John Carroll, actor, with connection to French Units/Corsica
 

There is a thread on the Army Air Forces forum about a Hollywood actor, John Carroll, who served in the Army Air Force in WWII. We are trying to trace his air force service and it "seems" to have some connection to French units and Corsica. Wonder if anyone here can help. There is a lot of conflicting info on the web. He was apparently not a pilot (photos show him wearing gunner's wings, see the link below) and a French award. He was an aid to General Morris (XII Fighter Command) in Algiers probably starting in January, 1944. He had previous been an aid to Gen Morris in the 4th Fighter Command (West Coast of the US). The crash landing where he badly injured his back seems to have occurred in Italy probably in the summer of 1944. He returned to the US in July, 1944 and spent some more time in hospitals. He resumed his acting career late in 1944.


http://forum.armyairforces.com/threa...173/#post-9032

Re: John Carroll, actor, with connection to French Units/Corsica
 

Hi,
John Carroll had along career in Hollywood from 1936 and in WW2 served as pilot in the USAAF in the MTO , he was badly injured in a crash and later resumed his acting career until the late 1950's
Bruce Lander

Re: John Carroll, actor, with connection to French Units/Corsica
 

There is a photo of him here. There is a zoom button on the left. He is wearing gunner's wings. Looks like he has the EAME campaign ribbon with one star and the American Campaign ribbon. There may be a third solid color ribbon (left most ribbon). The fancy lapel pins show he was an Aide to a Brigadier General (one star on the shield). He was an aide to Gen. Edward M Morris , both in the US and later in North Africa. What is not there is an Air Medal (indicating combat flights).

https://familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/13359140

The fancy pin on his right side (left side of the photo) is a Lafayette Escadrille pin. See here:

https://airandspace.si.edu/collectio...tte-escadrille

He claimed in an interview when he returned to the US because of his back injury that the French had given him the pin. He said that he and Elliott Roosevelt were the only two men to get it. He said he flew with the French out of Corsica. Since he was not apparently a pilot, he possibly could have flown as an observer/gunner. But did he?