February 6, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, it’s time for another “Hollywood Goes to War” story from Roger McGrath. Eddie Albert played a sadistic prison warden in 1974’s The Longest Yard starring Burt Reynolds. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for his 1954 performance in Roman Holiday, and the second in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid. He also starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television sitcom Green Acres. But his greatest role was the one he played in WWII.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American Stories. And now it's
time for another Hollywood goes to War's story from Roger McGrath.
Eddie Albert played a sadistic prison warden in nineteen seventy
four as The Longest Yard, starring Burt Reynolds. Roger McGrath
is the author of Gunfighters, Hollyman and Vigilantes, Violence on
the Frontier. A US marine and former history professor at UCLA,
(00:33):
doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and
he's a regular contributor for US Here at Our American Stories.
Here's McGrath with the story of Eddie Albert.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Eddie Albert is probably best remembered for starring in the
television series Green Acres, which heard from nineteen sixty five
through nineteen seventy one. In the series, he plays a
New York City attorney who escapes the frenetic life of
the metropolis to live the life of a gentleman farmer
near the town of Hooterville. He and his glamorous Hungarian
(01:15):
wife played by a the Gabor, are the proverbial fish
out of water, trying to adjust to their new life
on the farm and their new down known friends long
before the highly popular Green Acres, Though Albert appeared in
movies beginning with Brother Ratt in nineteen thirty eight. Altogether,
(01:37):
he appeared in more than eighty movies, both as a
leading man and as a supporting actor, and was twice
nominated for an Oscar. While Eddie Albert was a highly
recognizable actor to generations of movie and television fans, his
World War II service in the Battle of Tarawa is
(01:58):
largely unknown. Eddie Albert is born Edward Albert Heimberger in
Rock Island, Illinois, in nineteen six. His father is Frank
Heimberger and his mother is Julia Jones. He is the
first of five children. His paternal grandparents are German immigrants.
(02:20):
His mother's parents are immigrants from Wales and from Germany.
The family moves to Minneapolis when Eddie is won at
six years old. He begins selling newspapers on Minneapolis street
corners and later has a paper route. He works many
jobs growing up, including a soda jerk at a drug store.
(02:42):
While he's a student at Central High School, he's a
member of the school's drama club and appears in school plays.
Another member of the club is Harriet Lake who later
becomes the actress in Southern From Central high Eddie goes
on to the universe city of Minnesota, thinking he should
(03:02):
get serious about his future. He majors in business. After
two years, though, he drops out to sing with a
trio that works nightclubs and has a regular gig with
a Minneapolis radio station. Since radio announcers often call him
Eddie Hamdenberger instead of Heimberger, he substitutes his middle name
(03:25):
for his surname and is known as Eddie Albert from
then on. In nineteen thirty three, he moves to New
York City and begins singing with Grace Bratt. The duo
is hired by NBC to host their own radio show,
The Honeymooners, which runs for three years. Albert then performs
(03:48):
in several Broadway stage plays and appears in one of
the first television shows, The Love Nest, which is produced
by RCA and broadcast over NBC experimental television station in
New York City. His radio work and his performances on
stage attract the attention of Warner Brothers, and the studio
(04:11):
brings him to Hollywood, gives him a screen test, and
signs them to a contract. Albert appears in his first movie,
Brother Rat, in nineteen thirty eight. The movie is a
lighthearted take on the struggles of three v MII cadets
played by Wayne Morris, Ronald Reagan, and Albert.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
After we get married, how many times are we going
to have? How many do you want?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Well, it would be nice to have a full team.
That's your favorite sport, that's the trouble football. Albert delivers
a strong performance that especially demonstrates his great comedic timing.
In his very next movie, On Your Toes in nineteen
thirty nine, Albert is elevated to leading man, playing a
(05:00):
dancer turned composer who falls for the prima ballerina of
a Russian dance troupe. He's back to a supporting role
in Four Wives, also in nineteen thirty nine, playing a physician.
