James A. McDivitt oral history (Doug Ward)

Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt
29 June 1999 12-2
my last one 2 hours after the armistice was signed—with a lot of trepidation. Nobody wants
to get shot down after the war is over! But anyway, I did it. They allowed us to—they were
very generous. They allowed us to fight for another 12 hours. So anyway, when that was
over I came back and I was in a fighter squadron in Maine, then another one in New Jersey,
and then I went back to school at the University of Michigan.
WARD: To what I think would be a stellar academic career. As I recall, you graduated top of
your class.
MCDIVITT: Yes.
WARD: One would get the impression that perhaps the military experience really gave you
that sense of purpose.
MCDIVITT: Well, it focused me a lot more. I think probably the thing that really focused me
was when I was going through pilot training. If you were an aviation cadet that came into the
program as a civilian, if you washed out of flying school you went back to being a civilian.
Because the Korean War was on, there were a lot of people trying to join the Air Force and
get into pilot training. And in a class—entry time from when you applied to when you got
into a class, sort of—you had to stretch out. And my deferment from the draft was fixed, and
the class I was going to get into stretched out past that time. So, I was notified by the Air
Force I had a choice of either letting that deferment expire and taking my chances on whether
the Army would call me before the Air Force did or joining the Air Force as a private. But I
elected to do that. And then now I was already in the military, and if I washed out of pilot
training I went back to being a private or an enlisted man for four years. And four years to