19. The military helped entertain potential recruits before they entered the service
During the Second World War a series of Hollywood films, featuring major stars of the day, were created to entice potential recruits into select branches of the service. One example is 1943’s Crash Dive, starring Tyrone Power in his last film before entering military training himself. In the film, Power plays an officer assigned to PT Boats who reluctantly enters submarine training. Eventually, he comes to enjoy the submarine service, while acknowledging all the various branches of the Navy had important contributions to make in the war effort (in real life Power served as a Marine cargo pilot, often ferrying wounded Marines off of islands where combat still raged). The same year saw the release of Bombardier, a film which followed the training of six friends in bombardier school. The film included an introduction by Brigadier General Eugene Eubank, which stressed the critical need for trained bombardiers.
Other films used direct appeals from established stars, rather than fictionalized stories. James Stewart, who served with distinction in the USAAF, narrated a recruiting film for the Army Air Forces. Stewart appears as a pilot, addressing an audience through the fourth wall, and allowing them to experience the recruiting and training process. The recruits come from positions on the social and educational ladder, though none are Black, as the US Army remained segregated at the time of the film’s release in May, 1942. The film was so successful as a recruiting tool that the USAAF attributed 150,000 enlistments from its audience, which viewed the film as a short accompanied by whatever feature they went to the theater to see. By then, James Stewart was flying combat missions over France and later Germany as part of the 8th Air Force.