He appears in four movies in nineteen forty, including leading
man in An Angel from Texas and in My Love
(05:24):
Come Back is in five movies in nineteen forty one,
with leading man roles in two of them. Eddie Albert
star is in ascendance Between making his many movies in
the late nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties, Albert takes
a sailboat on trips to Mexico. He hears rumors of
(05:48):
Japanese naval personnel posing as fishermen while making hypergraphic surveys
along the Pacific coast. Even more ominously, he hears rumors
of secret Japanese submarine refueling stations in Baja California, where
more than a thousand Japanese settled during the nineteen twenties
(06:09):
and thirties, most of them in coastal fishing villages. He
reports what he hears to the US government. This comports
with what the Japanese are doing throughout the Pacific, and
naval intelligence has Albert report after each of his trips
to Mexico. Albert appears in two movies in nineteen forty two.
(06:33):
He's a leading man in one and in a supporting
role in the other. It's also in nineteen forty two
that Albert, very familiar with sailing the Pacific Coast, joins
the US Coast Guard. When he joins, he's in his
mid thirties, but is accepted for Officers School because of
his sailing experience, his intelligence reports, and his college years.
(06:58):
He graduates from OSS, but then is discharged from the
Coastguard to accept the commission as Lieutenant JG in the
US Navy Reserve. Before he's activated, he makes three movies
that are released in nineteen forty three. He's the leading
man in two of them. In August nineteen forty three,
(07:20):
Eddie Albert becomes an officer aboard a newly commissioned ship,
the USS Sheridan and Attack Transport, sailing out of San Francisco.
Sheridan takes her shakedown cruise during September nineteen forty three,
back to San Francisco for cargo loading. Sheridan departs for
(07:40):
the Southwest Pacific in October. Three weeks later, she unloads
her cargo at New Maya, on the southwest coast of
the island of New Caledonia, about nine hundred miles northeast
of Brisbane, Australia. New Maya is a supply base in
staging area for American forces. From Numeia, Sheridan sails for Wellington,
(08:05):
New Zealand, where she takes a board Marines of the
second Marine Division. Sheridan then sails to a Fati Island,
some three hundred miles northeast of New Caledonia for several
days of amphibious landing training with the Navy's Fifth Fleet.
Lieutenant Albert is commanding one of the landing craft After
(08:30):
amphibious training at a Fati, the Fifth Fleet sails to
Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands for Operation Galvanic. The
main island of the Tarawa Atoll is Basho, only two
and a half miles long, not more than a half
mile wide, a total land area of only two hundred
(08:51):
and ninety one acres. Yet Basho is defended by five
thousand Japanese troops, all in forty five positions.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
And you're listening to the story of Edward Albert Heinberger,
otherwise known as Eddie Albert, his star on the Rise
in ascendance in nineteen forty one five movies and forty
two two movies. But Hitler and his war machine were
in ascendants, and so too was the Japanese war machine.
When we come back more of Eddie Albert's story here
(09:22):
on our American stories, and we continue here on our
American stories, and we're listening to Roger McGrath tell the
(09:46):
story of Eddie Albert. Eddie Albert was about to command
one of the landing crafts set to invade Japanese occupied
Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands for Operation Galvanic Let's return
to Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
For its size, Basho is the most heavily fortified island
in the world. The Japanese commander of Tarwa, Rear Admir Shibasaki,
brags that a million marines in one hundred years cannot
capture Baisho Island. The unusual tides at Tarawa will make
(10:24):
an amphibious assault very difficult. The tides rise and fall
at uneven rates in the atoll shallow lagoon. It's estimated
that high tide on the morning of the river twentieth
d day for the marine landing will provide a depth
of five feet over the reefs on the way to shore.
The landing craft that the Navy will use to take
(10:46):
the Marines from ship to shore is the Higgins boat.
A fully loaded Higgins boat draws about four feet of water.
