William Gaines - Army Years

Army Years

As World War II began, Bill Gaines was rejected by the United States Army, United States Coast Guard and United States Navy, so he went to his draft board and requested to be drafted. He trained as an Army Air Corps photographer at Lowry Field in Denver. However, when he was assigned to an Oklahoma City field which did not have a photographic facility, he wound up on permanent KP duty. As he explained in 1976 to Bill Craig of Stars and Stripes, "Being an eater, this assignment was a real pleasure for me. There were four of us, and we always found all the choice bits the cooks had hidden away. We'd be frying up filet mignon and ham steaks every night. The hours were great, too. I think it was eight hours on and 40 off."

Gaines was stationed at DeRidder Army Airfield in Louisiana, at Marshall Field in Kansas, and then at Governors Island, New York. Leaving the service in 1946, he returned home to complete his chemistry studies at Brooklyn Polytech, but soon transferred to New York University, intent on obtaining a teaching certificate. In 1947, he was in his senior year at NYU when his father was killed in a motorboat accident on Lake Placid. Instead of becoming a chemistry teacher, Bill Gaines took over the family business, EC Comics.