Did arthur godfrey ever train pilots during ww 2?

Answer 1

If you mean the entertainer Arthur Godfrey, no, he did not. That Godfrey was an avid aviator, and was a well-known celebrity by the time the war began. He was an acquaintance of President Franklin Roosevelt, and used that acquaintanceship to wrangle a commission as a reserve Navy officer in the years before the war. Godfrey had been very seriously injured in an automobile accident in 1931, (on his way to a flying lesson) and the injuries he sustained in that accident prevented him from serving as a Naval aviator in the war. Though the US services contracted with a number of civilian pilots and airschools for military primary flight instruction, Godfrey was not among them. He spent the was as a public affais officer, like many from Hollywood, raising morale, selling war bonds, and so on. Few who were already established stars or celebrities did otherwise; most such individuals were doing the same sort of things as Godfrey to contribute to the war effort. An exception was Jimmy Stewart, who was a superb B-24 bomber pilot and completed a tour of combat missions with the 8th Air Force in England. Stewart was so proficient that he became a check pilot on B-24s, flying with other officers to assess their competency before they were sent into combat. But Stewart was an exception.