June 12, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, he was the dashing lead in The Mark of Zorro and one of Hollywood’s biggest stars during its Golden Era. But at the height of his fame, Tyrone Power gave it all up to serve as a Marine pilot in World War II. Roger McGrath shares the story of how this silver screen icon became a real-life hero in the latest installment of our Hollywood Goes to War series.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. And now it's
time for another of Roger McGrath's Hollywood Goes to War stories.
Here's McGrath with the story of Tyrone Power.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The great art throb for female moviegoers in the late
nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties was Tyrone Power. He
was young, strikingly handsome, and cast in rolls designed to
make the women swoon, whether it was as the male
lead in thin Ice, Cathay Metropole, Second Honeymoon in Old Chicago,
(00:46):
Marie Antoinette Jesse James, a Yank in the raf The
Mark of Zoro or Blood in Sand. Power was a
dashing and romantic character second to none. He came from
a long line of actors, beginning with his Irish great
grandfather of the same name, Trone Power, who is one
(01:08):
of the most famous stage actors of Ireland, England, and
the United States during the eighteen twenties and thirties. There
were several other actors besides his great grandfather, not only
in his paternal line, but also on his maternal side.
Perhaps it was Tyrone Power's genetic destiny to become an
(01:29):
actor before he died at the young age of forty four,
Power appeared in numerous plays in fifty two movies terone.
Edmund Power is born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in May nineteen fourteen.
He is Irish and English on his father's side, and
(01:49):
French and German on his mother's. Both his parents are actors.
His tall and ruggedly handsome father is famous for his
work on the stage and his tours of the United States, Britain,
and Australia. Shortly after Power is born, the family settles
in Los Angeles, and the father begins his career in
(02:10):
silent films, eventually appearing in forty one silence in one
talkie The Big Trail starring John Wayne in nineteen thirty.
Blessed with a deep and resonant voice, it's likely the
father would have continued to make movies in the sound era,
but he dies of a heart attack in nineteen thirty one,
(02:32):
a year and a half after a tyrone, Power is born.
His sister Anne is born. The parents feel blessed and
the family is a tight knit unit. However, the father
is off and away from home, not only making movies
but appearing on stage in New York. The long absences
finally proved too much in the parents' divorce in nineteen
(02:56):
twenty In nineteen twenty one, seven year old Trone appears
on stage in a play along with his mother. He
is a neurable child and at home on the stage,
but no one is thinking that fifteen years hence he
will be one of Hollywood's leading men. In nineteen twenty three,
(03:16):
with Torone and Anne in tow, the mother moves back
to Cincinnati to be close to her parents. She becomes
a drama and voice coach at the prominent Shuster Martin
School of Drama. At home, she coaches Tyrone in voice
in dramatics. Both Toron and Anne go to Catholic parochial schools.
(03:37):
After grammar school, Torone is sent to a Catholic preparatory
school operated by the University of Dayton on its campus
and staffed by the brothers of Mary and Marianous priests.
The school is commonly referred to as Dayton Prep. It's
more than fifty miles from home, and he boards there.
(03:58):
After a year, he decides he wants to live back
at home, both the spare of the family, the expense
of Dayton Prep, and to be able to work part
time as an usher at a movie theater close to
his family home in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati.
To her own, Power enrolls in Purcell High School in
(04:20):
the East Walnut Hills. Like Dayton Prep, Purcell is marianist.
Bower thrives academically and athletically, stars in plays, and works
part time as an usher. Working as an usher enables
him to watch movies for free. Seeing each film that
comes to the theater several times, he begins writing reviews
(04:43):
in a notebook, analyzing plot structures and critiquing actors. He's
educating himself and getting paid at the same time. Bauer
graduates from Purcell High School just after turning seventeen in
nineteen thirty one. His description in the school's yearbook reads,
(05:04):
Tye came to Purcell from Dayton Prep and in a
short time became a favorite with the students and teachers alike.
