Classify James Arness

[PaleoEuropean]

https://i.imgur.com/5relP7B.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/hGZJr9A.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kHRjXwV.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/HKGRysp.jpg

[Satem]

I would say Keltic Nordid

[Columella]

Bigger than most people
https://magazine.beloit.edu/reason/images/241520.jpg
Some bone grown tendency or a slight acromegaly.
Closest to Coon’s Troender/Bruenn plates.

[PaleoEuropean]

Bigger than most people
https://magazine.beloit.edu/reason/images/241520.jpg
Some bone grown tendency or a slight acromegaly.
Closest to Coon’s Troender/Bruenn plates.

He was so tall that when they invaded Italy they made him go out of the landing craft first to see how deep the water was XD.

[PaleoEuropean]

James Arness

More than a decade before his Gunsmoke role as U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, in December 1943, James Arness was part of the 2nd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, Third Division, bound for Anzio. They landed on the Red and Green sections of X-Ray Beach near Nettuno. As the tallest man in the outfit, he was sent down the ramp first to see how deep the water was there.

Anzio had taken the Germans completely by surprise, and the landings were uncontested. Nine days later, the Wehrmacht had recovered, stopped the advance, surrounded the beachhead and were offering the Allies fierce resistance. In one of his first actions, Arness’s outfit advanced on a farmhouse when the Germans opened fire. He dove and flattened out in a shallow ditch while a machine gun was brought up for support. No sooner had it started firing back, than it was bracketed by mortar rounds. The man next to him had his face blown off, splattering Arness. Horrified, he froze. Then he broke and ran, until his sergeant finally screamed, “Arness, you son of a bitch, get down in that ditch or I’m gonna kill you,” Arness remembers.

On February 1, 1944, Arness was point man for a night patrol. It was so dark, he couldn’t see his own feet. Then he heard the Germans about 50 feet ahead. He and the 40 or so men of his platoon had stumbled upon two German machine guns supported by about 15 infantry. He heard a shout, and the Germans opened fire. Arness was hit in the lower right leg, but he managed to leap a row of grapevines anyway and rolled into a ditch. A nearby grenade blast lifted him right off the ground. The pain was excruciating. For the next 18 hours, he lay in a freezing stream, listening to the wounded moan.

When litter bearers found him and began carrying him back, artillery fire caused them to drop the stretcher. He rolled downhill into another stream, yet he was so full of morphine, he didn’t feel a thing. From the collection area, he was transported by ambulance to the beach, where he was operated on at the 95th Evacuation Hospital. Arness had a ZI, Zone of the Interior wound, which was good for a ticket home.

He ended up in a full body cast at Schick General Hospital in Clinton, Iowa. Eight months later, the cast was removed, but his right leg was five-eighths of an inch shorter than his left, which produced a slight limp. He was discharged January 25, 1945. Jokingly, he would recall his ordeal by saying, “I call my old Purple Heart the Medal for Stupidity, because I forgot to duck when I was supposed to.”

Arness was not the only cast member from the longest-running TV Western in history who served during the War. Clem Fuller, who briefly played the bartender at the Long Branch Saloon, was wounded in the Army. And Chester, the deputy, was played by Dennis Weaver, who served on the Navy’s demonstration track team and established some long standing records when he toured the South Pacific