 Once a civilian , he began to fly long @-@ haul routes for Pan American World Airways . He was involved in a further crash in June 1947 , where the Clipper Eclipse crashed in the Syrian desert . After pulling injured passengers out of the burning plane , he led the party which sought help . After a further incident , he resigned from Pan @-@ Am , seeking to write for television instead . However , he joined the Los Angeles Police Department , initially in the traffic division but transferred to the newspaper unit where he worked with Chief William H. Parker as a speech writer . He landed the role of technical adviser for a television version of Mr. District Attorney , which led to him writing scripts for the series under the pseudonym of " Robert Wesley " . This led to a series of collaborations with Ziv Television Programs , and he resigned from the police on June 7 , 1956 , in order to take up a writing position on the staff of The West Point Story . 
