Allan T. Stein idolized his uncle, a pilot in the Great War. So in 
1943, in the midst of the Second World War, he left Texas A&M 
University for Lackland Air Field to learn to fly. By the time he retired 
as a lieutenant colonel in 1969, Stein had flown everything from 
BT-13s and B-24s to B-52s and C-47s. During World War II, he flew 
missions over China and the Sea of Japan, and by V-J Day, he had 
participated in eight campaigns and logged 347 hours in combat. 
Stein later spent one year in Vietnam as operations officer for the 
360 TEWS (Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron), which used 
refitted C-47s to monitor and locate Vietcong units. He ended his 
career as inspector general of the Civil Air Patrol.

    Stein remembers drinking 10-cent beers in San Antonio and 
running an AT-17 into a dry lake bed outside Lubbock. He recalls a 
B-25 crashing into a stockade and a mission over the Atlantic that 
almost ended tragically due to bad weather and because his flight of 
B-47s could not refuel properly. During the 1940s, money was always 
short and the future uncertain, so he and his wife lived cheaply in 
cramped apartments and converted garages. Yet he recalls that the 
camaraderie among air force personnel and their families made those 
the best years of their lives.

    Stein considers himself to have been an ordinary airman, not a 
hero. But he was also a seasoned pilot and a conscientious officer 
with a strong sense of right and wrong. After a pilot he had trained 
and certified died in an accident, Stein made it a practice to fail all 
but the best candidates. He was just as disgusted with the 
corruption he encountered in the Civil Air Patrol as he was with the 
tendentious reporters he met in Saigon's Hotel Caravelle.

    Although he met his share of cowards and scoundrels, Stein loved 
to fly and he loved the air force. He was the sort of officer his 
superiors trusted not to make mistakes, but he was not the sort to 
rise to high rank. What he offers here is an account of a typical 
career as an air force officer, complete with its frustrations, moral 
dilemmas, and the occasional harrowing experience.

_________________________________________________________

Now retired, ALLAN T. STEIN lives in Katy, Texas.


Number Thirteen: Centennial of Flight Series


What people are saying about this book

"Stein flew from victory in World War II through the stagnation in the 
American military that followed; through the rise of the Cold War and 
the coming of Strategic Air Command, a jet-powered, nuclear-armed 
air force of incredible power; and into the jungles of Vietnam, where 
he commanded a highly-classified reconnaissance unit of antique 
C-47s. . . . His experiences are varied and many, and his 
descriptions of them are vivid and exciting."—Roger G. Miller,
author of To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift, 1948–1949