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The Day I Fired Alan Ladd and Other World War II Adventures
"To perform heroically in a perilous situation is one thing, but I found that, in my case, the real difficulty was in getting myself into a spot where heroism was possible. Nobody on latrine duty ever got the Medal of Honor."
This delightful memoir of A. E. Hotchner’s World War II experiences explores a different side of the troubled war years. Hotchner, who grew up in St. Louis, was a rookie lawyer fresh out of Washington University Law School when the United States declared war. Like many others of his generation, he aspired to serve his country. He tried to enlist in the navy, first as a pilot and then as a deck officer, but he was rejected for faulty depth perception and flat feet, respectively. Drafted as a lowly GI into the air force branch of the army, he was accepted to bombardier school. But on the eve of his departure, he was ordered to write and perform in an air force musical comedy instead. He eventually went to Officer Candidate School and was assigned to the Anti-Submarine Command as a lieutenant adjutant, but just before his squadron’s departure for North Africa he was detached and, despite knowing nothing about moviemaking, ordered to make a film that glorified the Anti-Submarine Command’s role in combating U-boats.
All through his four-year military career, despite his efforts to get into combat, fate and the military bureaucracy thwarted him. The author skillfully recounts the events of those years, describing the encounters he had with many unforgettable characters, including a footsore and sentimental Clark Gable and an inept Alan Ladd—best known as the star of Shane. Ladd, then a GI, did such a poor job reading the narration for Hotchner’s film Atlantic Mission that Hotchner had to fire him. The author also describes his encounters with other well-known people, notably Tennessee Williams, with whom he attended a playwriting class at Washington University, and a wistful, vulnerable Dorothy Parker.
Although much of Hotchner’s memoir is lighthearted, it also provides a unique look at the impact of the war on everyday life in the United States. Hotchner’s fast-paced prose makes this memoir an insightful pleasure to read.
This delightful memoir of A. E. Hotchner’s World War II experiences explores a different side of the troubled war years. Hotchner, who grew up in St. Louis, was a rookie lawyer fresh out of Washington University Law School when the United States declared war. Like many others of his generation, he aspired to serve his country. He tried to enlist in the navy, first as a pilot and then as a deck officer, but he was rejected for faulty depth perception and flat feet, respectively. Drafted as a lowly GI into the air force branch of the army, he was accepted to bombardier school. But on the eve of his departure, he was ordered to write and perform in an air force musical comedy instead. He eventually went to Officer Candidate School and was assigned to the Anti-Submarine Command as a lieutenant adjutant, but just before his squadron’s departure for North Africa he was detached and, despite knowing nothing about moviemaking, ordered to make a film that glorified the Anti-Submarine Command’s role in combating U-boats.
All through his four-year military career, despite his efforts to get into combat, fate and the military bureaucracy thwarted him. The author skillfully recounts the events of those years, describing the encounters he had with many unforgettable characters, including a footsore and sentimental Clark Gable and an inept Alan Ladd—best known as the star of Shane. Ladd, then a GI, did such a poor job reading the narration for Hotchner’s film Atlantic Mission that Hotchner had to fire him. The author also describes his encounters with other well-known people, notably Tennessee Williams, with whom he attended a playwriting class at Washington University, and a wistful, vulnerable Dorothy Parker.
Although much of Hotchner’s memoir is lighthearted, it also provides a unique look at the impact of the war on everyday life in the United States. Hotchner’s fast-paced prose makes this memoir an insightful pleasure to read.
- GenresNonfictionMemoir
144 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2002
About the author
A.E. Hotchner
48 books130 followersAaron Edward Hotchner was an American editor, novelist, playwright, and biographer. He wrote many television screenplays as well as a biography of Ernest Hemingway. He co-founded with Paul Newman the charity food company Newman's Own.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 25, 2019
This memoir, published in 2002 when its author was eighty-five years old, is brief and to the point. As of this writing (May 25th, 2019), A.E. Hotchner is just over a month shy of his 102nd birthday. He published a novel last year. A friend of mine read it. It's called THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF AARON BROOM and my friend says it is a very solid book.
THE DAY I FIRED ALAN LADD is about World War II, as the subtitle says. This work focuses on Hotchner's time in the Air Force from 1942 until 1946. My own father was in the war and I can say A.E. Hotchner's description of barracks life (particularly short-arm exams) sounds just like what my father told me. One thing that comes through is just how massive and all-consuming the war effort was. I live on Long Island and, for a certain amount of time, Hotchner was stationed here. To think of Nazi saboteurs landing at Amagansett (and on a beach in Florida) is quite weird. (There were a handful. All but two were executed promptly under Roosevelt's orders. Two were sentenced to decades of hard labor, but Truman sent turned them over to the Germans in 1948. Remember, by that time the war had been over three years.) Anyway, Hotchner was stationed at Hempstead, Long Island, for a while, and it was there he had to try to give away, at a sort of garage sale, millions of dollars worth of film equipment after the Air Force abandoned a movie effort he'd been assigned to oversee. What I'm saying is that this memoir points out the bureaucracy and waste of a great power even in time of existential war. (The Navy, envious that the Air Force had made a film about the spying of enemy submarines from the air, managed to claim the Air Force had stepped on the navy's toes. Two-hundred copies of a feature-length documentary Hotchner had directed were abandoned by the Air Force. It was his responsibility to give away the equipment and hundreds of reels of film.)
