Jay Dean

The air war of 1939-1945 was a physiological war. Aviators flew unpressurized planes to altitudes of 20,000-35,000 feet or higher in order to evade enemy interceptors and anti-aircraft fire. Above 20,000 feet, aircrew performance was often impaired by anoxia, decompression sickness, hypothermia & frostbite. High-performance fighter aircraft subjected pilots to tremendous centrifugal forces (G-forces) during violent dog-fighting maneuvers that left them temporarily blinded and woozy as their hearts struggled to pump oxygenated blood to their eyes and brain. America deployed its first pressurized bomber in the spring of 1944, this however, created a new problem…explosive decompression!

Our nation’s pioneering research on the physiologic effects of high-altitude flight and explosive decompression began in 1940 and by 1945 and provided the tactical edge in the world’s first high altitude, high speed air war. The successful aeromedical research and training programs established by America’s pioneering “physiological warriors” played a major role in the allied victory in the air war. The knowledge gained and the new practices established during the war years would safely propel the U.S. aviator into the jet age and lay the scientific foundation for aerospace medicine in the post-war era.