Should the estimated high tide not live up to expectations,
the Higgins boats will run aground far offshore, forcing the
Marines to wait hundreds of yards to the beach, all
(11:08):
the time subjected to deadly Japanese fire. Marine Operations Officer
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Shup calls for amphibious tractors the LVT
for the landing. However, the Navy can only supply not
many more than one hundred amtraks. This means most marines
(11:30):
will be in Higgins boats. Navy bombardment of Baisho Island
begins early on the morning of November twenty and continues
until just before nine hundred each hour, when the first
three waves of marines in amtrak's head for the beach.
At four thousand yards out shells from Japanese artillery pieces
(11:52):
start splashing around the amtraks. At two thousand yards, shells
from Japanese mortars begin dropping. At one thousand yards, Japanese
machine gun fire beginnings hitting the marines. The sound is deafening,
shells are exploding everywhere, and thousands of steel fragments fill
(12:13):
the air. Amtraks suffer direct hits and go down in
balls of flame and smoke. At eight hundred yards, the
surviving amtraks reach the reef, crawl over it, and begin
the final run to shore in the face of murderous fire. Meanwhile,
the Higgins boats in three waves are working their way
(12:34):
towards shore at eight hundred yards out, they reach the
reef and begin running aground on the coral. The Marines
can do nothing but leap out of the foundering boats, and,
holding their rifles high overhead, begin wading towards the beach.
The shells explode all around them, throwing columns of water
(12:55):
high into the air and sometimes the bodies of marines.
Other marines are cut down by machine gun fire. A
Navy pilot in a plain overhead later said what it
looked like from his elevated position in the sky. The
waters seemed never clear of tiny men, their rifles held
(13:19):
over their heads. Slowly wading beachward. They kept falling, falling, falling, sinkly,
in groups and in rows. I wanted to cry, Yet
the Marines keep moving forward. A war correspondent who is
in the fifth wave says the Marines are calm, even
(13:42):
distaintful of death. Black dots of men holding their weapons
high above their heads, moving at a snail's pace, never faltering.
Marine landings continue. On day two, the carnage is as
bad as that on day one. Two hundred men in
the first wave, only ninety reached the beach. Successive waves
(14:05):
are similarly carved up all together. Of the eight hundred
reinforcements who approach base Show on the second day, nearly
half are killed or wounded before they reach the beach.
In the midst of the landings is Lieutenant Eddie Albert.
He's commanding a Higgins boat and her crew and is
(14:26):
tasked with carrying supplies to shore and evacuated wounded marines
from both the beach and the water. He not only
does those two jobs while maneuvering his boat through withering fire,
but also attempts to rescue a group of Marines stranded
on a coral reef after their landing craft is sunk.
(14:47):
The Marines lift their wounded into Albert's boat, but those
without wounds, despite heavy Japanese fire, refuse to climb aboard.
They asked that Albert take their wounded bat He's back
to his ship and then return to take them to shore.
They also want Albert to bring them weapons to replace
(15:08):
those they've lost. By the time Albert returns, the Marines
are gone. Were they all cut down by Japanese fire
or did another boat pick them up. Albert fears they
were all killed, and it haunts him for the rest
of his life. On day three, Albert goes ashore to
(15:29):
assist in organizing and coordinating the unloading of supplies, which
was proceeding all too slowly for the Marines. Albert soon
has a team of men moving the supplies in a
more efficient manner. When they come under Japanese sniper fire,
Albert kills one of the snipers himself. By the early
(15:51):
afternoon of day four, Colonel Schup declares Bacial Islands secured.
It took the Marines only seventy six hours to destroy
a most Shibasaki's vaunt a defense force, but the cost
is dear. In those seventy six hours, the Marines lose
some eleven hundred killed and twenty three hundred wounded thirty
(16:14):
four hundred combat casualties. Japan lost nearly all of her
five thousand man force. Only seventeen Japanese were captured, along
with one hundred and twenty nine Korean slave laborers. Lieutenant
Albert is cited for evacuating wounded and dying under fire
(16:35):
with courage and determination, and for his boat handling and
devotion to duty under machine gun fire. He will later
be awarded the Bronze Star with V for valor. After
the Battle of Tarawa. Sheridan sales for Pearl Harbor arrive
in early in December nineteen forty three. The sailors get
(16:58):
only a few days in Hawaii before Sheridan weighs Anchor
for San Diego, arriving in the middle of December. Lieutenant
Albert is now ordered to Washington, d C. To join
the Training Film Division. The Navy thinks he was lucky
to come through the Battle of Tarawa unscathed and will
(17:19):
now be of far more value making training films. He
is also set on war bond tours and is able
to describe firsthand what the war is like in the
Pacific and the need for those on the home front
to dedicate themselves to the war effort. In March nineteen
(17:40):
forty four, Albert is promoted from Lieutenant JG to lieutenant.
