Is there TV host more famous and loved than Johnny Carson? We're struggling to come up with any other names! He spent 30 years as the host of The Tonight Show between 1962 and 1992, but what most people don't know is that he enlisted in the United States Navy in 1943, during World War II. Though he hoped to train as a navy pilot, he ended up being trained as a midshipman.
Carson experienced what some might call a lucky escape. He was en route to the USS Pennsylvania, the battleship he was assigned to, when it was torpedoed. He reported for duty on the last day of the war (after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had taken place). Unfortunately, Carson still witnessed the horror of mass death when he had to supervise the removal of 20 bodies from the USS Pennsylvania.