Soldier and Scribe of the Old West

The great movies, directors, actors, and writers of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s produced what has since been called the Golden Era of Hollywood. Technological advances, especially sound and color, also contributed. Scripts came from great novels and works of history, and from compelling stories serialized in magazines. One of those who contributed mightily to the Golden Era, in particular to the movies of John Ford, was the writer James Warner Bellah. His stories were powerful, poignant, and filled with men of character and courage. He himself was a veteran of not only World War I but also World War II. 

Bellah was born in New York City in 1899 to an upper middle-class family that could trace its roots back to the colonial era. As a youth, he was a voracious reader and excelled in English and history. He was also interested in aviation and thought he might become a pilot one day, although at 11 years old in 1910 he had witnessed the crash of a biplane at a New York air show.

After graduating from high school, he was afraid he would miss the Great War if he waited for the United States to get involved, so he crossed the border to Canada, where he enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps. He passed all the qualifications for flight school and was assigned to a group of cadets instructed by Pete Landry, a short, tough veteran of the great Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge. Landry called his cadets “Huns” because during their training they destroyed more British planes than did the Germans. 

With fewer than 10 hours of instruction, Bellah was ordered into the sky for a solo flight. Roaring down the runway, he thought the old Jenny was shaking more than usual, but he pulled back on the stick and the plane soared into the sky. Approaching Toronto, he made a sweeping left turn and headed back to the airfield. His landing was perfect. Beginner’s luck. On his next three landings he broke, respectively, a wheel, a strut, and a tail skid. Whether that was a result of hard landings or the age of the plane was open to debate. What Bellah hadn’t done was crash a plane as had other cadets, including several who died.