He remains on active duty until January nineteen forty six.
Eddie Albert makes three movies in nineteen forty six, and
is the male lead in two of them. It makes
another four movies in nineteen forty seven. His movie career
(18:02):
continues at a brisk pace through the mid nineteen fifties.
For his work in Roman Holiday starring Greg Ray Pack
and Audrey Hepburn. Albert is nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
He's again nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role
in The Heartbreak Kid, starring Charles Groener and Sybil Shepherd.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Sir, I was very quiet at dinner tonight because I
was listening. I'm the banking position. I'm called upon have
many business dinners. I find I can tell more about
a man by listening to his dinner table conversation, and
by reading all the books and the records and the
balance sheets in the world. I heard everything you said.
(18:52):
You don't think I see through you. I've never once
tried to misrepresent myself us see if anybody hat But
if you think of I quite determined, don't you I
think once you get your mindset on something that said, Leonard,
you don't know what determination is. I eat determination for breakfast.
(19:18):
Did you honestly think you could come out here and
wise guy your soefolkar like Kelly, this is my baby
you're talking about nobody wise guys await my little baby.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
It might be said that Eddie Albert's best supporting role
was as a boot commander in the Battle of Tarawa, when,
according to the official after action report. His performance was
considered outstanding and was an important factor in the successful
(19:54):
operation of the landing. That's a performance to be applauded,
ann remembered.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
And a superb piece of production. As always by Greg
and a special thanks as always to Roger McGrath for
telling this important story of the life of Eddie Albert,
the life and the service he gave to the country.
Here on our American Stories
And we returned to our American Stories. And now it's
time for another Hollywood goes to War's story from Roger McGrath.
Eddie Albert played a sadistic prison warden in nineteen seventy
four as The Longest Yard, starring Burt Reynolds. Roger McGrath
is the author of Gunfighters, Hollyman and Vigilantes, Violence on
the Frontier. A US marine and former history professor at UCLA,
(00:33):
doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and
he's a regular contributor for US Here at Our American Stories.
Here's McGrath with the story of Eddie Albert.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Eddie Albert is probably best remembered for starring in the
television series Green Acres, which heard from nineteen sixty five
through nineteen seventy one. In the series, he plays a
New York City attorney who escapes the frenetic life of
the metropolis to live the life of a gentleman farmer
near the town of Hooterville. He and his glamorous Hungarian
(01:15):
wife played by a the Gabor, are the proverbial fish
out of water, trying to adjust to their new life
on the farm and their new down known friends long
before the highly popular Green Acres, Though Albert appeared in
movies beginning with Brother Ratt in nineteen thirty eight. Altogether,
(01:37):
he appeared in more than eighty movies, both as a
leading man and as a supporting actor, and was twice
nominated for an Oscar. While Eddie Albert was a highly
recognizable actor to generations of movie and television fans, his
World War II service in the Battle of Tarawa is
(01:58):
largely unknown. Eddie Albert is born Edward Albert Heimberger in
Rock Island, Illinois, in nineteen six. His father is Frank
Heimberger and his mother is Julia Jones. He is the
first of five children. His paternal grandparents are German immigrants.
(02:20):
His mother's parents are immigrants from Wales and from Germany.
The family moves to Minneapolis when Eddie is won at
six years old. He begins selling newspapers on Minneapolis street
corners and later has a paper route. He works many
jobs growing up, including a soda jerk at a drug store.