Ty is a good student, but his acting makes him
the logical successor of John Barrymore. The summer following graduation,
Power joins his father and watches him at work on
(05:26):
the stage and on sets for a movie. Power trives
to absorb everything and hopes that his father will open
doors for him. However, his father suddenly becomes ill while
on the set of a movie shoot. He has to
excuse himself. That night, at home with his son, he
has a massive heart attack. Seventeen year old Tie is
holding him in his arms when the older Power dies
(05:50):
Tarne Power stays in Hollywood, but nineteen thirty two gets
only a bit part in one movie and a walk
on in another. He decides the best way into Hollywood
is through the stage in New York. His acting and
plays in New York causes movie scouts to invite him
to California for screen tests. He's back in Hollywood by
(06:10):
nineteen thirty six and looks and sounds good in his tests.
He's signed to a contract by twentieth Century Fox and
has small roles in two movies. Everyone likes what they see.
The prominent director, Henry King is particularly impressed with Power
and wants him for the male lead in his next movie,
(06:31):
Lloyd's of London. Darryl Zanik, head a production at Fox,
is worried about Power in a lead role with so
little experience. Zank need not have worried. Both the movie
and Power are hits. It's said Tyrone and Power walked
into the movie and Unknown and walked out a star
(06:53):
in nineteen thirty seven. Power stars in five films for Fox,
four in nineteen thirty eight, in nineteen thirty nine, and
then nine more from nineteen forty to nineteen forty three.
Two of the movies he stars in are nominated for
Best Picture. By nineteen thirty nine, he is the number
two box office straw in movies, and by nineteen forty
(07:16):
two number one. He's making two or three million dollars
a year in today's money. He's the star of twentieth
century Fox. His leading ladies include Loretta Young, Myrna Lloyd,
Dorothy Lemore, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Jean Tyraney, and Marine O'Hara.
(07:38):
On a movie set in nineteen thirty eight, Power meets
Suzanne Charpontier, a blonde French beauty who goes by the
stage name Annabella. They fall madly in love and are married.
In nineteen thirty nine. Power has it all a beautiful
and talented wife, money and fame, But in Ago nineteen
(08:00):
forty two, the twenty eight year old, to her own
Power joins the Marines, finishing the war movie crash Dive
delays boot camp for him until January nineteen forty three.
Power says he wanted to join quote right after the
Japs bomb Pearl Harbor, but movie contracts interfered. It's while
(08:21):
making crash Dive that he decides on the Marines. Quote.
I kept stacking them up, the different fellows in uniform,
and it seemed to me that of those I met,
the finest type of men were in the Marines. In
boot camp at San Diego, Power is challenged to a
fight by another recruit. So you're the big movie star,
(08:44):
the recruit proclaims, No, I'm just a private like you,
says Power. Then the guy takes a swing at Power.
Bob Workman, who went through boot camp with Power, said,
Power decked the guy with a quick combination. Power is
strong and fast and could box.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Tyrone Power, and what a story it is number
one in the box office in nineteen forty two. And
what does he do? He joins the Marines. When we
come back more of McGrath and the story of Tyrone Power.
This is our American stories, and we continue with our
(09:40):
American stories and Roger McGrath telling the story of Tyrone Power.
When we last left off, Power had joined the Marines,
and he had been number one in the box office
in nineteen forty two, but at the age of twenty
eight there he was at boot camp in January of
nineteen forty three. Let's continue with McGrath.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
A drill instructor made a similar mistake, said Workman, when
he made a crack about Annabella Power's wife. Power told
the d I, you may say anything you like about me,
and I'll take it, but my wife is off limits.
When the di persisted, Power decked him to the di
(10:23):
i's critic, he did not mention the incident. The d
I may have felt he had gone too far, and
he knew that several recruits had heard his profane remarks
about Power's wife. Workman, who was later badly wounded on Tarawa,
said Power quickly proved himself to be one of the guys.
(10:43):
The famous actor is soon serving as right guide to
the platoon and calling cadence Like a seasoned d I.