Like a lot of soldiers in the American armed services during the war, Hotchner continually requested to be sent on combat missions. But, with his stellar academic records and because of his penchant, in high school and college, for joining extra-curricular groups, the Air Force kept looking at his records and noticing he'd worked on plays, musicals and creative writing. The military found more use for him as a propagandist than anything else. They ordered him to create a musical, to write a marching song, to direct a movie about bomber planes, etc. He describes his frustration at not being put in harm's way. This attitude is almost incomprehensible to people of my generation. We grew up hearing our father's stories of military bureaucracy. They'd won the war. We heard the stories they told of blunders. They didn't question authority and they beat the Germans and the Japanese in a long, terrifying war. We questioned authority because their stories begged us to. But Hotchner is writing about his days as a very young man. He wanted to fight.
THE DAY I FIRED ALAN LADD is straightforward. It is funny when it needs to be and wistful when necessary. It is not morose. It is not giddy. And yes: He did fire Alan Ladd, who was a big star when he did fire him. But Ladd was a private. Hotchner was a lieutenant. Ladd didn't love the army. Hotchner didn't love Hollywood. The war that put the United States at the pinnacle of power brought these men together for a project neither was interested in doing.
This is a good piece of writing.
THE DAY I FIRED ALAN LADD is about World War II, as the subtitle says. This work focuses on Hotchner's time in the Air Force from 1942 until 1946. My own father was in the war and I can say A.E. Hotchner's description of barracks life (particularly short-arm exams) sounds just like what my father told me. One thing that comes through is just how massive and all-consuming the war effort was. I live on Long Island and, for a certain amount of time, Hotchner was stationed here. To think of Nazi saboteurs landing at Amagansett (and on a beach in Florida) is quite weird. (There were a handful. All but two were executed promptly under Roosevelt's orders. Two were sentenced to decades of hard labor, but Truman sent turned them over to the Germans in 1948. Remember, by that time the war had been over three years.) Anyway, Hotchner was stationed at Hempstead, Long Island, for a while, and it was there he had to try to give away, at a sort of garage sale, millions of dollars worth of film equipment after the Air Force abandoned a movie effort he'd been assigned to oversee. What I'm saying is that this memoir points out the bureaucracy and waste of a great power even in time of existential war. (The Navy, envious that the Air Force had made a film about the spying of enemy submarines from the air, managed to claim the Air Force had stepped on the navy's toes. Two-hundred copies of a feature-length documentary Hotchner had directed were abandoned by the Air Force. It was his responsibility to give away the equipment and hundreds of reels of film.)
Like a lot of soldiers in the American armed services during the war, Hotchner continually requested to be sent on combat missions. But, with his stellar academic records and because of his penchant, in high school and college, for joining extra-curricular groups, the Air Force kept looking at his records and noticing he'd worked on plays, musicals and creative writing. The military found more use for him as a propagandist than anything else. They ordered him to create a musical, to write a marching song, to direct a movie about bomber planes, etc. He describes his frustration at not being put in harm's way. This attitude is almost incomprehensible to people of my generation. We grew up hearing our father's stories of military bureaucracy. They'd won the war. We heard the stories they told of blunders. They didn't question authority and they beat the Germans and the Japanese in a long, terrifying war. We questioned authority because their stories begged us to. But Hotchner is writing about his days as a very young man. He wanted to fight.
THE DAY I FIRED ALAN LADD is straightforward. It is funny when it needs to be and wistful when necessary. It is not morose. It is not giddy. And yes: He did fire Alan Ladd, who was a big star when he did fire him. But Ladd was a private. Hotchner was a lieutenant. Ladd didn't love the army. Hotchner didn't love Hollywood. The war that put the United States at the pinnacle of power brought these men together for a project neither was interested in doing.
This is a good piece of writing.
October 16, 2011
Great read, what a memory! Extra worth reading for the story of Hotchner patrolling Miami Beach late at night for German submarines with Clark Gable, and Gable opening up about his grief about losing his beloved Carole Lombard.
July 10, 2016
Wonderful! A delightful memoir that is both well written and a fresh story about the war.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews