David M. Jones (December 18, 1913 – November 25, 2008) was a United States Air Force pilot who served with distinction during World War II. He was one of the Doolittle Raiders whose exploits in April 1942 were dramatized in the film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. He then flew combat missions over North Africa, where he was shot down. He was a German prisoner of war for two and a half years — helping with the escape attempt described in the book Great Escape, which was later the subject of a Hollywood film. The character Virgil Hilts, played by Steve McQueen on the 1963 film was based on Jones.
In his last assignment with the Air Force, Jones was the commander of the Air Force Eastern Test Range in Cape Kennedy, Florida as well as the Department of Defense Manager for Manned Space Flight Support Operations. He retired from the Air Force after 37 years of distinguished service.
Read more about David M. Jones: Early Years; Education, Post-World War II, Retirement; Death, Awards and Decorations, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words david and/or jones:
“The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Strange goings on! Jones did it slowly, deliberately, in the bathroom, with a knife, at midnight. What he did was butter a piece of toast. We are too familiar with the language of action to notice at first an anomaly: the ‘it’ of ‘Jones did it slowly, deliberately,...’ seems to refer to some entity, presumably an action, that is then characterized in a number of ways.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)