Warren J. North was born on 28 April 1922. He entered the
University of Illinois, where he studied
mechanical engineering, and enlisted in the
Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), in 1940. Before he could graduate, he was drafted into the
US Army in 1943, given the rank of
sergeant, and sent to
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for basic training in the
United States Army Corps of Engineers, and then to
Fort Belvoir, Virginia, for its
Officer Candidate School (OCS). North was offered an opportunity to transfer to the
United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), and did so. He was commissioned as a
second lieutenant in November 1944, qualifying as a
fighter pilot at
Foster Field, in
Victoria, Texas. He was posted to
Randolph Field, Texas, as an
instructor, teaching trainee pilots to fly the
AT-6. Fighter pilots were no longer in demand by this time, so the USAAF decided to retrain him as a
bomber pilot, on the
B-17 Flying Fortress, and the
B-29 Superfortress. and took a job with the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at its
Lewis Research Laboratory in
Ohio, where he served as an aeronautical engineer and
test pilot. He was then awarded an
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics fellowship to study at
Princeton University, earning a second Master of Science degree in applied aeronautical engineering in 1957. He was Assistant Chief of the Aerodynamics Noise Branch from 1955 to 1959. The
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) absorbed NACA when it was formed in 1958, and North was selected to interview and evaluate the astronauts who became the
Mercury Seven. He was transferred to
Robert R. Gilruth's
Space Task Group at the
Langley Research Center in Virginia, and moved to the
Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in
Houston, Texas, where he was Chief of the Flight Crew Operations Division from 1962 to 1971. North participated in the selection of the
second,
third,
fourth and
fifth groups of astronauts, and oversaw the development of simulators for astronaut training. His division consisted of about three hundred people, who were divided into three groups: Simulation, Crew Integration, and Flight Planning. He was awarded the
NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1969. From 1971 to 1985, he was the Assistant Director for Space Shuttle. North retired from NASA in 1985. He built his own plane and continued to fly. His aunt, Romalda Spalding, the author of the
Spalding Method, a method of teaching children to read, asked him to establish a non-profit foundation to educate teachers in her method. This would occupy him for the next 26 years. North died on 10 April 2012. He was survived by his wife Mary, and children, James, Mary, and Susan. == Notes ==