This Military Service Page was created/owned by
A3C Michael S. Bell (Unit Historian)
to remember
Franz, Arthur Sofield, Maj.
If you knew or served with this Airman and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
This Remembrance is still in progress, so some of the entries are speculative guesswork until backup can be found. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Source: www.imdb.com/name/nm0291821/bio
Reliable character actor in many '50s B pictures, often cast as a friendly small-town businessman or professional (as in The Doctor and the Girl (1949)) or the lead's sympathetic friend (as in 1953's Invaders from Mars (1953)). However, in The Sniper (1952), he turned in an outstanding performance as a mentally unstable ex-soldier who, after being rejected by a woman he was interested in, snaps and terrorizes the city of San Francisco by stalking and picking off women.
During World War II, Franz served as a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Forces. He was shot down over Romania and incarcerated in a POW camp, from which he escaped.
Franz's interest in acting developed when he was a high school student.
Lived in New Zealand for many years but wished to return to California during the last stages of his illness.
"Mission: Impossible" .... Dr. Adler / ... (2 episodes, 1970-1972)
- Crack-Up (1972) TV episode .... Dr. Adler
- The Choice (1970) TV episode .... First Minister Andre Picard
"McCloud" .... Police Detective Charlie Harrington (1 episode, 1972)
- Give My Regrets to Broadway (1972) TV episode .... Police Detective Charlie Harrington
"The Mod Squad" .... Arthur Westphal / ... (4 episodes, 1968-1971)
- The Sands of Anger (1971) TV episode
- The Hot, Hot Car (1971) TV episode
- Lisa (1969) TV episode .... Dr. Sam Berger
- Love (1968) TV episode .... Arthur Westphal
"Men at Law" .... Henry Millett (1 episode, 1971)
... aka "Storefront Lawyers" - USA (original title)
- Hostage (1971) TV episode .... Henry Millett
"Hawaii Five-O" .... Del Enright (1 episode, 1970)
... aka "McGarrett" - USA (rerun title)
- The One with the Gun (1970) TV episode .... Del Enright
Dream No Evil (1970) .... Psychiatrist
... aka "The Faith Healer" - USA (alternative title)
"The Virginian" .... Fitz Warren / ... (2 episodes, 1963-1968)
... aka "The Men from Shiloh" - USA (ninth season title)
- Big Tiny (1968) TV episode .... Sheriff Mike Miller
- No Tears for Savannah (1963) TV episode .... Fitz Warren
"Lassie" .... Professor Standish (1 episode, 1964)
... aka "Jeff's Collie" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Timmy and Lassie" - USA (syndication title)
- Lassie and the Savage (1964) TV episode .... Professor Standish
"Death Valley Days" .... Matt Warner / ... (2 episodes, 1960-1962)
... aka "Call of the West" - USA (syndication title)
... aka "The Pioneers" - USA (syndication title)
... aka "Trails West" - USA (syndication title)
... aka "Western Star Theater" - USA (syndication title)
- Justice at Jackson Creek (1962) TV episode .... Payne Piprim
- The Young Gun (1960) TV episode .... Matt Warner
"Ripcord" .... Dr. Joe Hagen (1 episode, 1962)
- Hagen Charm (1962) TV episode .... Dr. Joe Hagen
The Flame Barrier (1958) .... Dave Hollister
... aka "It Fell from the Flame Barrier" - USA (promotional title)
"Zane Grey Theater" .... Lee Brand (1 episode, 1958)
... aka "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater" - USA (complete title)
... aka "The Westerners" - USA (rerun title)
- Man of Fear (1958) TV episode .... Lee Brand
"Cavalcade of America" .... Casimir Pulaski / ... (2 episodes, 1952-1956)
... aka "DuPont Presents the Cavalcade Theatre" - USA (fourth season title)
... aka "DuPont Theater" - USA (fifth season title)
- Date with a Stranger (1956) TV episode .... Casimir Pulaski
- No Greater Love (1952) TV episode .... Dr. William Gorgas
"Schlitz Playhouse" .... Chris Grine / ... (7 episodes, 1953-1956)
... aka "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars" - USA (original title)
... aka "Herald Playhouse" - USA (syndication title)
... aka "The Playhouse" - USA (syndication title)
- The House That Jackson Built (1956) TV episode
- Pattern for Pursuit (1956) TV episode .... Sgt. Douglas Renfrew
- Too Late to Run (1955) TV episode
- Spangal Island (1954) TV episode
- By-Line (1954) TV episode .... Chris Grine
(2 more)
"Kraft Theatre" (2 episodes, 1954-1955)
... aka "Kraft Television Theatre" - USA (original title)
... aka "Kraft Mystery Theatre" - USA (new title)
- Spur of the Moment (1955) TV episode
- The Picture Window (1954) TV episode
"The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse" (1 episode, 1955)
... aka "The Philco Television Playhouse" - USA (original title)
... aka "Arena Theatre" - USA (new title)
... aka "Repertory Theatre" - USA (new title)
- Total Recall (1955) TV episode
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.