World War II Chronicle: March 26, 1942
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On page three: Charles Lindbergh has taken a job offered working at Ford’s new Willow Run plant working with aircraft, a boxing promoter is trying to set up a fight between Sugar Ray Robinson and welterweight champion Freddie “Red” Cochrane (who is serving in the Navy), Former Notre Dame “Four Horseman” Jimmy Crowley is now in the Navy and will put together a Navy squad to play against his old Fordham team… War Department communique no. 162 on page four…
George Fielding Eliot column on page 13… Sports section begins on page 19, which features a funny anecdote about future Hall-of-Famer Ralph Kiner who is just a Pittsburgh Pirates minor league pitching prospect at this point in his career. Kiner will join the Navy and fly antisubmarine patrols as a PBM Mariner pilot in the Pacific.
Where are the Mercury astronauts?
Out of curiosity, I took a look to see what the seven men selected to be America’s first astronauts were up to 80 years ago. Alan Shepard graduated high school in 1940 and scored high enough that he qualified for an appointment at the U.S. Naval Academy. Being just 16 years old (Shepard was intelligent enough that he was able to skip two grades) he would have to spend a year in prep school at Admiral Farragut Academy before he could become a midshipman. He “graduated” from Farragut in 1941 and by March 1942 is a plebe at Annapolis.
Gus Grissom is a sophomore at Mitchell (Ind.) High School. He joined the aviation cadet program while a senior in high school but spends the war working as a Army Air Force clerk. He doesn’t become a pilot until March 1951.
Gordon Cooper is also a sophomore at Shawnee (Okla.) High School, where he runs track and plays football. Cooper had been flying from a young age and earned his pilot’s license at 16.
Wally Schirra was a student at Newark College of Engineering (now the New Jersey Institute of Technology) where he was part of the Reserve Officers Training Corps, but applied for the Naval Academy after the Pear Harbor attacks. His father Walter Sr. flew bombing missions over Germany with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the first world war and later was a barnstorming pilot who performed with his wing-walking wife.
Deke Slayton is currently in Texas training to become an Army Air Force pilot. He graduates in April 1943 and will fly the B-25 Mitchell. Slayton flew 56 combat missions out of bases in Italy before returning to the States to become an instructor pilot. However he applies to become an A-26 Invader pilot and transfers to the Pacific Theater where he flies seven missions over Japan before the war ends.
John Glenn was a student and football player at Muskingum College in Ohio, but withdrew to enlist in the Navy’s aviation cadet program. In March 1942 he had just started classes at Iowa Pre-Flight on the campus of the University of Iowa. During primary training he transfers to the Marine Corps and graduates in March 1943 as a second lieutenant. Read more about John Glenn here and here.
Scott Carpenter is currently a junior at Boulder (Colo.) High School. He joins the V-12 aviation cadet program but the war ends before he finishes his training. Carpenter returns to the Navy and earns his Wings of Gold in 1951.
Schirra, Cooper, Grissom, Carpenter, and Shepard were all Boy Scouts.
Shepard’s father, Alan Sr., was part of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) and returned to service for the second world war, ultimately reaching lieutenant colonel. Cooper’s father Leroy Sr. served in the Navy during World War I and became a pilot in the Oklahoma National Guard afterwards despite not having any formal flight training. He dropped out of school to enlist in the Navy, but returned after the war and later became a lawyer. He served in the Judge Advocate General Corps in the Pacific, then transferred to the Air Force in 1947. Glenn’s father also served in the AEF.
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 26 March 1942. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1942-03-26/ed-1/