Clint Eastwood is a well-known and adored actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous film prizes for his famous performances, not to mention his involvement in politics, and has served as a symbol of masculinity for many years.
But many people are unaware of the fact that Eastwood, at 21 years old, was a passenger on a naval plane from World War II that crashed in the Pacific.

“I was catching a free ride from Seattle down to Almeda,” Eastwood said in an interview.

“It was stormy and we went down off of Point Reyes, California, in the Pacific. I found myself in the water swimming a few miles towards the shore. I remember thinking, ‘well, 21 is not as long as a person wants to live.’”

After swimming through kelp beds for many hours in the Pacific, Eastwood finally reached shore and scaled a bluff to send out a distress call.

When he was directing the Tom Hanks-starring biographical film Sully: Miracle on the Hudson in 2016, this experience proved to be quite helpful.

The critically acclaimed film depicts the 2009 emergency Hudson River landing of US Airways Flight 1549, in which all 155 passengers and crew members were saved.

In the movie, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who was later overruled by his superiors, made the split-second decision to land the jet in the icy Hudson River.

“I suppose having been in a similar situation as the pilot, I would have chanced a water landing rather than go someplace where there’s no runway,” Eastwood said in The Telegraph interview.

And of course, Sully was familiar with that area…he picked the right spot…He knew that somebody would see them” he continued.