In the film's crucial scene, the doctor forces Moss to overcome his paralysis by yelling a racial slur. carries Moss to the returning PT boat that covers the men with its twin. In a firefight with the Japanese, Mingo is wounded in the arm and Moss is unable to walk. The dying Finch escapes and dies in Moss's arms. When the patrol is discovered Finch is left behind and captured by the Japanese who force him to cry out to the patrol. (Brodie) and sturdy but troubled Sergeant Mingo (Lovejoy). The patrol is led by a young major (Dick) and includes Moss's lifelong white friend Finch (Bridges), whose death leaves him racked with guilt redneck-bigot corporal T.J. The film uses flashback techniques to show Moss, an Engineer topography specialist assigned to a reconnaissance patrol who are clandestinely landed from a PT boat on a Japanese-held island in the South Pacific to prepare the island for a major amphibious landing. James Johnson Edwards died on January 4, 1970.Undergoing psychoanalysis by an Army psychiatrist (Corey), paralyzed Black war veteran Private Peter Moss (Edwards) begins to walk again only when he confronts his fear of forever being an 'outsider.' It is believed that James Edwards career came to a halt when he had an affair with a white actress. It was believed he was also a cast in Universal’s Red Ball Express but was replaced by Sidney Poitier when he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Some of his films include Home of the Brave (1949), Bright Victory (1951), Men in War (1957), and several films. Throughout much of his life, Edwards appeared in movies as an American soldier. After the war, he decided to set his eyes on the New York stage where he assumed the role of the war hero in the touring play Deep Are the Roots.

He was commissioned during World War II as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. While at school he participated in student productions and in the Federal Theatre Project. He attended Knoxville College in Tennessee and later continued his education at Northwestern University where he received a master’s degree in drama. He is best known for his role, “Private Peter Moss” in the 1949 film Home of the Brave in which he portrayed a black soldier experiencing racist prejudice while serving in the South Pacific during World War II.Įdwards was born on March 6, 1918, in Hobart, Indiana. James Edwards was an actor in film and television.

Home of the brave movie 1949