Charles Durning The War Hero Hollywood Forgot YouTube

During World War II, millions of Americans answered the call to serve, including some of Hollywood's already established and some rising stars. Back then, patriotism wasn't performative, it was personal. Fame could wait. The country came first. One of those men was Charles Durning. Before he was a Hollywood legend, Durning was just a terrified young man leaping off a boat into a hailstorm of bullets on Omaha Beach. He survived the bloodbath at Dormandy, took shrapnel across his body, and may have escaped one of the worst massacres of the war. When the war ended, his heroism was buried, lost in bureaucratic red tape and half-missing records. Hollywood would give him fame, but it nearly cost him his legacy. Who was Charles Durning? What did he do in World War II? What did he endure during the war that nearly killed him twice? How did America almost forget one of its greatest unsung heroes? What is his legacy in Hollywood? Hello, I'm Colin Heaton, former history professor, Army and Marine Corps veteran, and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History. Charles Edward Joseph Durning was born on February 28, 1923, in Highland Falls, New York. His father, James Durning, was an Irish immigrant who had been badly wounded in World War I, just as Charles would be in World War II. He died when Charles was 12. His mother, Louise Leonard, was of Irish descent. He grew up in the shadow of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where his mother worked as a laundress. The family struggled and had more than its share of tragedies. Out of the 10 children born to Louise and James Durning, five of them, all girls, died from smallpox and scarlet fever by 1940. All the Durning brothers survived and were natural-born fighters, and all would eventually serve in the military in World War II. Leaving home at 16, Charles worked in a munitions factory, worked on a slag heap, and in a barbed wire factory. Durning enlisted in the Army on January 17, 1943, and a month later was sent to a battery of the 386th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, a coastal artillery outfit stationed at Camp Edwards in Massachusetts. After four months of training, his outfit was sent to Fort Polk, Louisiana, to take part in large-scale maneuvers, alongside other inexperienced outfits. That August, he was promoted to Private First Class. The unit arrived in England on February 18, 1944, in time to prepare for the invasion of France. Durning's battery would eventually be consigned to other organizations, broken up and scattered about on an as-needed basis, once in a combat zone. But two weeks before the invasion, on May 23, Durning and 12 others were transferred to Unit 2 Replacement Attachment 06 Echo of the 17th Replacement Depot. The need for infantrymen outweighed AAA necessities. Durning and others found themselves placed within the U.S. Army's 398th Infantry Regiment, 100th Infantry Division, and, in his own words, he said, we were frightened all the time. My sergeant said, are you scared, son? And I said, yes, I am. And he said, that's good. It's good to be scared. He said, we all are. Regarding his landing at Normandy, Durning stated, this guy in the boat, he turned to me and he threw up all over me, and I got seasick. He was scared. You're not thinking about anything. You're just thinking about, you hope that shell that just went off isn't going to hit this boat. Even the guys who had seen a lot of action before, and this was my first time, they were just as ashen as I was, and I was frightened to death. I was the second man off my barge when the first and third men got killed. The first guy died when the ramp went down. The guy fell, and I tried to leap over him, and I stumbled, and we both slipped into the water. We were supposed to be able to walk into shore, but they didn't bring us far enough, and I was in 60 feet of water with a 60-pound pack on, so I let it all go. I came up, and I didn't have a helmet, a rifle, nothing. I hit the beach. The guys pulled me in, who were already there. I'd lost everything, but they said, you'll find plenty of them on the beach, rifles, helmets that belong to nobody. Nobody knew where we were supposed to go. There was nobody in charge. You were on your own. All around me, people were being shot at. I saw bodies all over the place, but you didn't know if they were alive or dead. They were just lying there. We got behind this tank to protect ourselves. We're holding our own when they called us over to them. I asked the sergeant, you want me to go first or you go first? He said, you go first. I'll be right behind you. I heard an explosion, and I turned around, and his torso is there, and his body was over there. Units that hit the beach on June 6, 1944 often took extremely high casualties, driving up the demand for replacements. In fact, over 70 percent of new soldiers were replaced with an infantry unit to make up losses, and many were transferred from support units to fill the void, many times without proper infantry training. On June 15, about 10 kilometers inland from Omaha Beach, Durning's