01-29-2024, 08:41 PM
https://www.wwiidogtags.com/ww2-history/...y-soldier/
“Look, you chaps only have to do this once. But I’ll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn!”
So today I learned that David Niven has a pretty wild history. He was always cool and suave in his roles, so I would have suspected that he came from minor aristocracy. As it turns out, he was from an upper class family and his father and grandfather died as war heroes... but that's not the end of the tale by any means.
The "Dogtags" website has some interesting tidbits, including the bit where he was arrested for mouthing off and then shared some whiskey in jail with his guard, leading to his doing a jailbreak: https://www.wwiidogtags.com/ww2-history/...y-soldier/ He left for America and resigned his commission enroute.
In spite of this mark, when WWII came around, he went back to England to serve, got commando training, and ended up in a Special Forces unit called "Phantom." He was awarded the Legion of Merit.
Wikipedia also has some juicy tidbits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Niven
“Look, you chaps only have to do this once. But I’ll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn!”
So today I learned that David Niven has a pretty wild history. He was always cool and suave in his roles, so I would have suspected that he came from minor aristocracy. As it turns out, he was from an upper class family and his father and grandfather died as war heroes... but that's not the end of the tale by any means.
The "Dogtags" website has some interesting tidbits, including the bit where he was arrested for mouthing off and then shared some whiskey in jail with his guard, leading to his doing a jailbreak: https://www.wwiidogtags.com/ww2-history/...y-soldier/ He left for America and resigned his commission enroute.
In spite of this mark, when WWII came around, he went back to England to serve, got commando training, and ended up in a Special Forces unit called "Phantom." He was awarded the Legion of Merit.
Wikipedia also has some juicy tidbits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Niven
