Clark Gable is just a two-bar Joe doing a job
By Andrew A. Rooney, Stars and Stripes staff writer June 7, 1943
Herewith a report on Capt. Clark Gable:
Last summer he quieted a rumor that he was going to accept a direct commission as a major by enlisting as a private in Los Angeles. On Oct. 28, after completing the air corps OCS at Miami. Fla., he was commissioned second lieutenant. He served at Tyndall Field, Fla., for a while, and later was shipped to a mid-West field. He came to England about seven weeks ago, has been on one raid, (Antwerp, May 4) and his job here is to make a training film for aerial gunners. He is 42 years old, six feet one inch tall, his hair is grey. He seems like an OK guy.
With the possible exception of the German Army, no one is having a tougher time trying to fight this war than Capt. Clark Gable.
They Want to Know
A few hundred thousand relatives of privates in the infantry who have been fighting in North Africa want to know why Clark Gable isn't a private in the infantry fighting in North Africa. The fathers and mothers, sisters and friends of the staff sergeants on combat crews of B17s and B24s want to know why he is a captain instead of a staff sergeant. And some of the boys wonder.
He is not a captain doing a staff sergeant's job. He is a captain doing a job that has been done by majors and better, and he went from a second lieutenant to a captain in less than six months, not because he had a direct pipeline to the commanding general, but because he is an intelligent man doing a good job for the Air Force.
Last Saturday a couple of carloads of newspapermen, most of whom were women, were taken to an Eighth Air Force field to watch the public relations office take the wraps off their man Gable. They were prepared to write cynical articles of the movie star playing a phoney part, but Gable fooled them. He was a very nice guy about it all, and his performance at the press conference left nothing to be cynical about.
He didn't try to act any part. He was Clark Gable in the Air Force, a little tired, but resigned to being looked at and talked to — and he looked like a very decent guy with no angle to his being where he was.
The conference was held around a B17, and there were several combat men from Gable's station hanging around. The captain was dressed in pinks, a leather jacket, cap and solid English shoes. He looked like what America thinks the boys in the air corps look like.
His mustache has acquired a slightly RAF look, his hair is a little long, and the collar of his leather jacket is turned up with that casual nonchalance which makes life look easy. The cap he wore looked just a little more like an air corps cap than most, and he pulled it just a little further over his right eye than the rest.
He is in England on the orders of Brig. Gen. Luther S. Smith, director of the Air Force training program. With him are 1/Lts. Andrew J. McIntyre, former MGM cameraman, and John Mahin, who wrote several of the scripts for Gable's pictures.
Together the three of them, with the help of several veteran gunners, are putting together a film they hope will be some help in the training program for aerial gunners. In the film, Gable interviews men, gets opinions and observations on equipment and combat problems. He appears in some of the scenes — does not appear in others.
He went on the Antwerp raid so that he could talk through something besides his hat about raids. One of the correspondents asked him if he was going on another.
"I'm going to do what I have to do to finish this job."
After Capt. Gable introduced T/Sgt. Kenneth Hulse and T/Sgt. Phil Hulse (not brothers) to the correspondents, and they told a brief story, it was decided that the newspapermen should hear what a cal. 50 machine-gun sounded like being fired by Capt. Gable. It sounded just like a cal. 50 being fired by anyone.
Phil Hulse, whose home is in Springfield. Mo., has worked with the captain quite a bit on the picture, and he is at the field with Gable.
"He is a regular man," Hulse says "He gets an awful lot of unfair criticism. He used to go out to the towns once in a while but the people won't let him alone, so he just doesn't go out any more."
Capt. Gable himself says that he has been to London once, and has been to some of the pubs in the small towns near his station several times. He hasn't seen a movie since he's been here. (GWTW still plays at the Ritz, in Leicester Square.)
Herewith ends the report on Capt. Clark Gable. For our money he is an OK Joe fighting a war, and, until he bites a dog or figures in a legitimate news story, just like any other Joe, The Stars and Stripes will leave the guy alone, as he would like to be left, for the duration.
Tags: Clark Gable captain ww2 USAAF
