Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist best remembered for creating the original Star Trek television series.Alexander (1995): p. 204 He was born in El Paso, Texas, but grew up in Los Angeles, California, where his father worked as a police officer. While at school, the young Roddenberry majored in police science and became interested in aeronautical engineering.
He obtained a pilot's license through the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Following his graduation, he signed up for the United States Army Air Corps and he enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was commissioned on August 5, 1942, and was posted to the Pacific Theater of Operations where he joined the 394th Bomb Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group, of the Thirteenth Air Force. He flew Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in an estimated 89 combat missions. After being rotated back to the United States he was promoted to Captain and became an air crash investigator. During his military career, he was involved in two plane crashes and was awarded both the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Once a civilian, he began to fly long-haul routes for Pan American World Airways. He was involved in a further crash in June 1947, where the Clipper Eclipse crashed in the Syrian desert. After pulling injured passengers out of the burning plane, he led the party which sought help. After a further incident, he resigned from Pan-Am, seeking to write for television instead. However, he joined the Los Angeles Police Department, initially in the traffic division but transferred to the newspaper unit where he worked with Chief William H. Parker as a speech writer. He landed the role of technical adviser for a television version of Mr. District Attorney, which led to him writing scripts for the series under the pseudonym of "Robert Wesley". This led to a series of collaborations with Ziv Television Programs, and he resigned from the police on June 7, 1956, in order to take up a writing position on the staff of The West Point Story.
Early life (1921–1941) Gene Roddenberry was born on August 19, 1921, in his parents' rented home in El Paso, Texas, the first child of Eugene Edward Roddenberry and Caroline "Glen" (née Goleman) Roddenberry. He was named after his father and referred to as "Little" Gene. Roddenberry would later describe his father as "very intelligent" but a "very common man".Alexander (1995): pp. 10–12 At the time of Gene's birth, his father was working as a linesman, but shortly afterward he rode the rails to Los Angeles to seek better employment. Roddenberry's father joined the Los Angeles Police Department as an emergency appointee on December 7, 1922. The following March he sent a message to his wife to tell her to come to Los Angeles with their son. Two months later, Gene Sr. passed the Civil Service test and was given a police commission.Alexander (1995): pp. 15–17
The elder Roddenberry became a patrolman, and held that rank for the next twenty years. The family expanded with the birth of Robert Leon Roddenberry in 1924, and Doris Willodean Roddenberry in 1925. During this time, the Roddenberrys bought their first home at 3243 Drew Street.Alexander (1995): p. 18 During Gene's early years, he was saved by a quick thinking milkman who noticed that the house was on fire. He pounded on the door until Glen awoke and rushed out of the house with the children in tow. Roddenberry's father kept rabbits, and the children sold them outside the house. It was these animals that became the subject of Roddenberry's first published work in his school's twice-yearly newspaper, The Ace.Alexander (1995): p. 22 During his childhood, Roddenberry was interested in reading, especially pulp magazines,Alexander (1995): p. 34 and was a fan of stories such as John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, and the Skylark series by E. E. Smith.Alexander (1995): p. 37
In 1933, when Roddenberry was twelve years old, the family moved to 4906 Monte Vista in the shadow of Mount Washington, and he began attending Luther Burbank Junior High School.Alexander (1995): p. 30 This was the house that Roddenberry would later describe as his childhood home.Alexander (1995): p. 23 His father helped the boys obtain local jobs; Gene worked as a newspaper delivery boy and as a gas station attendant on Saturdays, and after school. The young Roddenberry moved to Franklin High School during the middle years of the Great Depression.Alexander (1995): pp. 26–27 His father was relatively unaffected by the Great Depression because of his stable employment with the police department. The family distributed food to friends and family who were in need. Glen's parents and her younger sister Willodean moved into the house for a time before finding other accommodation in Redondo Beach. During his time at Franklin, Roddenberry joined the Varsity Debate Team and was a member of the Authors Club under Mrs. Virginia Church. He graduated in 1939.Alexander (1995): pp. 43–44
He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 onward. Although Roddenberry ranked at or above the ninetieth percentile on an intelligence test, and in the 99th percentile on a reading test administered as part of his college entrance examination,Alexander (1995): p. 47 he elected to major in the "solidly blue collar" police science curriculum;Alexander (1995): p. 48 as president of the school's Police Club, he communicated with police liaison Stanley Sheldon. During his second year, he developed an interest in aeronautical engineering and obtained a pilot's license through the United States Army Air Corps-sponsored Civilian Pilot Training Program.Alexander (1995): p. 49 He graduated from Los Angeles City College with an Associate of Arts degree in police science on June 26, 1941, becoming the first member of his family to earn a college degree. After graduating, he traveled to March Air Base and signed up for the Army Air Corps; due to the lack of training spaces, his entrance was delayed. For the remainder of the summer, he attended Peace Officer training at the University of California, Los Angeles as an Army cadet.Alexander (1995): pp. 52–53