Power shoots expert on the rifle range, finishing with the
highest score of any recruit in boot camp. His presented
as certificate by the Colonel of the Recruit Training Battalion
for his efforts. Power also excels in all written in
(11:06):
physical tests. He graduates as Platoon Honorman, having earned superior
readings and training and already a licensed pilot when he
entered the Corps. Powers sent to OCS at Quantico after
boot camp. He's commissioned a second lieutenant in June nineteen
forty three, but then is held at Quantico while waiting
(11:29):
to get into flight training. Having just completed both boot
camp and OCS. The Corps now uses Power to help
train officer candidates Champion at the BIT. Power is finally
sent to an accelerated flight training course at Corporate Sechristy,
Texas in September. By mid April in nineteen forty four,
(11:52):
he passes his final check ride and earns his wings.
He's also promoted to first lieutenant Lieutenant. Power is then
off to a Naval Air Station Atlanta, Georgia, for an
Advanced Instrument flight course. Bower's instructor there is Lieutenant Jerry Taylor,
who said, I instructed Tyrone Power, a very popular movie
(12:16):
idol at the time. He was an excellent student, never
forgot a procedure I showed him or anything I told him.
After completing the two month course, Power is ordered to
the Marine Corps air station at Cherry Point, North Carolina,
where he's assigned to a Transport Squadron VMR three point
(12:38):
fifty two. He wanted fighters, but he's now thirty years
old and the Corps thinks he's too old for dogfights.
Bower gets type rated in the R five C Curtis Commando,
known more commonly by its Army designation C forty six,
(12:58):
it's a twin engine cargo and troopauler. It's the largest
and heaviest twin engine plane to World War Two, and
becomes famous for flying the Hump from India over the
mountains to China. Its twin Pratt and Whitney engines developed
two thousand horsepower each, enabling the plane to cruise at
(13:20):
one hundred and seventy five miles per hour and to
hit a maximum speed of two seventy It can haul
forty troops or thirty wounded men on stretchers, or fifteen
thousand pounds a cargo. After logging three hundred and forty
hours of flying time at Cherry Point, Power is ordered
(13:40):
to Marine Corps air station at El Centro, California, for
staging for the war in the Pacific. He is now
a member of a new transport Squadron VMR three fifty three.
Early in nineteen forty five, he flies with the squadron
from El Centro to Hawaii to Quadulan, which has been
(14:04):
wrested from the Japanese a year earlier. For several days,
the pilots and the crews rest while the planes are serviced.
Lieutenant Power and a squadron then fly to Saipan in
the Marianas, which i'd been taken from the Japanese six
months earlier. A major airfield was constructed so B twenty
(14:24):
nine s could use it as a base for bombing
missions to Japan. This was a round tripped flight of
twenty nine hundred miles, and many a crippled B twenty
nine didn't make it back to Saipan. US strategists think
an island halfway between Saipan and Japan would be perfect
for emergency landings of B twenty ninees. The island is
(14:48):
Iwo Jima, a small volcanic island with Mount Suribachi at
its southern end. However, that Japanese already thought it would
be perfect also for defen of Japan's home islands. They
built three dirt air strips on the island and pack
twenty one thousand cracked troops into tunnels and caves to
(15:10):
defend the outpost. On February nineteenth, nineteen forty five, Marines
land on volcanic sand beaches at the southeastern end of
the island, in the shadow of Surabachi. The Marines take
horrific casualties the day they land and every day afterwards
(15:30):
for six weeks. Hospital ships offshore are overwhelmed by the
number of wounded Marines. As soon as the Marines take
one of Ewo's airfields, VMR three fifty three goes into action.
Their own power is one of the first from a
squadron to land on the strip. Supplies from his plane
(15:54):
are offloaded, and two dozen stretchers with wounded Marines are
onloaded from flight to a naval hospital on Guam, one
hundred and thirty miles south of Saipan in the Marianas.
Nearly every time power lands or takes off on Ewo
is under fire, occasionally heavy fire. Many days is in
(16:15):
the air for ten hours on March twenty six, the
Marines declare Iwo Jima secured. Lieutenant Power doesn't have much
time to rest because on April first, the Marines and
the Army invade Okinawa. Early in the campaign, two Japanese
airfields are taken, and VMR three point fifty three is
(16:38):
back in action, faring in supplies and evacuating wounded. Again
and again. Power in his plane are under fire. The
Japanese use a new tactic, suicide squads with bomb packs
run under the airstrips to blow up planes in themselves.
