It all started in the fall of 1942 when Montgomery was chasing Rommel across the sands of North Africa, when U. S. Marines were getting a bloody toehold against the Japanese at Guadalcanal. Here, in America, the Army Air Forces were desperately expanding from a few thousand men to more than three million. The AAF needed the fastest, most modern, and most thorough training program ever devised. Students, bank clerks, laborers, and farmers had to be transformed almost overnight into pilots, navigators, bombardiers, gunners, and mechanics. As a major part of this mass training program, the AAF went into motion picture production. At the Hal Roach Studios a Training Film Program designed to meet the urgent need got under way. The industry's producers, directors, writers, and film technicians were brought in as soldiers and officers. And these men with backgrounds of making entertainment films quickly set out to solve the problems of their new job-to produce effective, accurate, and interesting training films. Doubting Thomases in Hollywood regarded this military film studio in their midst with raised cocktail glasses. They dubbed the installation Fort Roach, and referred to the personnel of the unit as Celluloid Commandos.