Harry Bailey, Yorktown Pilot
We’re often contacted about a veteran who served on the ship, but this one takes the cake. (Or should we say fruit cake? or figgy pudding?)
We received an email recently from an aircraft carrier enthusiast with an eye for details that others miss. “What few people know,” Mickeen Hogan wrote, “is that Yorktown CV-10 has a cameo in one of the most famous and classic Christmas movies – Its A Wonderful Life. In the movie, Jimmy Stewart’s character George has a brother named Harry Bailey who receives the Medal Of Honor as a Naval Pilot. They clearly used footage from The Fighting Lady filmed aboard Yorktown and edited Harry into the footage.”
We checked, and sure enough about an hour into each film we found the matching footage (see photo above). The Christmas classic was originally released in black and white, but the colorized version makes it even easier to spot the similarities. This makes Harry Bailey a VF-5 and USS Yorktown veteran.
In the film, Harry Bailey receives the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of servicemen on a troop transport by shooting down Japanese aircraft. Those men would have died if Harry’s older brother George Bailey had not saved him from drowning as a kid.
The message of the film is why we’re proud to say the Yorktown is a small part of it. The triumph of hope, compassion, and connection. Though we may not be aware of it, we each of us (like George and Harry) have an impact on the lives of others. A small gesture of kindness means more than we may know. As George’s guardian angel Clarence said, “Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”
Merry Christmas.