Oral History Interview with Jim Davenport, October 14, 2011 Page: 21
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Oral History Interview with Jim Davenport, October 14, 2011 (Sound)
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Jim Davenport. Davenport was born 3 March 1925 in San Antonio, Texas. Graduating from high school in 1942, he joined the US Army Air Forces in September 1943 and received his basic training at Amarillo, Texas. After basic training he was sent to Iowa State Teacher College for three months to improve his skills in mathematics and sciences in preparation for entry into the Cadet program. Upon completion of pre-flight training at Santa Anna, California he elected to enter navigator school at Ellington Field in Baytown, Texas. Upon graduation he was sent to Lincoln, Nebraska and assigned to a B-24 crew as navigator. Davenport went to Mountain Home, Idaho for crew training and described observing a devastating crash of a B-24. Soon thereafter, he volunteered for an experimental pilot’s class and was selected to be sent to Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas for fighter plane training and advanced P-51 training at Williams Field, Arizona. Upon completion of P-51 training he was assigned to the 307th Fighter Squadron stationed at Turner Field, Albany, Georgia. He describes in detail a near fatal incident which occurred while practicing aerobatics. He also tells of flying 133 missions in an F-80 jet fighter over Korea after the outbreak of the Korean War and returning to the United States in 1951.
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Oral History Interview with Jim Davenport, October 14, 2011, text, October 14, 2011; Fredericksburg, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1606059/m1/22/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.