Heinlein's WWII work

[a425couple]

Heinlein's WWII work
Just in case somebody has not seen this:
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/18776/classified-project-during-wwii-involving-asimov-and-heinlein?rq=1

Two summary quotes:
'According to a couple chapters of Heinlein's book, they worked
at the Aeronautical Materials Lab at Philadelphia Naval Yard.
Their work included a "high altitude pressure suit" (an early space
suit), and a "Cold Room" -- Heinlein was also the personnel manager--'

'Basically the truth was this: Heinlein, De Camp, and Asimov were
friends and colleagues, the war meant they had to either serve the US
professionally or get drafted, and they were all educated men who could
do useful engineering work. So Heinlein worked hard to get his friends
and colleagues jobs in a stateside engineering center rather than on the
front. '

[lal_truckee]

Heinlein was disabled for enlistment, which meant he didn't have to do
anything for the war effort. However he insisted on service as his duty.
IIRC many of the others mentioned also were ineligible for enlistment
for various reasons.

Also, the military wasn't stupid; lots of educated enlisted servicemen
worked in research rather than deployment to combat.
Also again, those were the days of newly developed psychological
testing: many freshly minted ROTC Second Lieutenants were pulled from
the ranks and sent off to technical schools to learn applied research.

I see parallels to the Starship Trooper testing Juan and friends
underwent to determine assignments. I wonder if Heinlein was familiar
with the testing programs outlined above?

[Bill Williams]

On this last, if Heinlein had any kind of "personnel" responsibilities
during his time in Philadelphia, there's little doubt that he could
have been familiar with the methods used to detect and select for
young men with the potential to absorb highly technical training.
The Navy in particular had been administering such tests for
decades, emphatically so in screening enlisted men for the
Submarine Service, which was probably THE most technically
demanding field (in terms of what was expected of even the
most junior enlisted men) in the armed forces.

If Heinlein were really trying to help his fellow SF writers avoid
the risks of front-line service during the war, one has to wonder
how well he knew Cyril M. Kornbluth (for example), who had
been a member of the Futurians and had certainly known
Asimov thereby. Kornbluth served as a machine gunner in
the European Theater of Operations, and was awarded a
Bronze Star for valorous service during the Ardennes Offensive
("the Battle of the Bulge"), so he was most definitely up
front where he could've gotten killed.

It might be expected that Heinlein's motives for drawing
de Camp (an aeronautical engineer) and Asimov (a
biochemist) into work for the Navy in Philadelphia were
borne more of the fact that he knew both men quite
well, and understood that the Navy could benefit from
their talents and training in that facility. Think "networking"
in the days before the 'Net.

[Michael Black]

And didn't Cyril Kornbluth die early because of the wear put on his body
as a machine gunner? Or maybe that was someone else? So even though he
didn't die in the war, he died early because of the war.

Though, Heinlein never seemed that much into the fan aspect. He was
older, he came into science fiction almost as a writer, you don't hear
stories about him spending time with other writers to the level of the
Futurians. So I'm not sure if he even knew Cyril Kornbluth other than in
passing as WWII began.

> It might be expected that Heinlein's motives for drawing
> de Camp (an aeronautical engineer) and Asimov (a
> biochemist) into work for the Navy in Philadelphia were
> borne more of the fact that he knew both men quite
> well, and understood that the Navy could benefit from
> their talents and training in that facility. Think "networking"
> in the days before the 'Net.
>
>

I think that is the case. Both seem more into Heinlein's circle than the
Futurians.

Michael