William Paul Fife

Colonel William Paul Fife USAF (Ret) (November 23, 1917 – October 13, 2008) was a United States Air Force officer that first proved the feasibility for U.S. Air Force Security Service airborne Communications Intelligence (COMINT) collection and Fife is considered the "Father of Airborne Intercept". Fife was a Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University.

Education Fife began his training in anatomy from the University of Washington in 1935 and had started his first year of medical school when World War II began. Fife earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of Oregon in 1956. He later completed a Ph.D. in physiology at Ohio State University in 1962.

Fife was a Certified Hyperbaric Technologist (CHT) through the National Board of Diving and Hyperbaric Medical Technology. Fife then reported to the 15th Infantry at Fort Lewis, Washington for training in Aug 1940.

Fife was then sent to North Korea where he served as USAFSS 1st RSM's liaison officer to Fifth Air Force Headquarters located in Kim Il Sung's palace and stayed until the then Capt. Fife, ordered the evacuation of USAFSS COMINT personnel as China entered the Korean War.

In 1951, Fife returned to Japan until transfer to Moscow shortly after Stalin died. Lieutenant Colonel Fife, with his wife Ann, served as Assistant Air Attaché at the U.S. Embassy with military intelligence as a Russian expert. The Air Force did not have a training program in hyperbaric medicine so Fife was trained by the Navy.

The first uses of hydrox, a gas mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is used as a breathing gas in very deep diving are usually attributed to six ocean dive trials by the Swedish engineer, Arne Zetterström in 1945. Fife later showed that hydrox would allow divers to descend and work at great depths. Fife also developed the first decompression tables for the use of the mixture.

Fife's interest in clinical hyperbaric medicine lead to several research projects to look for new indications for the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. It has been estimated that about half of the 2,000 patient treatments done by his lab were for research. migraine headache; Post-polio syndrome; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; radionecrosis; brown recluse spider bites; non-union fractures; closed head injury; Chronic Lyme disease.

HyperTrak clinical documentation software, marketed by Intellicure, Inc., was started at Texas A&M University with Dr. Fife and David Walker in 1996.

Professional societies Fife was a member of the Aerospace Medical Association, the American Physiological Society, Sigma Xi and the American Academy of Underwater Sciences. He served on the executive committee of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.

Awards Texas A&M University presented Fife with the University Outstanding Award for Teaching in 1975. The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society conveyed their Paul Bert Award for Distinguished Research to Fife in 1983 and their Oceaneering Award for Research in 1994. On his 78th birthday in 1995, Fife and a team from Diving Diseases Research Centre received "The Duke of Edinburgh's Prize of the British Sub-Aqua Club" which was presented by H.R.H. Prince Philip for their work on "Men and Women in Diving".