Posted on 07/11/2018 5:59:54 PM PDT by eastforker
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Palance's boxing career ended and his military career began as a member of the United States Army Air Forces. Palance's rugged face, which took many beatings in the boxing ring, was disfigured when he bailed out of a burning B-24 Liberator bomber while on a training flight over southern Arizona, where he was a student pilot. Plastic surgeons repaired the damage as best they could, but he was left with a distinctive, somewhat gaunt, look. After much reconstructive surgery, he was discharged in 1944.
(Excerpt) Read more at airforce.togetherweserved.com ...
“Day ain’t over yet”
Love that quote (City Slickers)
I remember him in a movie, I guess it was “Ben Hur” in which he looked absolutely fearsome.
Great actor, was a bad dude in Shane.
The number of airmen who were injured or killed in training accidents is one of the little known facts about the dangers of training during WWII. My father bailed out twice of burning B-24’s in training in Texas and survived a take off crash. The training centers in Texas and Arizona used “war wearies” for training the crews, i.e. these were aircraft that had survived dozens of missions overseas and were sent back to be used to train new aircrew. And they used rebuilt engines, that if flown beyond their limits, had a tendency to catch fire. He ended up with a double hernia that was found just before he was to ship out from March Army Airfield to the Southwest Pacific. He was trained as a nose gunner for the B-24J model.
Played in the movie, “Attack”!
Wonderful portrayal of a young American Lieutenant in World War II.
IMHO
“Believe it... or NOT.”
Jack Palance one arm push ups. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g426J4Uh2m4
Thanks for posting East.
Jack Palance - Tar Heel
I loved at the Oscars (pushup video reminded me) re City Slickers he opened with ..... Billy Crystal....I crap bigger than that.
Not Ben Hur, he was a charioteer gladiator in Barabbas.
I remember seeing those one-handed pushups when he was a guest on Carson’s Tonight Show. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw his name in the title of this thread.
Thanks.
One of my aunts, an Army nurse, cared for Jack Palance at the Army hospital located at Davis-Monthan AFB during the war. She said he was burned pretty bad as a result of the accident. They corresponded for many years after the war.
Johnny Carson show... I remember it live.
“He was trained as a nose gunner for the B-24J model.
“
A hero forever my book.
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