(02:42):
While he's a student at Central High School, he's a
member of the school's drama club and appears in school plays.
Another member of the club is Harriet Lake who later
becomes the actress in Southern From Central high Eddie goes
on to the universe city of Minnesota, thinking he should
(03:02):
get serious about his future. He majors in business. After
two years, though, he drops out to sing with a
trio that works nightclubs and has a regular gig with
a Minneapolis radio station. Since radio announcers often call him
Eddie Hamdenberger instead of Heimberger, he substitutes his middle name
(03:25):
for his surname and is known as Eddie Albert from
then on. In nineteen thirty three, he moves to New
York City and begins singing with Grace Bratt. The duo
is hired by NBC to host their own radio show,
The Honeymooners, which runs for three years. Albert then performs
(03:48):
in several Broadway stage plays and appears in one of
the first television shows, The Love Nest, which is produced
by RCA and broadcast over NBC experimental television station in
New York City. His radio work and his performances on
stage attract the attention of Warner Brothers, and the studio
(04:11):
brings him to Hollywood, gives him a screen test, and
signs them to a contract. Albert appears in his first movie,
Brother Rat, in nineteen thirty eight. The movie is a
lighthearted take on the struggles of three v MII cadets
played by Wayne Morris, Ronald Reagan, and Albert.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
After we get married, how many times are we going
to have? How many do you want?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Well, it would be nice to have a full team.
That's your favorite sport, that's the trouble football. Albert delivers
a strong performance that especially demonstrates his great comedic timing.
In his very next movie, On Your Toes in nineteen
thirty nine, Albert is elevated to leading man, playing a
(05:00):
dancer turned composer who falls for the prima ballerina of
a Russian dance troupe. He's back to a supporting role
in Four Wives, also in nineteen thirty nine, playing a physician.
He appears in four movies in nineteen forty, including leading
man in An Angel from Texas and in My Love
(05:24):
Come Back is in five movies in nineteen forty one,
with leading man roles in two of them. Eddie Albert
star is in ascendance Between making his many movies in
the late nineteen thirties and early nineteen forties, Albert takes
a sailboat on trips to Mexico. He hears rumors of
(05:48):
Japanese naval personnel posing as fishermen while making hypergraphic surveys
along the Pacific coast. Even more ominously, he hears rumors
of secret Japanese submarine refueling stations in Baja California, where
more than a thousand Japanese settled during the nineteen twenties
(06:09):
and thirties, most of them in coastal fishing villages. He
reports what he hears to the US government. This comports
with what the Japanese are doing throughout the Pacific, and
naval intelligence has Albert report after each of his trips
to Mexico. Albert appears in two movies in nineteen forty two.
(06:33):
He's a leading man in one and in a supporting
role in the other. It's also in nineteen forty two
that Albert, very familiar with sailing the Pacific Coast, joins
the US Coast Guard. When he joins, he's in his
mid thirties, but is accepted for Officers School because of
his sailing experience, his intelligence reports, and his college years.
(06:58):
He graduates from OSS, but then is discharged from the
Coastguard to accept the commission as Lieutenant JG in the
US Navy Reserve. Before he's activated, he makes three movies
that are released in nineteen forty three. He's the leading
man in two of them. In August nineteen forty three,
(07:20):
Eddie Albert becomes an officer aboard a newly commissioned ship,
the USS Sheridan and Attack Transport, sailing out of San Francisco.
Sheridan takes her shakedown cruise during September nineteen forty three,
back to San Francisco for cargo loading. Sheridan departs for
(07:40):
the Southwest Pacific in October. Three weeks later, she unloads
her cargo at New Maya, on the southwest coast of
the island of New Caledonia, about nine hundred miles northeast
of Brisbane, Australia. New Maya is a supply base in
staging area for American forces. From Numeia, Sheridan sails for Wellington,
(08:05):
New Zealand, where she takes a board Marines of the
second Marine Division. Sheridan then sails to a Fati Island,
some three hundred miles northeast of New Caledonia for several
days of amphibious landing training with the Navy's Fifth Fleet.
