Austin Jernigan

Selecting the Best: World War II Army Air Forces Aviation Psychology Austin Jernigan Rev edition

Seven months before Pearl Harbor the Chief of the US Army Air Corps foresaw the need for a large air force, and approved establishment of a Psychological Research Agency to select pilots, navigators, and bombardiers. Psychologists from leading University Psychology Departments were commissioned, ordered to active duty, and began developing an aircrew classification program. On enlistment in the US Army Air Corps, the author was assigned to Psychological Research Unit #2, San Antonio, Texas, and quickly trained as a psychomotor examiner, a part of the two-day testing program to select the finest aircrew candidates. Between July 1942 and the end of World War II, 600,000 men were examined to select the best pilots, navigators and bombardiers the world had everseen. Selecting The Best gives the reader a view of tests, officers and enlisted men at two of ten examination sites and the School of Aviation Medicine, Randolph Field, Texas. After three days at PRU #2 in 1942, John Steinbeck reputedly called the program, "America's Secret Weapon." Excerpts from letters, diary, official reports, and a reminiscent symposium tell the story of how, by selecting the best, psychologists saved lives and training time, and contributed toward winning World War II.