Some of his more famous aviation novels include The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky, both of which were turned into Hollywood movies starring John Wayne.

[1] Some of Gann's nautical-themed novels include Fiddler's Green and Soldier of Fortune, which were also turned into major motion pictures.

[2] Rebelling against his father's strong desire that he seek a career with the telephone business, Ernest pursued several other interests as he matured.

His first job was assistant stage manager, and the minor messenger-boy role for Gilbert Miller's play Firebird starring Judith Anderson.

Gann and Eleanor moved to New York where he found work at Radio City Music Hall as a projectionist and later as a commercial movie cartoonist.

[4] While working on the documentary Inside Nazi Germany in 1936, Gann fled back to America as Hitler's troops marched into the Rhineland.

Draper and Meredith's flying interests tapered off, but Gann thrived in aviation and soon bought a Stinson Reliant which he shortly lost thereafter in a hangar fire.

Gann sold his house and airplane and relocated his family to Hollywood, California, in search for work in the film industry.

Flying The Hump at 16,000 ft through Himalayan valleys, Gann found the conditions to be, "simply and truthfully the worst weather in the world.

"[6] When Gann found down-time during these flights, he continued to write and published Island in the Sky in 1944, a novel about the search-and-rescue of a downed Air Transport Command (ATC) airplane in Labrador, Canada.

[6] Gann flew a triangle route across the Western Pacific between Honolulu, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in DC-4 aircraft.

This experience created ideas that were developed into one of his best-known works, The High and the Mighty, about a DC-4 flight from Honolulu to San Francisco.

Gann spent time collecting unemployment before landing a job with Transocean Air Lines,[8] which flew unscheduled charter flights throughout the Pacific.

[2] During his tenure with Matson, Gann moved his family to San Francisco, and tried his luck at commercial fishing during the end of his airline career.

[10] In a bid to help his son and keep the grandkids nearby, he bought Gann a cottage a mile down the road in Pebble Beach.

This cottage is where Gann's writing really took off, finishing the High and the Mighty, Fiddler's Green, Soldier of Fortune and working the associated movie deals.

Eventually, after years of planning and preparations, Gann purchased his 16th boat the Albatros (Dutch spelling with one "s"), a 117 ft (36 m) metal schooner in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

[11] Albatros had been a pilot boat in the North Sea, a radio station ship for the Germans in World War II, and finally as a Dutch cadet training vessel.

[1] Notes and short stories scribbled during long layovers on his journeys across the North Atlantic became the source for his first serious fiction novel, Island in the Sky (1944), which was inspired by an actual Arctic rescue mission.

[2] Although many of his 21 best-selling novels reveal Gann's devotion to aviation, others, including Twilight for the Gods, and Fiddler's Green display his love of the sea.

Although it received positive reviews, Gann was displeased with the movie version of Fate Is the Hunter, and removed his name from the credits.

On December 19, 1991, Gann died in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, Washington, at the age of 81 from kidney failure.

[21] Washington Governor Gary Locke posthumously awarded the Medal of Merit (the state's highest honor) to Gann on July 9, 2003.