Don Flickinger

Don Davis Flickinger (26 November 1907 – 23 February 1997) was a military flight surgeon and pioneer in aerospace medicine who retired from the United States Air Force as a brigadier general.

Flickinger was born in Erie, Pennsylvania on 26 November 1907 and graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1925. He then attended Stanford University, graduating with an A.B. in 1929. Flickinger received his medical degree from the Stanford School of Medicine in 1933. He completed his medical training at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1934 and was then commissioned as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps.

After returning from the Philippines to Hawaii in November 1941, Flickinger was medical officer of the day for Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on 7 December 1941. His most famous rescue mission was widely publicized by one of the survivors of the August 1943 crash of a C-46 transport in Burma, CBS radio correspondent Eric Sevareid.

From November 1945 to December 1946, Flickinger was professor of air science and tactics at Harvard Medical School while also completing a graduate course in cardiology there. The committee provided guidance on the medical testing requirements for potential Project Mercury astronauts. Flickinger also provided guidance on the selection of Project Gemini astronauts. Some of these women were later referred to as the Mercury 13.

Flickinger died on 23 February 1997 at Georgetown University Hospital. He had a son, daughter and two grandsons from his two previous marriages, which had both ended in divorce.