He later starred in The Great Escape.
Julia Child (1912-2004). After Pearl Harbor she tried to join the Navy but was rejected as too tall. She joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) instead and began her WWII career in Washington working directly for Gen William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, the OSS chief. In 1944 she was posted to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where she handled highly classified communications for the OSS’s clandestine stations in Asia, and where she met her future husband, a high-ranking OSS cartographer. She was later posted to China where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat.
J.D Salinger — The author of The Catcher in the Rye stormed Utah Beach on D-Day, according to Biography.com. In fact, Salinger biographer Shane Salerno told NPR that Salinger “was carrying six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye when he landed on D-Day.” The completed book would later go on to sell 65 million copies.
Yogi Berra — The Major League Baseball catcher, manager, and Hall of Fame member was Seaman 1st class Lawrence Berra on June 6, 1944. NBC News reports Berra “helped soften up German defenses and ran messages from Omaha Beach to Utah Beach” on that historic day.
Alec Guinness — Decades before playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, Guinness served in the Royal Navy. According to the book Duty, Honor, Applause: America’s Entertainers in World War II, Guinness was piloting a landing craft on D-Day that ferried British troops to the beaches of Normandy.