Richard Widmark: A Princeton legend

The first announcement of recruiting stations to be set up in Bureau County was in May 1940. In September , males between the ages of 21 and 35 had to register with the Selective Service for the draft.

Gail and Max Caster complied with the new law set forth by President Roosevelt, as did Richard and Donald Widmark. Max Castner enlisted in the U.S. Army on April 17, 1941. Gail Castner enlisted in the Army Air Corps Reserve. Donald Widmark joined the ranks of the Army Air Corps in California, while across the country in New York City, brother Richard Widmark wants to do his patriotic duty also but is turned down.

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted a surprise military air strike on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack led to the United States’ entry into World War II. Private First Class Max Castner (ASN 36027208), now of the U.S. Army infantry at Camp Forrest, Tenn., decides he would rather spend his service time in the air instead of on the ground. He takes a test to be a pilot in the Army Air Corps. He passes the test and is sent to Aloe Field, Victoria, Texas, where he completed the exhaustive training program to be a pilot. He was commissioned a second lieutenant on June 26, 1943, transferred to Clovis, N.M., on July 16, and then to Salina, Kan., in August.

The Air Corps’ pilot training program was accelerated at such a incredible rate that civilian contractors were selected to operate a large number of newly-established primary flying schools, and eventually secondary schools on existing campuses, hiring civilian flight instructors. Gail Castner, training in Chicago in the Army Air Corps Enlisted Reserve, would be one of those civilian flight instructors. By the middle of 1942, there were more than 50 such schools in Illinois alone, established at the existing campuses, as close as LaSalle-Peru-Oglesby Junior College or as far away as Parks Air College, East St. Louis. Nationwide, there were more than 435,000 men and women taught to fly under the Civilian Pilot Training Program at 1,132 colleges and 1,460 flight schools. The U. S. Government would loan aircraft  to the civilian schools.

Richard Widmark, trying to answer his country’s call, is turned down three different times when he tries to enlist for military service. Richard Widmark moved to New York in 1938, determined to be an actor. He made his radio debut in “Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories” that same year, and by the early 1940s was heard regularly in such network programs as “Gang Busters,” “Inner Sanctum Mysteries” and “Mystery Theater.” He was on “Suspense” for CBS Radio in 1940, had the lead in “Front Page Farrell” for Mutual Radio in 1941, did “Mr. & Mrs. North” for NBC Radio in 1942, and “Mystery Theater”” plus “The Thin Man” for NBC Radio in 1943. He was on the stage starring in “Kiss and Tell” at the Biltmore Theater for 962 performances and “Get Away Old Man” at the Cort Theater for 13 performances, both in 1943. He was becoming a success in a career that would only get more successful.

He would have no success though, trying to get into military service. He was rejected three times because of a perforated eardrum.

“It’s actually more than perforated” said Widmark. “I have a hole in my head (said with a laugh, though he was serious). I go every three months to have it drained.”

During his acting career in the movies, his doctor in California would send him to ear specialists all over the world while on various film locations out of the country. To try and do his part, he was a stateside air raid warden and entertained hundreds of servicemen under the auspices of the “American Theatre Wing” during the war years. He would thrill and entertain audiences during his film career in movies like “Halls of Montezuma” (1950), “The Frogmen” (1951), “Destination Gobi” (1953), “Take the High Ground” (1953), “A Prize of Gold” (1955), “Time Limit” (1957), “Judgment at Nuremberg” (1961), and “Flight from Ashiya” (1964), as close to the military life as he would get.

Ninety-one bombers from the U.S. 8th Air Force, a combined squadron of B-24 Liberators and B-17 Flying Fortresses, brought about the first American airstrike inside Germany on Jan. 27, 1943.  Fifty-five of the B-17s made a daring daylight raid on the submarine bases at Wilhelmshaven, a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. All of the aircraft were able to return to base. Gail Castner was training as a student at the Army Air Corps School in Chicago on that same day. He was learning to fly and training to become a civilian flight instructor, but he would not quite make it back to base on that day after taking to the air.

The successful completion of pilot training was a difficult as well as a dangerous task. During the four and one-half year period of January 1941 to August 1945, there were 191,654 cadets who were awarded pilot wings. On the down side, there were also 132,993 who “washed out” or were killed during training, a loss rate of approximately 40 percent due to accidents, academic or physical problems, and other causes. Those who graduated from flying school were usually assigned to transition training in the type of plane they were to fly in combat. That would require two months of additional training before a pilot was considered ready for combat or to teach someone to be.

The temperature was somewhere around freezing, visibility was not very good, and there was plenty of snow on the ground on Jan. 27, 1943, in Chicago. Gail Castner was flying at 5,000 feet in a Fairchild trainer. These were not the desired flying conditions, but we were at war, and pilots were needed now. Gail was doing just fine, he thought, even with the  intermittent snow flurries, until his plane developed mechanical problems, quite possibly due to the weather, and he had to make a forced landing of sorts. He thought it was the ground coming at him, with the limited visibility, but he came down a little sooner than planned, on top of a building. Gail had luck with him that day and would not be a part of that 40 percent. He walked away with only facial lacerations and minor injuries, but with his life intact. Maybe the large accumulation of snow had cushioned the impact. Gail went on to complete his training in Chicago and headed to the Farm Campus of the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. Doris and daughter, Tamara, are living in Wedron, Ill., while Gail continued his training in St. Paul. It was the middle of July when he was again transferred, this time to Randolph Field in Schertz, Texas, about 15 miles from San Antonio, where he would take a two-month course in primary pilot instructing. He would be with the Student Instructor Detachment in barracks T-82.  His family is living nearby in Dallinger, Texas.

In June 1941, the Air Corps had been incorporated into the Army Air Forces. The Army Air Forces Central Instructors School (CIS) was created at Randolph Field in March 1943. For the next two years, training instructors for ground schools, instructor pilots (including civilian contract instructors) for all three phases of flying training, and officers destined for administrative duties at air training command bases were trained by the CIS. This is where Gail Castner would be a part of the war effort as a civilian flight instructor in the Army Air Corps Reserve for the duration of the war.

That old adage that truth is stranger than fiction will be decidedly laid out with the rest of the story of the younger brothers, Donald Widmark and Max Castner. Make sure you have your parachute, be ready for action, and I’ll keep checking the rear view mirror for more Richard Widmark.