Command Decision (27 page)

“Cliff, does that say ‘with immediate effect’?”

“I’m afraid it does, Casey.”

“Evans,” he said sharply, “get your things.”

About the Author

William Wister Haines was born in 1908 in Des Moines, Iowa, the second of four sons of a utility company executive. He attended Culver Academy and graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines. He was at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania when the Great Depression struck.

Haines found a job as a lineman in Searchlight, Nevada, where crews were erecting the huge transmission towers that took power to the mines. He would return to Penn for a semester or two until his funds ran out, and then go back to tower building. In 1930 he shifted to catenary line work—the electrification of railroads—and worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

After graduating from the University, Haines continued line work on the “Pennsy.” He started a novel about this dangerous profession. Part autobiographical,
Slim
became a national best seller in 1934. Warner Brothers made it into a film starring Henry Fonda and Pat O’Brien using Haines’s screenplay. Eighty years later, both the movie and the book
Slim
are still well-known to most linemen.

Haines wrote short stories about linework for the
Saturday Evening Post
, the
Atlantic Monthly
,
Reader’s Digest
, and
Argosy
. In 1938 he published a second novel about linework,
High Tension
.

As World War II loomed, his youngest brother, Dr. John Haines, joined the Army. When he was captured and imprisoned on Corregidor, the older brothers promptly enlisted. One served in Italy and another in the South Pacific.

Haines was sent to Great Britain as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Eighth Air Force. His duties were to evaluate the strength of the German Air Force and plan bombing raids. He later worked with the team that first cracked German war codes, a project called “Ultra.” His summary of the U.S. Air Force’s use of Ultra was published when the material was declassified thirty years later.

After forty-one months, Haines was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. For his war service, he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit. In 1945 the family relocated to Laguna Beach, California, where he immediately started writing
Command Decision
.

The first version was a play. Several agents and publishers thought that such a tale was premature because the American public was sick of war. His publisher, Little Brown, suggested he make the drama into a novel. It appeared as a four-part serial in the
Atlantic Monthly
in 1947. As a book,
Command Decision
quickly became a national best seller. It is regarded as the first major story about World War II. In October of 1947,
Command Decision
opened on Broadway at the Fulton Theater. It ran for 409 performances.

The movie rights were sold to MGM, which acted at the behest of Clark Gable. The actor saw the story as a vehicle for portraying the service he had experienced as an Air Force officer. The movie also starred Brian Donlevy, Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, Cameron Mitchell and Van Johnson.

William Haines always believed that war was the extension of politics. The protagonist, General Casey Dennis, must deal with political interference that warps his decisions and pressures him to attack less dangerous targets.

For nearly 40 years Haines lived south of Laguna Beach, California, in a community known as Three Arch Bay. In 1957
The Hon. Rocky Slade
, a tale of Midwestern politics, was published. His 1961 novel
The Winter War
was given the Golden Spur award by the Western Writers of America. In 1968
The Image
came out, his book about family conflict within the military/industrial complex. Films he worked on such as
Torpedo Run
,
On Wings of Eagles
and
Beyond Glory
all reflected his telling views of the military.

Screenplays he wrote or collaborated on with other screenwriters during those years reflected his war experience, including
Alibi Ike
, which starred Joe E. Brown and Olivia de Haviland;
Black Legion
, with Humphrey Bogart;
The Texans
, with Randolph Scott;
Beyond Glory
, with Alan Ladd;
The Racket
and
One Minute to Zero
, with Robert Mitchum;
The Wings of Eagles
, with John Wayne;
Torpedo Run
, with Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine; and
The Eternal Sea
, with Sterling Hayden.

Though William Wister Haines grew up in the Midwest, he was part of a prominent Philadelphia family. He lived at times at “Wyck,” the Haines ancestral home, in Germantown. It is now a National Historic Landmark. His uncle Owen Wister, author of
The Virginian,
strongly encouraged him to become a writer.

William Wister Haines had two children and died in 1989 at the age of 81.