One of the planes in Power squa Quadron, falls victim
(17:02):
to the suicide bombers. The battle for Okinawa continues until
June twenty second, and it's brutal in bloody to the
very end. No one knows it, but Okinawa will be
the last battle. Power spends July carrying in supplies to
(17:22):
staging areas for the coming invasion of Japan itself. He
is relieved when the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in August caused the Japanese to do the unthinkable surrender.
Japan announces her surrender on August fifteenth, and the articles
(17:43):
of surrender are formally signed aboard the battleship Missouri on
September second. Shortly afterwards, Power flies into Japan and lands
on the airfield outside of Tokyo. He and another pilot
are able to drive a cheap about the countryside and
into Yokohama. He writes home to Annabella, we had a
(18:06):
most wonderful sea around the countryside and got a little
more the feeling of the people. If there is one
thing of which I am sure in this world, it
is that they hate us. You can feel it in
the air. You can see it on their faces when
they pass you on the street. They don't do anything outwardly,
(18:27):
but you can sense that it is deep down inside.
If you meet their gaze, they turn their eyes away.
Just little things like that, but if you see enough
of them, it all adds up to the big fact
that they hate us. After what he saw on Eyogm
and Okinawa and now what he sees in Japan, Power
(18:49):
is thankful America doesn't have to fight the Japanese on
their home islands. Late in November nineteen forty five, Power
returns to the United States. He's logged eleven hundred hours
as pilot and command, and has been decorated with two
Bronze Stars. He's separated from active duty in January nineteen
(19:13):
forty six, but remains in the reserves. He is promoted
to captain in nineteen fifty one and to major in
nineteen fifty seven. Power stars in twenty one. Move is
after his return from the Pacific, before he dies of
a heart attack in nineteen fifty eight. He's buried with
(19:35):
full military honors, conducted by a Marine honor Guard, Lawrence Olivier,
where recites the palem high flight and a plane flies overhead.
Tyrone Power was one of the greatest of movie stars,
but he also was a marine.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And great job on that piece. As always to Greg Hengler,
and a special thanks to Roger McGrath for his remarkable
and consistently good work. The story of Tarne Power here
on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. And now it's
time for another of Roger McGrath's Hollywood Goes to War stories.
Here's McGrath with the story of Tyrone Power.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The great art throb for female moviegoers in the late
nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties was Tyrone Power. He
was young, strikingly handsome, and cast in rolls designed to
make the women swoon, whether it was as the male
lead in thin Ice, Cathay Metropole, Second Honeymoon in Old Chicago,
(00:46):
Marie Antoinette Jesse James, a Yank in the raf The
Mark of Zoro or Blood in Sand. Power was a
dashing and romantic character second to none. He came from
a long line of actors, beginning with his Irish great
grandfather of the same name, Trone Power, who is one
(01:08):
of the most famous stage actors of Ireland, England, and
the United States during the eighteen twenties and thirties. There
were several other actors besides his great grandfather, not only
in his paternal line, but also on his maternal side.
Perhaps it was Tyrone Power's genetic destiny to become an
(01:29):
actor before he died at the young age of forty four,
Power appeared in numerous plays in fifty two movies terone.
Edmund Power is born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in May nineteen fourteen.
He is Irish and English on his father's side, and
(01:49):
French and German on his mother's. Both his parents are actors.
His tall and ruggedly handsome father is famous for his
work on the stage and his tours of the United States, Britain,
and Australia. Shortly after Power is born, the family settles
in Los Angeles, and the father begins his career in
(02:10):
silent films, eventually appearing in forty one silence in one
talkie The Big Trail starring John Wayne in nineteen thirty.
Blessed with a deep and resonant voice, it's likely the
father would have continued to make movies in the sound era,
but he dies of a heart attack in nineteen thirty one,
(02:32):
a year and a half after a tyrone, Power is born.
