Harold Russell: Hero and Screen Legend

As much as I could say about The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and all of the wonderful performances in it, I want to zone in mainly on one of the cast members: Harold Russell, a man who should be more well-known than he is today.

Harold Russell was born in North Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1914 and moved with his remaining family to Cambridge, MA after his father died when Harold was a young boy. He started working odd jobs before he was a teenager.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7th, 1941 Russell–in his own words– “made a rush to the recruiting office” apparently because he felt that he was a failure. He volunteered to become a paratrooper after basic training was completed. After he learned to be a paratrooper and learned demolition, the United States Army decided to make him an instructor. It was after he became an instructor that his life would be changed forever.

On June 6th, 1944 Russell was at a camp in North Carolina teaching demolition to a group when a defective fuse caused TNT that he was holding in his hands to explode. As a result, the remaining parts of his hands were amputated three inches above his wrists. He was given two choices for prosthetic hands: steel hooks or plastic hands. He chose the hooks. Proving to be a fast learner, he adapted to using the hooks quite well and he was featured in a short…