John W. Walcott

John W. Walcott (1921 – 2003) was born in Sparta, MI and grew up in Ann Arbor, MI. He enrolled in the University of Michigan in 1939, played French horn in the Michigan Band and enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He flew 39 missions in the P-51 with the Fifteenth Air Force in the Thirty-First Fighter Group based in Italy. He received his degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1946 and married Mary Ferrell from Oak Hill, OH.

He worked at General Motors in Flint, MI then decided on a career in education earning a masters degree from the University of Michigan. He taught mathematics at Los Alamos, NM high school; was registrar at Rio Grande College in Rio Grande, OH; became a professor of mathematics at Oswego State University in Oswego, NY in 1956; received a PhD from The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH, and retired in 1985.

He enjoyed golf, hiking, woodworking and crossword puzzle design.

After retiring from SUNY Oswego, John and his wife Mary moved to Brevard, NC where they lived for nine years until relocating to Hendersonville, NC. With his 80th birthday approaching, John decided to share his WWII memories and began writing this book.