David James (PhB ‘49) in his Andersonville home. His wife, Mary, is pictured in the frame behind him to the left.
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In 1942, shortly after enrolling at Loyola, James joined the Army and went to Tuskegee, Alabama, to train as a pilot and a member
of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military aviators in a racially segregated military. James learned to fly at Moton Field in a Boeing Stearman, a biplane with an open cockpit and virtually no instru- ments, save an altimeter, a tachometer, and a magnetic compass. “Flying was very primitive in those days,” James says. “I often say that
the first automobile I drove didn’t have a self-starter, and neither did the first airplane I flew.” Primary training lasted six weeks, after which James graduated to a
more advanced plane with an enclosed cockpit, a radio, stabilizers, an artificial horizon, and a gyroscopic compass. “It was a big leap,” James says. “You have to learn lessons in hu-
mility—your senses aren’t reliable, so you learn to depend on your instruments.”
In the final stages of training, James and his class learned firsthand
about the importance of oxygen. “The airfield had an oxygen chamber—huge, maybe five stories—
that simulated altitudes from sea level to 30,000 feet,” James says. “To impress upon us that you need oxygen, they put us in this enclosed chamber and the guy conducting the experiment said, ‘Half of you go up with oxygen masks, and half without.’ I volunteered to go without. I thought, ‘I can handle anything.’ We watched those guys putting on their masks, and we started making fun of them, laughing, saying they looked funny. Then we started going up. At 5,000 feet, we felt good. At 10,000 feet, we felt great. I kept thinking, ‘Higher, higher!’ The next thing I knew, I woke up and the guys with the masks were laughing at us. We had all passed out.” The experience stuck with James for the rest of his life. “The only
thing that I guess I have a fear of is not having enough oxygen,” he says. “I can be in a situation, and I know it’s totally psychological, but I think, ‘I wish I had a mask.’ I know what oxygen can do.”
14
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
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