Roddenberry was born in El Paso, Texas, on August 19, 1921, and raised in Los Angeles. His father was a police officer; Roddenberry grew up absorbing pulp science fiction magazines and adventure fiction alongside the specific occupational culture of a police household. He graduated from Franklin High School in 1939 and studied police science at Los Angeles City College, then developed an interest in aeronautical engineering — a combination of interests that turned out to be entirely consistent with the life he would live.
He earned a pilot’s license through the Civilian Pilot Training Program and enlisted in the Army Air Forces in December 1941, three days after Pearl Harbor. By 1942 he had been commissioned as a second lieutenant and was flying B-17 bombers in the Pacific. He flew 89 combat missions, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal, and reached the rank of captain. He also survived two aircraft accidents — one on the ground in which two crew members were killed, one in flight that he survived as a passenger — that might have ended his life before any of what came later.
After the war, Roddenberry flew commercial routes for Pan American World Airways, eventually flying long-haul international routes. In 1947, he survived a crash of the Clipper Eclipse in the Syrian Desert near Aleppo. The aircraft had three engine failures on approach and crashed attempting an emergency landing. Several passengers and crew members died; Roddenberry, injured in the crash, took command of the survivors on the ground, organized rescue efforts, and was credited in some accounts with helping to save lives. The experience of surviving extreme situations — of being the person who kept others alive by staying functional under stress — appears throughout his later work in ways that are not entirely coincidental.