His sister Anne is born. The parents feel blessed and
the family is a tight knit unit. However, the father
is off and away from home, not only making movies
but appearing on stage in New York. The long absences
finally proved too much in the parents' divorce in nineteen
(02:56):
twenty In nineteen twenty one, seven year old Trone appears
on stage in a play along with his mother. He
is a neurable child and at home on the stage,
but no one is thinking that fifteen years hence he
will be one of Hollywood's leading men. In nineteen twenty three,
(03:16):
with Torone and Anne in tow, the mother moves back
to Cincinnati to be close to her parents. She becomes
a drama and voice coach at the prominent Shuster Martin
School of Drama. At home, she coaches Tyrone in voice
in dramatics. Both Toron and Anne go to Catholic parochial schools.
(03:37):
After grammar school, Torone is sent to a Catholic preparatory
school operated by the University of Dayton on its campus
and staffed by the brothers of Mary and Marianous priests.
The school is commonly referred to as Dayton Prep. It's
more than fifty miles from home, and he boards there.
(03:58):
After a year, he decides he wants to live back
at home, both the spare of the family, the expense
of Dayton Prep, and to be able to work part
time as an usher at a movie theater close to
his family home in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati.
To her own, Power enrolls in Purcell High School in
(04:20):
the East Walnut Hills. Like Dayton Prep, Purcell is marianist.
Bower thrives academically and athletically, stars in plays, and works
part time as an usher. Working as an usher enables
him to watch movies for free. Seeing each film that
comes to the theater several times, he begins writing reviews
(04:43):
in a notebook, analyzing plot structures and critiquing actors. He's
educating himself and getting paid at the same time. Bauer
graduates from Purcell High School just after turning seventeen in
nineteen thirty one. His description in the school's yearbook reads,
(05:04):
Tye came to Purcell from Dayton Prep and in a
short time became a favorite with the students and teachers alike.
Ty is a good student, but his acting makes him
the logical successor of John Barrymore. The summer following graduation,
Power joins his father and watches him at work on
(05:26):
the stage and on sets for a movie. Power trives
to absorb everything and hopes that his father will open
doors for him. However, his father suddenly becomes ill while
on the set of a movie shoot. He has to
excuse himself. That night, at home with his son, he
has a massive heart attack. Seventeen year old Tie is
holding him in his arms when the older Power dies
(05:50):
Tarne Power stays in Hollywood, but nineteen thirty two gets
only a bit part in one movie and a walk
on in another. He decides the best way into Hollywood
is through the stage in New York. His acting and
plays in New York causes movie scouts to invite him
to California for screen tests. He's back in Hollywood by
(06:10):
nineteen thirty six and looks and sounds good in his tests.
He's signed to a contract by twentieth Century Fox and
has small roles in two movies. Everyone likes what they see.
The prominent director, Henry King is particularly impressed with Power
and wants him for the male lead in his next movie,
(06:31):
Lloyd's of London. Darryl Zanik, head a production at Fox,
is worried about Power in a lead role with so
little experience. Zank need not have worried. Both the movie
and Power are hits. It's said Tyrone and Power walked
into the movie and Unknown and walked out a star
(06:53):
in nineteen thirty seven. Power stars in five films for Fox,
four in nineteen thirty eight, in nineteen thirty nine, and
then nine more from nineteen forty to nineteen forty three.
Two of the movies he stars in are nominated for
Best Picture. By nineteen thirty nine, he is the number
two box office straw in movies, and by nineteen forty
(07:16):
two number one. He's making two or three million dollars
a year in today's money. He's the star of twentieth
century Fox. His leading ladies include Loretta Young, Myrna Lloyd,
Dorothy Lemore, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Jean Tyraney, and Marine O'Hara.
(07:38):
On a movie set in nineteen thirty eight, Power meets
Suzanne Charpontier, a blonde French beauty who goes by the
stage name Annabella. They fall madly in love and are married.
In nineteen thirty nine. Power has it all a beautiful
and talented wife, money and fame, But in Ago nineteen
(08:00):
forty two, the twenty eight year old, to her own
Power joins the Marines, finishing the war movie crash Dive
delays boot camp for him until January nineteen forty three.
Power says he wanted to join quote right after the
Japs bomb Pearl Harbor, but movie contracts interfered. It's while
(08:21):
making crash Dive that he decides on the Marines. Quote.