Lieutenant Albert is commanding one of the landing craft After
(08:30):
amphibious training at a Fati, the Fifth Fleet sails to
Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands for Operation Galvanic. The
main island of the Tarawa Atoll is Basho, only two
and a half miles long, not more than a half
mile wide, a total land area of only two hundred
(08:51):
and ninety one acres. Yet Basho is defended by five
thousand Japanese troops, all in forty five positions.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
And you're listening to the story of Edward Albert Heinberger,
otherwise known as Eddie Albert, his star on the Rise
in ascendance in nineteen forty one five movies and forty
two two movies. But Hitler and his war machine were
in ascendants, and so too was the Japanese war machine.
When we come back more of Eddie Albert's story here
(09:22):
on our American stories, and we continue here on our
American stories, and we're listening to Roger McGrath tell the
(09:46):
story of Eddie Albert. Eddie Albert was about to command
one of the landing crafts set to invade Japanese occupied
Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands for Operation Galvanic Let's return
to Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
For its size, Basho is the most heavily fortified island
in the world. The Japanese commander of Tarwa, Rear Admir Shibasaki,
brags that a million marines in one hundred years cannot
capture Baisho Island. The unusual tides at Tarawa will make
(10:24):
an amphibious assault very difficult. The tides rise and fall
at uneven rates in the atoll shallow lagoon. It's estimated
that high tide on the morning of the river twentieth
d day for the marine landing will provide a depth
of five feet over the reefs on the way to shore.
The landing craft that the Navy will use to take
(10:46):
the Marines from ship to shore is the Higgins boat.
A fully loaded Higgins boat draws about four feet of water.
Should the estimated high tide not live up to expectations,
the Higgins boats will run aground far offshore, forcing the
Marines to wait hundreds of yards to the beach, all
(11:08):
the time subjected to deadly Japanese fire. Marine Operations Officer
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Shup calls for amphibious tractors the LVT
for the landing. However, the Navy can only supply not
many more than one hundred amtraks. This means most marines
(11:30):
will be in Higgins boats. Navy bombardment of Baisho Island
begins early on the morning of November twenty and continues
until just before nine hundred each hour, when the first
three waves of marines in amtrak's head for the beach.
At four thousand yards out shells from Japanese artillery pieces
(11:52):
start splashing around the amtraks. At two thousand yards, shells
from Japanese mortars begin dropping. At one thousand yards, Japanese
machine gun fire beginnings hitting the marines. The sound is deafening,
shells are exploding everywhere, and thousands of steel fragments fill
(12:13):
the air. Amtraks suffer direct hits and go down in
balls of flame and smoke. At eight hundred yards, the
surviving amtraks reach the reef, crawl over it, and begin
the final run to shore in the face of murderous fire. Meanwhile,
the Higgins boats in three waves are working their way
(12:34):
towards shore at eight hundred yards out, they reach the
reef and begin running aground on the coral. The Marines
can do nothing but leap out of the foundering boats, and,
holding their rifles high overhead, begin wading towards the beach.
The shells explode all around them, throwing columns of water
(12:55):
high into the air and sometimes the bodies of marines.
Other marines are cut down by machine gun fire. A
Navy pilot in a plain overhead later said what it
looked like from his elevated position in the sky. The
waters seemed never clear of tiny men, their rifles held
(13:19):
over their heads. Slowly wading beachward. They kept falling, falling, falling, sinkly,
in groups and in rows. I wanted to cry, Yet
the Marines keep moving forward. A war correspondent who is
in the fifth wave says the Marines are calm, even
(13:42):
distaintful of death. Black dots of men holding their weapons
high above their heads, moving at a snail's pace, never faltering.
Marine landings continue. On day two, the carnage is as
bad as that on day one. Two hundred men in
the first wave, only ninety reached the beach. Successive waves
(14:05):
are similarly carved up all together. Of the eight hundred
reinforcements who approach base Show on the second day, nearly
half are killed or wounded before they reach the beach.
In the midst of the landings is Lieutenant Eddie Albert.
