Caleb B. Laning (1906-1991)

U.S. Navy Officer, Technical Advisor, Teacher, Writer
Born March 27, 1906, Kansas City, Missouri
Died May 31, 1991, Falls Church, Virginia

Robert Heinlein's friend Cal Laning has come up more than once in this blog. You can find plenty of biographical information on him on the Internet, but it isn't all in one place. And most of what you will find is about his very illustrious naval career--or his death. There is far less on his involvement in science fiction. That information is scattered, too. I'd like to put some of it together here.

Presumably named for his paternal grandfather, Caleb Barrett Laning was born on March 27, 1906, in Kansas City, Missouri, to Levin Dirickson Laning and Jessie Inez (Butt) Laning. For those who know something about the family of John W. Campbell, Jr., there is the birth of a child named Randazzo recorded on the same page as Laning's birth. Sometimes you come upon some very strange coincidences.

Cal Laning graduated from Westport High School in Kansas City in 1924 and attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis from 1924 to 1929. One of his classmates--and his friend--was Robert A. Heinlein. Both men graduated in 1929, and both were commissioned as ensigns. Laning remained in the Navy throughout the 1930s, in fact throughout his career. Heinlein on the other hand was discharged in 1934 for ill health. Would he have become one of the great science fiction authors if it had not been for a case of tuberculosis? Although what-if questions are a staple of science fiction, they are unanswerable in real life.

In January 1932, Laning introduced his girlfriend Leslyn MacDonald to Heinlein. Heinlein proceeded to take her way and marry her. No hard feelings, I guess: Heinlein and Laning remained friends and even collaborated later in life. In fact there is a fifty-year record of their correspondence with each other. We should see those letters, but I can't say where they are or who controls them. The Heinleins, on the other hand, were married for just sixteen years, from 1932 to 1948, and a good deal of that wasn't very happy.

As a Navy man, Laning specialized in microwave radio, radar, electronics, and communications. As executive officer assigned to the destroyer USS Conyngham (DD-371), Laning was there during the attack on Pearl Harbor and helped to fight back against the Japanese. He continued in combat during World War II, participating in the battles of Midway and Leyte Gulf, as well as the campaign for New Guinea. For his actions as commander of the destroyer USS  Hutchins  (DD-476) at the Battle of Surigao Straits, he received the Navy Cross, the Navy's highest award for valor. Laning also twice received the Legion of Merit, as well as the Gold Star. He was promoted to captain late in the war and to rear admiral afterwards. His headstone refers to service in Korea, too, but I don't have anything on that. Laning's last assignment was as chief of communications for NATO forces in Southern Europe. He retired in 1959, afterwards working for Lockheed Electronics Company and System Development Corporation.

In regards to Cal Laning's involvement in science fiction and science fiction-based developments in the real world, I have three items from two sources on the Internet. First, from the French-language version of Wikipedia:

• Laning "actively campaigned for the transformation of the US Navy into a 'space navy' and, from 1945, for a first unmanned lunar mission."

• "Always passionate about science fiction, he is [sic] an active member of the Trap Door Spiders, model of Isaac Asimov's the Black Widowers."

Founded by Fletcher Pratt, the Trap Door Spiders were a writer's club active in New York City from 1944 until the 1990s. Other members included Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, George O. Smith, and Theodore Sturgeon.

Second, from the English-language version of Wikipedia:

• "Laning was involved in the development of the U.S. naval Combat Information Center (CIC) during World War II. The idea was taken 'specifically, consciously, and directly' from the spaceship Directrix in the Lensman novels of E. E. Smith, Ph.D., and influenced by the works of his friend, collaborator, and Naval Academy classmate, fellow Missourian Robert Heinlein, but for bureaucratic reasons the source of the idea was not disclosed." 

Both sources provide documentation, but I don't have access to those original sources.

Cal Laning is also in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDb) with two credits:

• "Flight into the Future," a piece of nonfiction written with Robert A. Heinlein and published in Collier's magazine for August 30, 1947.

• "System in the Sky," also with Robert A. Heinlein, a sequel to "Flight into the Future" but not put into print until 2011 in The Nonfiction of Robert Heinlein: Volume I.

I haven't read either of these articles. Judging from a letter to the editor of the Bridgewater, New Jersey, Courier-News (Sept. 3, 1947, p. 18), submitted by Herbert M. Merrill (1871-1956), I have the impression that "Flight into the Future" involves the kind of peace-from-above theme common in a certain brand of idealistic and progressive science fiction from H.G. Wells to The Day the Earth Stood Still. Here's an article implying a different angle:

(From the Marysville [Ohio] Journal-Tribune, August 22, 1947, page 1. This was actually a syndicated article that went out to newspapers all across America.)

Laning wrote on technical subjects during and after his naval career. According to an article in the Washington Post, published after his death, Laning also wrote unpublished science fiction. At his death, Laning's occupation was, again, writer.

I have one more point about "Flight into the Future," this one regarding the historical context of its publication. Laning and Heinlein's article was published at the end of August 1947. Less than three weeks later, on September 18, 1947, the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 took effect. These included the establishment of the Department of Defense, the establishment of the U.S. Air Force as a separate branch of the U.S. military, and the establishment of the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Conspiracy theorists should note that the summer during which our national security apparatus changed began on June 24, 1947, when the first flying saucers appeared in the skies over America.

Having lost his wife, with his own health in decline and not wanting to go through what she had gone through at the end, Rear Admiral Caleb B. Laning, USN (ret.) died by suicide on May 31, 1991, in Falls Church, Virginia. In doing so, he made a return to the past, for he shot himself while standing in a boat, using the same pistol his mother had used to kill herself more than seventy years before. Cal Laning was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. One final, terrible irony: his place of death is recorded as a hospital on Gallows Road.

Further Reading
"Decorated Rear Adm. Caleb B. Laning Dies" in the Washington Post, June 8, 1991.
"The Story of One Man's Decision" by Laning Pepper Thompson in the Washington Post, Aug. 20, 1991.

Collier's, August 30, 1947, with cover art by Stan Ekman (1913-1998).

Original text copyright 2022 Terence E. Hanley