 Roddenberry spent the remainder of his military career in the United States , and while he did not keep an ongoing record , he estimated that he had flown 89 combat missions . This number was disputed by the records of the Army Air Corps and other members of the 394th Bomber Squadron . For example , one pilot in the same bomb group as Roddenberry flew eighty missions , but took three times longer than Roddenberry had claimed to do so . In October , he was assigned to Fort Worth , Texas and then the 18th Replacement Wing at Salt Lake City . He was subsequently moved to the Office of Flight Safety based in Oakland , California . In February 1944 , he moved back to March Field and was promoted to Captain and subsequently flew all over the United States in his role as a plane crash investigator . During this time he was in another accident as a passenger on a military flight that crashed and caught fire . Roddenberry pulled three men to safety . During his military career , he was awarded the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross . 
