What about John Wayne, if I remember rightly he claimed he had heart trouble to avoid being called up as his career had just started to really take off.

Wayne was already in his 30's. past military age, married and had two children when the war started. He also allegedly had a bad knee from playing football.
His career really took off when many other stars were in the military and we all know that John Wayne won WWII, practically by himself.
Wayne's close friend and frequent director, John Ford, was a Captain in the U.S. Navy reserve and served during the battle of Midway ( where he was wounded) and at Normandy. Ford filmed much of those two actions.
John Ford never let Wayne forget that he ( Wayne) had stayed home.

Originally Posted by muscogeemike

There were also US internees in Portugal, enough US P-39’s landed there that Portugal formed a squadron of them!
I know that US B-24’s from the first raid on Ploesti (June 1942) landed in Turkey and crews were interned.
Besides a B-25 from Doolittle’s Raid that landed in the USSR there were several B-29’s that went there (and kept by the Russians despite US demands for their return) and the crews were kept for some time and interrogated by the Russians. The Russians also used these aircraft to “Reverse Engineer” them and produced their own version of the bomber, the Tu-4. Some of these Tu-4’s were supplied to Communist China in the 1950’s.

A number of B29's were loaned to the Royal Air Force named the Washington for, if my memory is correct, maritime patrols. The RAF squadron commanding officers didn't like the B29 because the number of crew needed to man the aircraft, as at the time RAF crews were being discharged at the end of the war and therefore a severe shortage of aircrew. As far as I am aware the crews loved the B29.

Originally Posted by LeEnfield

What about John Wayne, if I remember rightly he claimed he had heart trouble to avoid being called up as his career had just started to really take off.

The Duke was injured while playing college football in the ‘20’s (long before the protection the players wear today). His trademark limp was a result of these injuries and I’ve always believed they were what kept him out of the military.
He may have had, as you say, heart problems as well.

I would have thought that if he wanted to serve in the forces a job would have been found for him even if it was for publicity purposes. From what was said at the time John Wayne thought he reached the top of the pile in Hollywood and did not want to spoil that by going in the forces.
Also there were a lot of people in the forces 30 plus and my father was one of them

My Granddad joined the Army during WW1 at the age of 31 he's "local regiment was the Middlesex Regiment, an infantry regiment. He saw front line service right through from 1914 to 1918.