John Connell

Born in Philadelphia, John Connell received five Battle Stars and a Purple Heart during WWII. From September of 1944 through April of 1945, he was a radio operator and waist gunner aboard a B-24 with Squadron 513 of the Fifteenth Air Force, 376th Heavy Bombardment Group. The crew completed 43 bombing missions before the conclusion of WWII, most of them from its base in Apulia, Italy. Connell has often spoken in praise of the "Tuskegee Airmen", the all-black 99th Pursuit Squadron, which provided protective cover for two-thirds of the missions he flew. The Tuskegee Airmen had been transferred to the Fifteenth Air Force shortly after Connell began his enlistment. After the war, he attended the University of Missouri, where he met his wife Mila, who was then a dance student. After graduating with a degree in Journalism in 1950, he moved to New York to act. He appeared on Broadway ("Time Limit" and "Uncle Willie") and with the National Company of "Picnic". Working in the heyday of live tel