John Wayne getting booed off stage by Marine Corps in Hawaii - sources other than Manchester?

Question

William Manchester tells a story about when he was in a hospital when in the Marines; John Wayne came to surprise the wounded soldiers and was greeted initially by silence then was booed off the stage. This story is in a New York Times article and in his popular book Goodbye, Darkness. Are there other sources for this story? Has someone else written this account or was he the only one? If there are other sources - what are they and where?

Answer 1

I agree it's hard to find confirmation, but I find it credible.



First, back in those days Wayne was not very famous, he became really famous after the war, so probably some of the booers didn't even knew him, and during war soldiers have better things to do than tracking Hollywood news. So probably the story was not picked by the papers because Wayne was not important back then, and because most of the soldiers there didn't even care to know who he was.



Second that was a small WW2 soldier's movie theater, and most of the guys there where wounded soldiers recovering, so it's not like they were in the mood to be greeted by a made up Hollywood macho-man who had never been in real combat. And to make things worst he was dressed like a cowboy, like if he were going to entertain kids at a birthday party.



In any case I think it was not personal and they would have booed any other unknown Hollywood guy trying to impress them with his made-up macho image.

Answer 2

John Wayne Hawaii Movie

Answer 3

I don't believe it. Marine Military courtesy would not have allowed it to happen. I know for a fact that John Wayne did visit the Pacific front on a morale tour during WWII. He was well known in the forties ,especially for the ten years he spent makiing B-westerns in the thrities that played to largely rural america. He had developed a fan base. The Gi's would not have known about his war hero scren antics during the war, since he had only made two by that time, Flying Tigers and The Fighting Seabees and the would not hav had a chance to have seen them since they were in the service. His war hero screen image did not really consolidate until after the war. Luis Reyes Co author The Hawaii Movie and TV book. Mutual Pub, Honolulu 2014

Answer 4

The story about John Wayne being booed by wounded Marines is true.

William Manchester was a Marine who served in World War II and later wrote a memoir of his service called "GoodbyeDarkness". The following is an excerpt from an essay that appeared in The New York Times Magazine June 14, 1987. This comes from the web site http://a-mountain.com/?p=381

This is the excerpt:



“Once we polled a rifle company, asking each man why he had joined the Marines. A majority cited ‘To the Shores of Tripoli,’ a marshmallow of a movie starring John Payne, Randolph Scott and Maureen O’Hara. Throughout the film the uniform of the day was dress blues; requests for liberty were always granted. The implication was that combat would be a lark, and when you returned, spangled with decorations, a Navy nurse like Maureen O’Hara would be waiting in your sack. It was peacetime again when John Wayne appeared on the silver screen as Sergeant Stryker in ‘Sands of Iwo Jima,’ but that film underscores the point; I went to see it with another ex-Marine, and we were asked to leave the theater because we couldn’t stop laughing.



“After my evacuation from Okinawa, I had the enormous pleasure of seeing Wayne humiliated in person at Aiea Heights Naval Hospital in Hawaii. Only the most gravely wounded, the litter cases, were sent there. The hospital was packed, the halls lined with beds. Between Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Marine Corps was being bled white.



“Each evening, Navy corpsmen would carry litters down to the hospital theater so the men could watch a movie. One night they had a surprise for us. Before the film the curtains parted and out stepped John Wayne, wearing a cowboy outfit – 10-gallon hat, bandanna, checkered shirt, two pistols, chaps, boots and spurs. He grinned his aw-shucks grin, passed a hand over his face and said, ‘Hi ya, guys!’ He was greeted by a stony silence. Then somebody booed. Suddenly everyone was booing.



“This man was a symbol of the fake machismo we had come to hate, and we weren’t going to listen to him. He tried and tried to make himself heard, but we drowned him out, and eventually he quit and left. If you liked ‘Sands of Iwo Jima,’ I suggest you be careful. Don’t tell it to the Marines.”

Answer 5

It is true, and there's a documentary film about his life showing what a mistake it it to believe he was a hero of any sort. It showed how he used Hollywood's influence and money to make sure he would never have been drafted, but then turned around and playacted at being some kind of heroic wartime figure..When he strolled on the stage wearing fake six shooters and a stupid cowboy hat they laughed and booed him off the stage because they knew him to be nothing but a phony..

Answer 6

My dad was wounded on Saipan and was hospitalized for rehab in San Diego. He mentioned John Wayne being jeered by Marines duing a hospital visit 50 years ago, long before I had ever heard of William Manchester.