Photograph of Astronaut Alan E. Shepard, Jr.

Original caption: Alan E. Shepard, Jr., a commander in the U.S. Navy, was born November 18, 1923 in East Derry, New Hampshire. Shepard attended primary school in East Derry and was graduated from Pinkerton School, East Darry, New Hampshire, in 1940. He studied one year at Admiral Farragut Academy, Toms River, New Jersey, and then entered the Naval Academy, Annapolis. He was graduated from Annapolis in 1944. He was graduated from the Naval War College, Newport, R.I. in 1958. The astronaut saw service on the destroyer COGSWELL in the Pacific during World War II. He then entered flying training at Corpus Christi, Texas and Pensacola, Fla. He also served several tours aboard aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean. Shepard went to Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Md., and served two tours in flight test there. During this service he took part in high altitude tests to obtain data on lights at different altitudes and on a variety of air masses over the North American continent. He also took part in experiments in test and development of the Navy's in-flight refueling system, carrier suitability trials of the F2H3 Banshee, and Navy trials of the first angled carrier deck. Between his flight test tours at Patuxent, Shepard was assigned to Fighter Squadron 193 at Moffett Field, California, a night fighter unit flying Banshee jets. He was Operations Officer of this squadron and made two tours with it to the Western Pacific on board the carrier ORISKANY. He has been engaged in the test of the F3H Deron, F8U Crusader, F4D Skyray and F11F Tigeront. He was project test pilot on the F3D Skylancer. The last five months at Patuxent were spent as an instructor in the Test Pilot School. After this graduation from the Naval War College, Shepard Joined the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, as aircraft readiness officer. He has 3,700 hours of flying time with 1,800 in jets.
Committee Papers