On this episode of Our American Stories, John Ford was already shaping the Golden Age of film, the force behind classics like Stagecoach and The Informer, when World War II pulled him toward a different kind of frontier. At forty-seven, with Hollywood at his feet and a reputation as one of America’s greatest directors, Ford walked away from the studio lot and into the U.S. Navy. Historian and Wild-West expert Roger McGrath shares how a filmmaker known for mythic westerns ended up documenting a real war and why that decision changed John Ford’s legacy forever.

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