I kept stacking them up, the different fellows in uniform,
and it seemed to me that of those I met,
the finest type of men were in the Marines. In
boot camp at San Diego, Power is challenged to a
fight by another recruit. So you're the big movie star,
(08:44):
the recruit proclaims, No, I'm just a private like you,
says Power. Then the guy takes a swing at Power.
Bob Workman, who went through boot camp with Power, said,
Power decked the guy with a quick combination. Power is
strong and fast and could box.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
of Tyrone Power, and what a story it is number
one in the box office in nineteen forty two. And
what does he do? He joins the Marines. When we
come back more of McGrath and the story of Tyrone Power.
This is our American stories, and we continue with our
(09:40):
American stories and Roger McGrath telling the story of Tyrone Power.
When we last left off, Power had joined the Marines,
and he had been number one in the box office
in nineteen forty two, but at the age of twenty
eight there he was at boot camp in January of
nineteen forty three. Let's continue with McGrath.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
A drill instructor made a similar mistake, said Workman, when
he made a crack about Annabella Power's wife. Power told
the d I, you may say anything you like about me,
and I'll take it, but my wife is off limits.
When the di persisted, Power decked him to the di
(10:23):
i's critic, he did not mention the incident. The d
I may have felt he had gone too far, and
he knew that several recruits had heard his profane remarks
about Power's wife. Workman, who was later badly wounded on Tarawa,
said Power quickly proved himself to be one of the guys.
(10:43):
The famous actor is soon serving as right guide to
the platoon and calling cadence Like a seasoned d I.
Power shoots expert on the rifle range, finishing with the
highest score of any recruit in boot camp. His presented
as certificate by the Colonel of the Recruit Training Battalion
for his efforts. Power also excels in all written in
(11:06):
physical tests. He graduates as Platoon Honorman, having earned superior
readings and training and already a licensed pilot when he
entered the Corps. Powers sent to OCS at Quantico after
boot camp. He's commissioned a second lieutenant in June nineteen
forty three, but then is held at Quantico while waiting
(11:29):
to get into flight training. Having just completed both boot
camp and OCS. The Corps now uses Power to help
train officer candidates Champion at the BIT. Power is finally
sent to an accelerated flight training course at Corporate Sechristy,
Texas in September. By mid April in nineteen forty four,
(11:52):
he passes his final check ride and earns his wings.
He's also promoted to first lieutenant Lieutenant. Power is then
off to a Naval Air Station Atlanta, Georgia, for an
Advanced Instrument flight course. Bower's instructor there is Lieutenant Jerry Taylor,
who said, I instructed Tyrone Power, a very popular movie
(12:16):
idol at the time. He was an excellent student, never
forgot a procedure I showed him or anything I told him.
After completing the two month course, Power is ordered to
the Marine Corps air station at Cherry Point, North Carolina,
where he's assigned to a Transport Squadron VMR three point
(12:38):
fifty two. He wanted fighters, but he's now thirty years
old and the Corps thinks he's too old for dogfights.
Bower gets type rated in the R five C Curtis Commando,
known more commonly by its Army designation C forty six,
(12:58):
it's a twin engine cargo and troopauler. It's the largest
and heaviest twin engine plane to World War Two, and
becomes famous for flying the Hump from India over the
mountains to China. Its twin Pratt and Whitney engines developed
two thousand horsepower each, enabling the plane to cruise at
(13:20):
one hundred and seventy five miles per hour and to
hit a maximum speed of two seventy It can haul
forty troops or thirty wounded men on stretchers, or fifteen
thousand pounds a cargo. After logging three hundred and forty
hours of flying time at Cherry Point, Power is ordered
(13:40):
to Marine Corps air station at El Centro, California, for
staging for the war in the Pacific. He is now
a member of a new transport Squadron VMR three fifty three.
Early in nineteen forty five, he flies with the squadron
from El Centro to Hawaii to Quadulan, which has been
(14:04):
wrested from the Japanese a year earlier. For several days,
the pilots and the crews rest while the planes are serviced.