company received incoming German artillery, which was covering a minefield, which detonated some of them. Shrapnel from one of the exploding anti-personnel mines threw shrapnel into him and another replacement soldier near him named Leo Forrester, who lost his right arm. PFC Durning, Charles E. Sergeant Number 32726378, was sent to the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Le Cambe that afternoon with a severe concussion, multiple lacerations to the face, and fragmentation shrapnel wounds to the right frontal region of his head, left chest wall, both legs, left foot, knee, fingers, and hands. Durning's medical records later became fragmented as they were sent along with thousands of others to various field hospitals as they also moved toward the front. Likewise, his service record was incomplete following his discharge after the war. There are some discrepancies that should be addressed. Hospital records indicate that Durning was declared fit for full field duty on December 6, 1944. The disposition note reads, patient is now able to walk 12 miles without pack, but this really makes little sense as no infantryman moves without his rucksack and basic load. His next engagement resulting in his receiving more wounds and another Purple Heart are somewhat vague. What also remains unknown is the unit Durning was shipped out to from the 10th Replacement Depot before the Battle of the Bulge, after he was released from the hospital. Durning answered a question during an interview, the day I got out of the hospital the Battle of the Bulge started and everybody had to go up there. If you could pull a trigger you had to go up. I got wounded twice up there and got the Silver Star but I got out. I did the march to Malmedy when they killed over 200 prisoners. Durning does not appear on any roster of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion which was the outfit massacred by the 1st Waffen-SS Panzer Division in Malmedy, but in confusion of battle soldiers often become separated from their parent unit and join with others. There was also the massacre of the Black Guard artilleryman at Werrath near Malmedy by the 1st SS Reconnaissance Detachment commanded by Gustav Knittel under the command of the notorious Hjolgen Peiper. Please see our video on the Werrath Massacre. Allied soldiers were not safe when captured and there were many field executions conducted nearby so Malmedy may have been the only location Durning remembered as it was a major crossroad. According to one military website the second time he was wounded states Durning was stabbed eight times by a bayonet wielding teenage German soldier. That day he survived by killing the German with a rock in hand-to-hand combat. Durning recovered from these wounds and was released from the hospital just in time to fight in the Battle of the Bulge where he was taken prisoner. However the only combat wounds listed on a medical report filed just prior to his discharge are the shrapnel wounds from June of 1944. There are no bayonet wounds listed but he was awarded a second purple heart and the bronze star as well hence the confusion. No details were listed. Adding to the confusion his action for which he was awarded the silver star still remains unknown but the award is listed. Even more confusing is the absence of the word Ardennes from the battles and campaigns section on his discharge papers implying that he missed the Bulge altogether. Reports after the war indicate that he was a rifleman in the 159th Infantry Regiment which was a hastily formed unit that was sent in the last weeks of 1944. So dire was the manpower shortage the ranks were filled with 1,100 air cadets, 1,500 men from other divisions still stationed in the United States, 2,500 from various disbanded units and men combed out of the supply and quartermaster services. The rush of events threw them all together hastily as some of them were still in processing mere weeks before the division itself departed for Europe. Hardly a recipe for unit bonding or cohesion under fire many were used to reconstitute the regiments in the 106th Infantry Division that were completely destroyed during the battle and many of the 7,000 surviving and wounded soldiers being captured such as future author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. The 106th Infantry Division had just arrived a few days before relieving the 2nd Infantry Division and known as the Golden Lions were under the command of Major General Alan W. Jones in the Ardennes Forest which was so quiet and uneventful that the GIs had started calling it the Ghost Front. According to Kurt Vonnegut, we were a totally new division and most of our soldiers had absolutely zero field experience. This was their first combat. When the Germans hit us we were totally overwhelmed, outnumbered, freezing, hungry and in no shape to I hardly got to know any of the men we received. The only way I came to know many of my fellow soldiers was when we were prisoners. It's entirely possible that Durning had been sent as a replacement being one of the few men to have actual combat experience as new green troops were ushered into