This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people. And to search for the Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the IHeart Radio app to Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here to tell another Hollywood Goes to War story is our own Roger McGrath.

McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, highwayman, and vigilantes, violence on the frontier,

a U.S. Marine, a former history professor at UCLA.

McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries, and he is a regular

contributor for us here at Our American Stories.

Here's McGrath.

William Wellman was one of Hollywood's greatest directors.

In a career that spanned 40 years, he directed 81 movies,

including the first movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, Wings.

There could have been no better director for Wings, a movie about the daring do of World

War I fighter pilots, because that is exactly what Wellman was, and it was in the skies

over France, where he earned his nickname Wild Bill.

Released in 1927, Wings was the 12th movie that Wellman directed,

and it would be followed by such classics as the Public Enemy,

The Call of the Wild, A Star is Born,

Bo jest, the Oxbow Incident,

the story of G.I. Joe.

...