The author does not mention that Stewart and his wife Gloria went on to lose their adopted son, an Army first lieutenant, in Vietnam. I remember Gloria telling an interviewer how badly she felt that the church organist failed to show up on the day of his funeral.
I think one of the most fascinating stories of friendship is between Stewart and Hank Fonda. Politically polar opposites as were their children.
When Jim was asked how they could be friends, being so politically different, he replied, in his “Jimmy” way - “Well, there’s somethings we just don’t talk about.”
B-24 Liberator bomber pilots hold a special place in the ranks, if for no other reason than they had a real bear of a machine to fly. The control surfaces were all manually operated with no power assist of any kind, and it took extraordinary exertion of upper body strength to keep them even on level flight, let alone any emergency situations like this.
I didn’t know that about their son. What a tragedy.
I thought the son was hers from a first marriage and JS adopted him after they married.