the theater as replacements. Combat experienced men were highly valued and pulled from wherever they could be found including hospitals. Durning was assigned to one of those companies after he was declared fit for duty but the records don't indicate that he participated in the fighting in the Ardennes although his assigned unit did. What is not in dispute were the medals that he was awarded including the Third Purple Heart which was awarded along with the Silver Star which would have been the period that he was in the Ardennes. Private First Class Durning returned from the war in Europe with 5,000 other soldiers on a liberty ship called the SS Samuel Adams just after New Years in 1946. He left Fort Dix, New Jersey on January 30th with an honorable discharge and 196 dollars in mustering out pay. He was 23 years old and struggled with PTSD and survivor's guilt. At first he felt that he had no direction in life, no purpose. Durning developed an interest in acting at the age of 28 while working as an usher in a theater. He was called on stage to replace a drunken actor who failed to arrive and Durning said he was hooked when he first heard the audience laugh. He achieved initial success on Broadway and later in Hollywood that reflected his fighting spirit. Durning started getting guest appearances in early 1960s TV shows as well as minor roles over the next decade until he was cast as the cop Lieutenant Snyder hassling street grifter Robert Redford in the multi-award-winning mega-hit The Sting in 1973. Durning and his first wife had three children before divorcing in 1972. In 1974 he married his high school sweetheart Mary Ann Emilio and shortly afterward was cast in the Billy Wilder production of The Front Page in 1974. And then he supported screen tough guy Charles Bronson in the suspenseful western Breakheart Pass in 1975 and played the police officer Sperm Whale Whelan in The Choir Boys in 1977. The versatile Durning is equally adept at comedic roles and demonstrated his skills as Doc Hopper in The Muppet Movie in 1979 and a feisty football coach in North Dallas 40 also in 1979. Durning appeared with his friend Burt Reynolds in several feature films such as Sharky's Machine in 1981 and The Dancing Governor in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1982. His versatility also saw him continuing to work as a regular character on TV shows such as Dr. Harlan Eldridge in the highly popular TV series Evening Shade in 1990. On par with his multitude of feature film roles, Durning had always been in high demand on television and had guest starred in Everybody Loves Raymond in 1996, Mock in 2002, and Rescue Me 2004. Durning received another Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks's To Be or Not To Be. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in 1975's Dog Day Afternoon starring Al Pacino. He won a Golden Globe as Best Supporting TV Actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John Honey Fitz Fitzgerald in the TV film The Kennedys of Massachusetts and a Tony Award in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He was the would-be suitor of Dustin Hoffman, posing as a female soap opera star in Tootsie, the infamous seller of frog legs in The Muppet Movie, and Chief Brandon in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. He played Santa Claus in four different movies made for television and was the Pope in the TV film I Would Be Called John, Pope John XXIII. Other notable films included That Championship Season, The Front Page, The Hindenburg, Starting Over, Tough Guys, Home for the Holidays, Spy Hard, and Oh Brother Where Art Thou? His last on-screen appearance was in the 2012 film Scavenger Killers. Durning had a monumental career that included over 100 films and shows. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor and received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, nine Emmy Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, four Golden Globe nominations, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild. During the war, he had earned the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Three Purple Hearts, World War II Victory Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge. In 2008, he was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his participation in liberating France by Consul General of France Philippe Lariou. Charles Durning died on December 24, 2012, in Manhattan, New York City. He is survived by his children, Michelle Douglas and Janine. The family planned to have a private family service and burial at Arlington National Cemetery, where he is laid to rest. Charles Durning gave everything, blood, body, and soul. He left the war with medals but carried home ghosts. Why did it take Hollywood to remember what his country almost forgot? Thank you for watching this episode of Forgotten History. If you liked what you saw, please click like, share, and subscribe. And if you would like to assist with the ever-increasing cost of production, please consider becoming a channel member and joining our Patreon page. Please check out our merchandise store. And thanks for watching.