He's commanding a Higgins boat and her crew and is
(14:26):
tasked with carrying supplies to shore and evacuated wounded marines
from both the beach and the water. He not only
does those two jobs while maneuvering his boat through withering fire,
but also attempts to rescue a group of Marines stranded
on a coral reef after their landing craft is sunk.
(14:47):
The Marines lift their wounded into Albert's boat, but those
without wounds, despite heavy Japanese fire, refuse to climb aboard.
They asked that Albert take their wounded bat He's back
to his ship and then return to take them to shore.
They also want Albert to bring them weapons to replace
(15:08):
those they've lost. By the time Albert returns, the Marines
are gone. Were they all cut down by Japanese fire
or did another boat pick them up. Albert fears they
were all killed, and it haunts him for the rest
of his life. On day three, Albert goes ashore to
(15:29):
assist in organizing and coordinating the unloading of supplies, which
was proceeding all too slowly for the Marines. Albert soon
has a team of men moving the supplies in a
more efficient manner. When they come under Japanese sniper fire,
Albert kills one of the snipers himself. By the early
(15:51):
afternoon of day four, Colonel Schup declares Bacial Islands secured.
It took the Marines only seventy six hours to destroy
a most Shibasaki's vaunt a defense force, but the cost
is dear. In those seventy six hours, the Marines lose
some eleven hundred killed and twenty three hundred wounded thirty
(16:14):
four hundred combat casualties. Japan lost nearly all of her
five thousand man force. Only seventeen Japanese were captured, along
with one hundred and twenty nine Korean slave laborers. Lieutenant
Albert is cited for evacuating wounded and dying under fire
(16:35):
with courage and determination, and for his boat handling and
devotion to duty under machine gun fire. He will later
be awarded the Bronze Star with V for valor. After
the Battle of Tarawa. Sheridan sales for Pearl Harbor arrive
in early in December nineteen forty three. The sailors get
(16:58):
only a few days in Hawaii before Sheridan weighs Anchor
for San Diego, arriving in the middle of December. Lieutenant
Albert is now ordered to Washington, d C. To join
the Training Film Division. The Navy thinks he was lucky
to come through the Battle of Tarawa unscathed and will
(17:19):
now be of far more value making training films. He
is also set on war bond tours and is able
to describe firsthand what the war is like in the
Pacific and the need for those on the home front
to dedicate themselves to the war effort. In March nineteen
(17:40):
forty four, Albert is promoted from Lieutenant JG to lieutenant.
He remains on active duty until January nineteen forty six.
Eddie Albert makes three movies in nineteen forty six, and
is the male lead in two of them. It makes
another four movies in nineteen forty seven. His movie career
(18:02):
continues at a brisk pace through the mid nineteen fifties.
For his work in Roman Holiday starring Greg Ray Pack
and Audrey Hepburn. Albert is nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
He's again nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role
in The Heartbreak Kid, starring Charles Groener and Sybil Shepherd.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Sir, I was very quiet at dinner tonight because I
was listening. I'm the banking position. I'm called upon have
many business dinners. I find I can tell more about
a man by listening to his dinner table conversation, and
by reading all the books and the records and the
balance sheets in the world. I heard everything you said.
(18:52):
You don't think I see through you. I've never once
tried to misrepresent myself us see if anybody hat But
if you think of I quite determined, don't you I
think once you get your mindset on something that said, Leonard,
you don't know what determination is. I eat determination for breakfast.
(19:18):
Did you honestly think you could come out here and
wise guy your soefolkar like Kelly, this is my baby
you're talking about nobody wise guys await my little baby.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
It might be said that Eddie Albert's best supporting role
was as a boot commander in the Battle of Tarawa, when,
according to the official after action report. His performance was
considered outstanding and was an important factor in the successful
(19:54):
operation of the landing. That's a performance to be applauded,
ann remembered.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
And a superb piece of production. As always by Greg
and a special thanks as always to Roger McGrath for
telling this important story of the life of Eddie Albert,
the life and the service he gave to the country.
Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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