombat duty. The star actor was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal, and in late 1943, he was ordered back to the US to edit the film. Gable hoped for another combat assignment, but none came, and by the summer of 1944, he finally gave up and requested to be relieved from active duty. He stayed in the Air Forces reserves until 1947, when he finally resigned his commission.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.