His education began in Schenectady and led through Blair Academy prep school in New Jersey to graduation from St. Lawrence University.
After enlistment in January 1918, he took ground school at Cornell and was sent to Eberts Field, near the small town of Lonoke, Arkansas, for flight training.
While an Air Service squadron commander in France, Nevin had done some intelligence work due to a facility in French acquired during boyhood near the Canada–US border.
When visiting Nevin's home, Hogan and his wife were both impressed by a photograph on the wall showing three American officers striding abreast along a Paris boulevard.
With their Sam Browne belts, boots and swagger sticks, there was an essence of brotherhood and elan that was inspiring, despite the casual agent of war.
Bob Hogan's story formula was for a secret diary of never-before-revealed wartime adventures to be opened to him by a former master spy.
There would be an intimacy with high command that hinted at real events, but with the admission that literary license would be freely practiced.
Print orders eventually peaked at about 200,000 and things went very well until early 1936 when the price per issue was reduced from 15¢ to 10¢ in an effort to hold circulation.
Nick Carr in his book described him as: "Bob Hogan was tall, thin, blond, very outgoing and a voracious worker."