Beirne Lay Jr. | |
|---|---|
 Beirne Lay Jr. duringUSAAC flight training | |
| Born | (1909-09-01)September 1, 1909 |
| Died | May 26, 1982(1982-05-26) (aged 72) |
| Occupation | Author |
Beirne Lay Jr. (September 1, 1909 – May 26, 1982) was an American writer,aviation writer,Hollywoodscreenwriter, and combatveteran ofWorld War II with theU.S. Army Air Forces. He is best known for his collaboration withSy Bartlett in authoring the novelTwelve O'Clock High and adapting it into a majorfilm.
Born September 1, 1909 inBerkeley Springs, West Virginia, Lay attendedSt. Paul's School inConcord, New Hampshire, andYale University, graduating with aBachelor of Arts degree in English in 1931. As an undergraduate, heboxed androwed.
Lay enlisted in theU.S. Army Air Corps in July 1932, and began pilot training atRandolph Field, Texas. In June 1933, he earned his pilot's wings and was commissioned asecond lieutenant in theArmy Reserve atKelly Field, Texas. He was assigned to the20th Bombardment Squadron atLangley Field,Virginia, flying theKeystone B-6 andCurtiss B-2 Condor bombers. In February and March 1934, he was part of the Army Air Corps unit delivering U.S.mail during theAir Mail scandal, flying theChicago-to-Nashville route. The operation was unsuccessful, marred by several fatal accidents in which the Air Corps took the brunt of public blame. Upset by what he viewed as the injustice of the criticism, Lay began his writing career while still on active duty by submitting rebuttal articles and pieces on aviation in general, published inThe Sportsman Pilot,Esquire,The Saturday Evening Post,Today, andHarper's. In November 1935, he left active duty, but remained a reserve officer, promoted to first lieutenant on August 16, 1936.
Lay went to work forThe Sportsman Pilot and became itsmanaging editor. In 1936, he began writing anautobiographical book about his experiences in pilot training titledI Wanted Wings, published byHarper Brothers in 1937. He was approached by HollywoodproducerArthur Hornblow Jr. to sell thefilm rights toParamount Pictures and to write thescreenplay for a film adaptation. Lay agreed, and worked three years on the project, but the final product was largely the result of rewrites by a team of screenwriters brought into the project. During this time, he met and married Philippa Ludwell Lee, and made the acquaintance of CaptainFrank A. Armstrong atBarksdale Field, Louisiana, where Armstrong commanded the 13th Bomb Squadron.
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Lay returned to active duty at his own request just after the outbreak ofWorld War II in 1939, as a flying instructor inChino, California. The publication ofI Wanted Wings brought Lay to the attention of the staff of Army Air Forces Col.Ira Eaker, chief of the Air Corps Information Division and himself a writer. After meeting Lt. Lay, Eaker arranged his transfer to Headquarters USAAC inWashington, DC, in early 1940. There, promoted tocaptain, he worked primarily as a speechwriter for GeneralHenry H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Corps.
In January 1942, Eaker was made brigadier general and was deployed to England to create what would become theEighth Air Force. Lay was made part of Eaker's staff cadre, as Eighth Air Forcehistorian and film unit commander. In the first half of 1943, he commanded Hollywood director William Wyler (then a major) while Wyler and his team were in England making thepromotional movieMemphis Belle. Lay was promoted tolieutenant colonel, and in August 1943, he was granted permission to obtain combat experience in preparation for possible command of a combat unit. During that month, he flew five missions with the100th Bomb Group, aB-17 Flying Fortress unit stationed atRAF Thorpe Abbotts, including theRegensburg portion of the costlySchweinfurt-Regensburg mission, which he flew as aco-pilot. Lay wrote a detailed critique of the mission for Brig. Gen.Curtis LeMay, and used much of the content in an article entitled "I Saw Regensburg Destroyed", which appeared in the November 6, 1943, issue ofThe Saturday Evening Post. The same material also became a chapter inTwelve O'Clock High. Lay returned to the United States, where he was assigned to aB-24 Liberator unit undergoing group training atSalt Lake City, Utah, the490th Bombardment Group. On February 28, 1944, he was given command of the487th Bombardment Group atAlamogordo, New Mexico, which he took overseas toLavenham, England, in April.
On May 11, 1944, Lt. Col. Lay led his group toTroyes, France, on its fourth combat mission. His group encounteredheavy flak nearChâteaudun, the location of aLuftwaffe fighter airfield, and both Lay's B-24 and that of his deputy commander were shot down. Lay parachuted from his aircraft nearCoulonges-les-Sablons and was hidden by members of theFrench Resistance. As news of the Allied approach followingD-Day reached Lay, he decided to attempt to join up with the Allied advance units. Lay did this without being shot by his own side and returned successfully to England in August. Lay was prohibited from further combat because of his knowledge of underground activities. From this experience, he authored a second book, published by Harper Brothers in 1945,I've Had It: The Survival of a Bomb Group Commander, which was reissued in 1980 byDodd, Mead and Company under a new title,Presumed Dead. Lay also wrote an episode for the television seriesCombat! entitled: "The Milk Run", which appeared to be loosely based on his own experiences.
Lay returned to Hollywood after the war. He was working there in 1946 when he was approached bySy Bartlett, another Eighth Air Force veteran, to collaborate on the novel-screenplay project which becameTwelve O'Clock High, published in 1948 and released in 1949, respectively. Lay continued as acolonel in theAir Force Reserve and with fellow reservistJames Stewart approached Paramount with a concept for the filmStrategic Air Command.
Lay continued as a screenwriter for movies and television during the 1960s, while in the employ of Networks Electronics Corporation inChatsworth, California as vice president. In the mid-1960s, he was joined byGale Cleven, who joined the company as senior vice president, and a year later by General LeMay. He retired inWestwood, Los Angeles, California, where he died on May 26, 1982, ofcancer.[1]
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