Military service and civil aviation (1941–1948)
In the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roddenberry received a telegram with orders to attend Kelly Air Force Base,Alexander (1995): p. 54 enlisting on December 18, 1941. Following the completion of boot camp, he was sent to Corsicana, Texas, for pilot training by civilian instructors.Alexander (1995): p. 55 He completed sixty hours of flight time there, including thirty-two solo hours.Alexander (1995): p. 58 In March 1942, he moved to Goodfellow Field (now Goodfellow Air Force Base) in San Angelo, Texas, for basic flight training where he flew a Vultee BT-13 Valiant. Roddenberry completed training on August 5, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant.Alexander (1995): pp. 59–61
His initial posting to the Pacific Theater was delayed by a month, during which he completed further training on the Cessna AT-17 Bobcat. By virtue of this additional training, and because Roddenberry's height made it unlikely that he would be suitable for a combat fighter pilot, he was assigned to bombers. He received orders to report to Bellows Field, Oahu, to join the 394th Bomb Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group, of the Thirteenth Air Force. The squadron flew the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress,Alexander (1995): pp. 62–63 which had previously been used by the 19th Bomb Group, and were en route to a maintenance overhaul when they had to flee due to the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.Alexander (1995): p. 65 Roddenberry was assigned as Captain William Ripley's co-pilot for the flight that the squadron took to Christmas Island, and the following day to Canton Island. An additional flight on November 17 took the squadron to Nadi, Fiji, where they were expected to go on to the New Hebrides. Instead they were ordered to remain in Nadi to fly reconnaissance missions.Alexander (1995): pp. 67–68
In January 1943, the squadron was ordered to conduct bombing missions, alternating between bases in Espiritu Santo, Nadi, and Guadalcanal. These missions consisted of teams of four to eight planes, with no fighter support. It was during these flights that Roddenberry faced Japanese fighters for the first time.Alexander (1995): p. 73 On August 2, 1943, while flying out of Espiritu Santo, Roddenberry was piloting a B-17 when the plane had a malfunction during take off."Gene Roddenberry’s near-death experiences in the Pacific War" by Steve Birdsall, Army Times, November 7, 2019. He applied the brakes to stop the aircraft but they did not respond. The tail brake was applied but it also failed. The plane overshot the runway by and impacted trees, crushing the nose, and starting a fire. Bombardier Sgt. John P. Kruger and navigator Lt. Talbert H. Wollam were both positioned in the nose and died on impact.Alexander (1995): pp. 81–82 While an official report absolved Roddenberry of any responsibility, there were those in the squadron who blamed him for the men's deaths. Early in September 1943, the squadron was rotated back to the United States. The crew was transported on an old Dutch freighter across the Pacific; upon his arrival, and reunion with his wife, his picture was featured in the Los Angeles Times.Alexander (1995): pp. 83–84
Roddenberry spent the remainder of his military career in the United States, and while he did not keep an ongoing record, he estimated that he had flown 89 combat missions.Alexander (1995): p. 77 This number was disputed by the records of the Army Air Corps and other members of the 394th Bomber Squadron. For example, one pilot in the same bomb group as Roddenberry flew eighty missions, but took three times longer than Roddenberry had claimed to do so.Engel (1994): p. 31 In October, he was assigned to Fort Worth, Texas, and then the 18th Replacement Wing at Salt Lake City. He was subsequently moved to the Office of Flight Safety based in Oakland, California. Following promotion to captain, Roddenberry was reassigned to March Field (situated near Riverside, California) as a plane crash investigator in February 1944. During this period (characterized by frequent travel throughout the United States), he was in another accident as a passenger on a military flight that crashed and caught fire. Roddenberry pulled three men to safety. Throughout his military career, he was awarded the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross.Hamilton (2007): p. 14
In March 1945, he applied to the Civil Aeronautics Administration for a commercial pilot's licence. He was subsequently certified to fly both single- and multi-engine aircraft between 225 and 1500 horsepower. Before being discharged from the Army Air Force in July 1945, he began to fly for Pan American World Airways. He was based first in Miami, before moving to New York City for their long-haul flights. He began to fly routes from New York to Johannesburg or Calcutta, the two longest Pan Am routes at the time. He and his wife Eileen lived in River Edge, New Jersey.Alexander (1995): p. 85 He continued to pursue his dream of writing, and had a poem published in the opinion section of The New York Times on June 17, 1943.Alexander (1995): p. 86 During his time with the airline, he took two extension courses at Columbia University in the spring of 1946.