Secret Warriors (Men at War 2)

On December 9, 1941, Stanley S. Fine, Vice President for Legal Affairs, Continental Motion Picture Studios, Inc." who had been in New York on business when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, took the train to Washington to see Greg Armstrong, a friend from law school who had given up corporate law to serve his country in uniform. When he found Greg, who was working in one of the temporary buildings-from the First World War-near the Smithsonian Institution, he quickly saw that his friend thought Stanley Fine had gone off the deep end. Even though Greg professed to understand why Fine wanted to come into the service, and even why Fine wanted to fly, it was clear that Greg thought that flying was the last thing Stanley should be doing. But still, he went through the motions.

"There's two ways you can handle the flying thing, Stanley," he said.

"You can apply to one of the aviation cadet selection boards. If you've got a pilot's license-what did you say you have?"

"I've got a commercial pilot's certificate with five hundred ten hours, and an instrument ticket, single-engine land."

"Okay. What I'm saying is that you can certainly get into the aviation cadet program. Which means after you got your wings, you would be either a flight officer or a second lieutenant. Or, Stanley, you can go in the service as a lawyer, With your years of practice, you can start out as a captain. "I don't want to be a lawyer."

"Hear me out. You're a captain. I can have that paperwork for you in THE BECKET WARRIORS N 18T two weeks. You get a commission, and they tell you to hold yourself ready for active service. While you're waiting to be called, you apply for flight duty. Send them a certified copy of your licenses, and so on. They'll probably jump at you. But you do have a senator in your pocket who can do you a favor, don't you?"

"Do I have to do that?"

"You don't even have to go in the Army, Stan.

You're a married man with three kids. And movies are going to be declared an essential war industry, I heard that last week. If you want to play Errol Flynn in Dawn Patrol, though, you're going to need a senator." On February 7, 1942, they gave a going-away party at Continental Studios. It was held on Sound Stage Eleven, and Max Lieberman had it catered by Chasen's, so the people in the Continental commissary could attend. There was one big head table on a four-foot platform built especially for the occasion. It sat sixty-eight people, and it was draped with bunting. Behind it hung an enormous American flag. Everybody else sat at ten-seat round tables. With the exception of Max and Sophie Lieberman, the guests at the head table were Continental employees about to enter the armed forces. The honorees were introduced alphabetically, and Max Lieberman made it through best boys and truck drivers and clerks and scenery painters and even two actors until he got to Stanley Fine, who was his nephew-Sophie's sister Sadie's boy-and who was the nearest thing he had to a son. That was when he got something in his throat, and then in his eye, and so Stanley took over for him at the mike and introduced the others while Uncle Max sat blowing his nose and wiping away tears. The founder and chairman of the board of Continental Studios got control of himself by the time Stanley had finished the introductions. He reclaimed the mike and announced that in case anybody was wondering, everybody had his job waiting for him, so they should get the lead out of their ass and win the war. Meanwhile, Continental had movies to make. Captain Stanley S. Fine, judge Advocate General's Corps, had entered upon active duty for the duration plus six months on May 1, 1942. His initial duty station was the U.S. Army Air Corps Officers' Reception Station, Boca Rat on, Florida. The Adjutant

General of the United States Army was led to understand that assigning Fine to the Army Air Corps would please the junior senator from California, and he so ordered.

When Captain Fine reached Boca Rat on, he learned that the U.S. Army Air Corps Officers' Reception Station had only three weeks before been the Boca Rat on Hotel and Club, an exclusive, very expensive resort.

The Air Corps had taken it over for the duration, rolled up the carpets, put the furniture in storage, closed the bar, installed GI furniture and a GI mess, and turned the place into a basic training camp for newly commissioned officers. Fine's fellow student officers had also been lawyers, or doctors, dentists, engineers, wholesale grocers, paper merchants, trucking company executives, construction engineers, or other civilians whose occupations had a military application and who had been directly commissioned into the services.

He had been at Boca Rat on six weeks when his senator's influence was again felt. Captain Fine was engaged in a class exercise in the administration of military justice. He was playing the role of prosecutor in a mock court martial when a runner summoned him from the classroom-which had been the card room of the Boca Rat on Hotel-to the station commander's office. "I don't understand this, Captain," the station commander said, "but we are in receipt of orders assigning you to the Three-forty-fourth Heavy Bombardment Group at Chanute Field. It says for transition training to B- 17 aircraft. You're not a pilot, are you?"

"I have a civilian license, Sir."

"I never heard of anything like this before," the colonel said.

"But orders are orders, Captain." When he reported to the 344th Bombardment Group at Chanute, he was sure there was no way he would be permitted to become a pilot. "The only time you have is in Piper Cubs and a Beechcraft?" the colonel asked. "I'm afraid so, Sir," Fine said.

"I hope you can fly, Fine," he said.

"And not just because you know some important politicians and the general told me to give you every consideration."

"I wanted to fly very badly," Fine said.

"I thought I needed some help. That now seems rather childish. "If you can fly," the colonel said, "I'd like to make you a squadron commander.

I've got a lot of very healthy, very impetuous young men who need a stabilizing influence. In my day, it took ten years to make captain.

Now we're making them in a year, and then making them B-17 aircraft commanders with a hundred twenty hours' total time. It's working better than I thought it would, but I would still like as many officers like you as I can get. I really need officers with five hundred hours and some instrument experience. Who can really navigate."

"I was about to say that I might well be more use as a lawyer," Fine said. "That's not my decision to make," the colonel had told him.

"I have one other officer, Major Thomas son, who was an aircraft commander before last week. I'm going to introduce you to him, explain the situation, and see w iat t S. "Yes, Sir," Fine said "On the basis of your extensive civilian aeronautical experience, Captain Fine," the colonel said dryly, "Headquarters, Army Air Corps, has seen fit to designate you as a military aviator. You are now a pilot, Captain Fine.

Congratulations."

He tossed Fine a pair of aviator's wings still pinned to a piece of cardboard. 4C "If you can't handle the Seventeen," the colonel said, and I really hope you can, there are other places where you can be put to good use."

The next day, Fine began what he was sure would be at least a two week course in the B-17 aircraft. Major Thomas son turned out to be a bright-eyed twenty-three-year-old West Pointer who told Fine that he had graduated from the last prewar, yearlong pilot training course.

Thomas son almost casually went through the B-17E dash-one with him for most of the day, then took him to the flight line for what Fine expected would be a hands-on explanation of the aircraft. "I've never seen one up close before," Fine confessed. "It's a pretty good bird, Captain," Thomas son said.

"It's the E model. I picked this one up in Seattle last week." Fine had been introduced to the crew. There was a navigator and a bombardier, both officers, and an engineer, a radioman, and tail and turret gunners.

There was no copilot. "I don't think you'll have any trouble with it, Captain," Thomas son said to him, then raised his voice.