10 War Movie Actors Who Were Actually There

Robert Montgomery is one of the most fascinating figures of Hollywood's Golden Age - an actor and filmmaker whose career spanned both the pre and post-war eras, and one that, like many of his colleagues, ended up drawing upon his wartime experiences.

Montgomery was already a prolific performer by the time hostilities began in 1939, but he didn't wait for his home country, the United States, to get involved. The Academy Award-nominated actor volunteered to drive ambulances in France in 1939, before he returned to the US and enlisted in the United States Navy. Montgomery's service would take him back to Europe during the Normandy landings, and then to the Pacific, where he served aboard a PT Boat - vehicles that were the main subject matter of one of Montgomery's most iconic films, the John Ford-directed They Were Expendable.

Set during the outbreak of war between the United States and Japan in 1941 and 1942, They Were Expendable told the story of the failed American defence of the Philippines and the valiant efforts of the PT Boat crewmen who fought to disrupt the Japanese Navy. Ford himself had been posted to the Pacific during his service with the OSS, capturing dramatic footage of the Battle of Midway, where he was wounded. Ford collaborator John Wayne also starred in the picture, but famously did not serve, which led to Ford dressing Wayne down on set when he failed to perform an accurate salute in a scene early in the film.

While not as iconic as Ford's Westerns, They Were Expendable is one of his strongest efforts - an at times achingly dark look back at the beginning stages of the war, anchored superbly by the chastened Wayne and a stoic Montgomery.