Not long ago, TIME made a special subscription offer to servicemen, writing them about the fabulous exploits of a mythical Captain "Hot Shot" Callahan. Captain Callahan, it seemed had everything it took to make small boys dream about their own conquest of the wild blue yonder.

"Back in the last war," said the letter, "he was the sharpest cadet ever to hit the runways at Maxwell Field. He soloed after four hours, slow-rolled after 20. By the time he reached Basic, he could do a splitS from 2,000 feet; in Advanced, he could fly instruments like a night hawk, and he'd give his instructor the jitters by touching wing tips in formation...

"The Air Forces sent him to India, where he flew a flock of missions out of a funny little strip at Ondal. He could give a Zero half a turn and still nail it in his sights. And one day he buzzed the airfield at Rangoon just to drop some comic books."

With a chest full of ribbons, the letter went on, "Hot Shot" Callahan found himself in demand as a speaker at lectures, dinners and bond rallies when he returned to the U.S. He accepted with pleasure, found the audiences were intrigued at first by his war experiences. "But after a while," the letter said, "Callahan began to notice that more & more of his dinner partners were talking to the people on their other side or across the table -- and even sometimes across his own smartly tailored jacket, as though he wasn't there. And Callahan never seemed to be able to get into the conversation because they didn't talk about flyers, but about books or business or politics or art or Russia -- or something else he knew nothing whatever about."

Eventually, on the verge of choosing a new career, Callahan picked up a battered copy of TIME at an airline terminal, the letter said. He got so interested, he bought a copy of the latest issue and read it through. Abruptly, he found himself back in the conversational swim. He found, said the letter, "that he was having a wonderful time. For he had discovered the fun of knowing and talking about the fascinating, unaeronautical world of adventure and love and villainy and achievement and tragedy and comedy and hope that is the news."

A short time after that letter went out, TIME received an answer from a real Captain Callahan--Captain James P. Callahan of the U.S. Air Force. "I don't remember giving anybody permission to capitalize on my capabilities as a flyer or my inability to know what to talk about at dinner parties . . . Your letter . . . has made my association with personnel of this squadron a standard joke.

"Undoubtedly, no malicious intent was meant by the publishers . . . However, good-humored as one can possibly be, everything has a saturation point, and mine is near at hand. It takes years to mold a good character, and usually one joke can't tear it down.

"The intent of your letter is obvious; you want new subscriptions . . . What is my intent? Enclosed, please find card and check for a year's subscription to TIME."

His letter was turned over to Bob Fisler of TIME'S circulation department, who replied: "Your letter strikes a responsive note in me because: I wrote the first letter; it's doing very well; I was Callahan. I was an Air Forces pilot in India during the last war, flying C-47s and C-46s for both the Transport and Troop Carrier Command. Of course, in writing the copy I had to inject a little more color, so I made our hero a fighter pilot and changed the name to Callahan (after all, flying those boxcars wasn't very glamorous, and there's hardly anything poetic in the name of Fisler)

"So I hope you won't think, Captain, that I have been spying on you, or that I have taken any pilot for a long ride. And if the boys in the squadron give you a hard time, just ask them, 'How many letters have you had written about you?' "

Callahan reports that the boys in the squadron have quit kidding him, that his big problem now has become to keep them from "swiping my copies of TIME."

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