Ernest K. Gann

Gann was born October 13, 1910, in Lincoln, Nebraska, to George Kellogg Gann (1884–1958) and Caroline May Kupper (1890–1945). George was a telephone-company executive in Lincoln, Nebraska; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Chicago, Illinois. Rebelling against his father's strong desire that he seek a career with the telephone business, Ernest pursued several other interests as he matured. He was fascinated by topics including photography, movie-making, and aviation. As a young man, he showed little interest in school and performed poorly. His parents decided that he needed discipline and that he should attend a military school. He was sent to the Culver Military Academy for his high school years. While working on the documentary Inside Nazi Germany in 1936, Gann fled back to America as Hitler's troops marched into the Rhineland. rekindled his interest in aviation. Gann convinced some of his theater friends, Paul Draper and Burgess Meredith, to join him with flight lessons. Draper and Meredith's flying interests tapered off, but Gann thrived in aviation and soon bought a Stinson Reliant which he lost shortly thereafter in a hangar fire. He used the insurance money to purchase his second airplane, a Waco A biplane. After earning his pilot certificate, Gann spent much of his free time aloft in the Waco A, flying for pleasure. However, the continuing Great Depression soon cost him his job and dried up employment opportunities in New York. Gann sold his house and airplane and relocated his family to Hollywood, California, in search for work in the film industry. While hunting for movie work, Gann found great pleasure in the "honest work" he found in aviation. He worked as a flight instructor and chartered flights for Lewis Air Service at the Burbank Airport and began to write short stories in his down time. Unable to find permanent employment in either the movie industry or the aviation industry, Gann and his family moved back to New York. He was hired as Norman Bel Geddes’ personal assistant which included duties as a pilot. Gann was fired after Bel Geddes' play Siege failed. Gann then found work as the General Manager for Vinton Freedley's Broadway musical Leave It to Me!. Gann was fired in the middle of a play and vowed to leave the theater industry behind for good. Gann sold everything he could, and moved into a rental cottage near Christie Airport determined to find work in aviation. ==Airline career==

Gann made an acquaintance with George McCabe, American Airlines chief pilot at Newark, and was able to get an interview. He flew Douglas DC-3s, Douglas C-47s, Douglas C-54s and Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express transports for the Air Transport Command. Gann was based at Gander, Newfoundland; Goose Bay, Labrador; and Presque Isle, Maine, flying the North Atlantic to Europe with stops at Narsarsuaq Air Base in Greenland and Reykjavík, Iceland. At the end of World War II, the Air Transport Command released the civilian pilots and aircraft to their airlines. American Airlines was assigned its pre-war routes, which were domestic routes only. The number-one senior pilot at American Airlines, E.L. "Slonnie" Sloniger, quit American Airlines and became the Chief Pilot at Matson Airlines, a new venture of the Matson Steamship Line. which flew unscheduled charter flights throughout the Pacific. Transocean used the same hangars at the Oakland airport that Matson used, and like Matson Airlines, soon ceased operations and left Gann unemployed. Gann spent time in Samoa flying the line and teaching the pilots to fly the DC-3. However, the heat of the tropics and homesickness got to him, and his last airline experience came to an end. ==Sailing and conservationism==

During his tenure with Matson, Gann moved his family to San Francisco, and tried his luck at commercial fishing during the end of his airline career. Gann started the Western Ocean Fishing Company and purchased a 40 ft. fishing boat which was renamed the Fred Holmes after his major investor. In a bid to help his son and keep the grandkids nearby, he bought Gann a cottage a mile down the road in Pebble Beach. This cottage is where Gann's writing really took off, finishing the High and the Mighty, ''Fiddler's Green, Soldier of Fortune'' and working the associated movie deals. As Gann's fortunes grew, Eleanor's health began to fade. His marriage began to suffer and Eleanor eventually decided to divorce Gann. She was afflicted with numerous health problems, including severe rheumatoid arthritis, and following several years of declining health, she died on December 23, 1966, at Pebble Beach. Gann would endure several more tragedies in his personal life, including the death of his eldest son, George Kellogg Gann, who was swept overboard in a storm while working on an oil tanker in the Gulf of Alaska in 1973. Albatros had been a pilot boat in the North Sea, a radio station ship for the Germans in World War II, and finally as a Dutch cadet training vessel. As his family life deteriorated, Gann began spending time with a friend, Dodie Post, whom he later married. Both before and after they were married they were partners in adventure, travel, and later, environmental causes. In 1966 they purchased Red Mill Farm, an ranch on San Juan Island in the state of Washington. This was the beginning of his next great passion, environmental conservation. For that purpose, they later donated the entirety of their ranch to the San Juan Preservation Trust after Post's death. ==Literary career==

Gann described his writing methods as torturous; he would often literally chain himself to his desk until he finished a certain amount of text. He suffered long periods of writer's block, and frequently worried that he would run out of ideas. Despite his successful career, he continued to have strong feelings of self-doubt and often expressed surprise at the critical praise he received. Gann's major works include the novel The High and the Mighty and his aviation memoir Fate Is the Hunter (regarded by many as one of the best-ever books about aviation). (He later lamented that this decision cost him a "fortune" in royalties, as the movie played repeatedly on television for years afterward.) He wrote the story for the television miniseries Masada, based on The Antagonists, and the story for the 1980 Walt Disney movie, ''The Last Flight of Noah's Ark''. == Painting ==

Gann had a chicken coop on his Red Mill farm converted into an artist studio and writing office. He painted nautical scenes and aviation related paintings. Some of the dust jackets on his novels feature his original art work. Gann considered painting as his "second career" and hoped to inspire other senior citizens to continue the pursuit of their interests. == Death and honors==

During the autumn of 1991, Gann again took to the skies to mark the 50th anniversary of his promotion to Captain for American Airlines; it would be his last flight. On December 19, 1991, Gann died in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, Washington, at the age of 81 from kidney failure. The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) moved Gann's entire chicken coop studio, including the barber's chair Gann used at his desk, to the EAA Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where it is on public display. Gann was a member or honorary member of the Society of Flight Test Engineers, Order of Daedalians, Black Birds, OX-5 Aviation Pioneers, Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen, Colgate President's Club, Washington Athletic Club, Grey Eagles Club, 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, Retired Eastern Pilots Association, and American Fighter Pilots Association. Washington Governor Gary Locke posthumously awarded the Medal of Merit (the state's highest honor) to Gann on July 9, 2003. A cafe at Friday Harbor Airport is named "Ernie's Cafe" in his honor. Flying magazine ranked Gann thirty-fourth in its 2013 list of the 51 heroes of aviation. == Bibliography ==

Feature films • Blaze of Noon (1947) (novel) • The Raging Tide (1951) (novel ''Fiddler's Green'', screenplay) • Island in the Sky (1953) (novel, screenplay) • The High and the Mighty (1954) (novel, screenplay) • Soldier of Fortune (1955) (novel, screenplay) • Twilight for the Gods (1958) (novel, screenplay) • Fate Is the Hunter (1964) (memoir) • ''The Last Flight of Noah's Ark'' (1980) (story) • The Aviator (1985) (novel) Television • Masada (1981, TV miniseries) (novel The Antagonists) ==References==