Lieutenant Power and a squadron then fly to Saipan in
the Marianas, which i'd been taken from the Japanese six
months earlier. A major airfield was constructed so B twenty
(14:24):
nine s could use it as a base for bombing
missions to Japan. This was a round tripped flight of
twenty nine hundred miles, and many a crippled B twenty
nine didn't make it back to Saipan. US strategists think
an island halfway between Saipan and Japan would be perfect
for emergency landings of B twenty ninees. The island is
(14:48):
Iwo Jima, a small volcanic island with Mount Suribachi at
its southern end. However, that Japanese already thought it would
be perfect also for defen of Japan's home islands. They
built three dirt air strips on the island and pack
twenty one thousand cracked troops into tunnels and caves to
(15:10):
defend the outpost. On February nineteenth, nineteen forty five, Marines
land on volcanic sand beaches at the southeastern end of
the island, in the shadow of Surabachi. The Marines take
horrific casualties the day they land and every day afterwards
(15:30):
for six weeks. Hospital ships offshore are overwhelmed by the
number of wounded Marines. As soon as the Marines take
one of Ewo's airfields, VMR three fifty three goes into action.
Their own power is one of the first from a
squadron to land on the strip. Supplies from his plane
(15:54):
are offloaded, and two dozen stretchers with wounded Marines are
onloaded from flight to a naval hospital on Guam, one
hundred and thirty miles south of Saipan in the Marianas.
Nearly every time power lands or takes off on Ewo
is under fire, occasionally heavy fire. Many days is in
(16:15):
the air for ten hours on March twenty six, the
Marines declare Iwo Jima secured. Lieutenant Power doesn't have much
time to rest because on April first, the Marines and
the Army invade Okinawa. Early in the campaign, two Japanese
airfields are taken, and VMR three point fifty three is
(16:38):
back in action, faring in supplies and evacuating wounded. Again
and again. Power in his plane are under fire. The
Japanese use a new tactic, suicide squads with bomb packs
run under the airstrips to blow up planes in themselves.
One of the planes in Power squa Quadron, falls victim
(17:02):
to the suicide bombers. The battle for Okinawa continues until
June twenty second, and it's brutal in bloody to the
very end. No one knows it, but Okinawa will be
the last battle. Power spends July carrying in supplies to
(17:22):
staging areas for the coming invasion of Japan itself. He
is relieved when the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in August caused the Japanese to do the unthinkable surrender.
Japan announces her surrender on August fifteenth, and the articles
(17:43):
of surrender are formally signed aboard the battleship Missouri on
September second. Shortly afterwards, Power flies into Japan and lands
on the airfield outside of Tokyo. He and another pilot
are able to drive a cheap about the countryside and
into Yokohama. He writes home to Annabella, we had a
(18:06):
most wonderful sea around the countryside and got a little
more the feeling of the people. If there is one
thing of which I am sure in this world, it
is that they hate us. You can feel it in
the air. You can see it on their faces when
they pass you on the street. They don't do anything outwardly,
(18:27):
but you can sense that it is deep down inside.
If you meet their gaze, they turn their eyes away.
Just little things like that, but if you see enough
of them, it all adds up to the big fact
that they hate us. After what he saw on Eyogm
and Okinawa and now what he sees in Japan, Power
(18:49):
is thankful America doesn't have to fight the Japanese on
their home islands. Late in November nineteen forty five, Power
returns to the United States. He's logged eleven hundred hours
as pilot and command, and has been decorated with two
Bronze Stars. He's separated from active duty in January nineteen
(19:13):
forty six, but remains in the reserves. He is promoted
to captain in nineteen fifty one and to major in
nineteen fifty seven. Power stars in twenty one. Move is
after his return from the Pacific, before he dies of
a heart attack in nineteen fifty eight. He's buried with
(19:35):
full military honors, conducted by a Marine honor Guard, Lawrence Olivier,
where recites the palem high flight and a plane flies overhead.
Tyrone Power was one of the greatest of movie stars,
but he also was a marine.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And great job on that piece. As always to Greg Hengler,
and a special thanks to Roger McGrath for his remarkable
and consistently good work. The story of Tarne Power here
on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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