Current data for Contributor
Smither, James (Interviewer)
Current data for Description
Stanley Erickson was born in Harris, Minnesota in 1919 and after high school worked his way through college as a painter in Chicago. Erickson was drafted into active duty in 1943 and went to Boca Raton, Florida for basic training and then went to a tech school in New Haven, Connecticut, where he trained to be an aircraft mechanic and was commissioned to be a flight engineering officer. After tech school, Erickson went to the Boeing School in Seattle where he learned to work on B-29s before briefly being sent to Kansas to continue his training. In 1945 Erickson left for Saipan, Japan and flew 35 missions while he was there, lasting until the end of the war. After the war Erickson joined the International Guard and served in France for a year before returning to Chicago to attend Northwestern and study and work in automatic control.
