Donn Eisele - Apollo Pilot: The Memoir of Astronaut Donn Eisele

Francis French

Donn Eisele was a curious conundrum. Voted most likely to succeed by his high school graduating class, he was seen as athletically gifted and academically very smart. Yet when interviewed during his Apollo years, his hometown colleagues said they never imagined Donn would do anything as adventurous as flying into space. He was a quiet, hard-working, well-liked guy. No one in Columbus, Ohio, seemed surprised that he had been a success in life. Nevertheless, a few had to look at old photos to confirm that they were talking about the right person. Donn Eisele didnt seem to leave a bad impressionrather, he breezed through many peoples lives without leaving much of an impression at all.

Born in 1930 in Columbus, Ohio, the son of a newspaper printer, Eisele grew up in a very close, doting family. He hadnt planned to attend the Naval Academy, but he heard that his congressman was giving appointments on a competitive basis, and it might save his parents some money if the military paid his way through college. The day of the test, Eisele later admitted, was an excuse to be out of school. He felt he had only a slim chance of winning a spot in the prestigious academy, but to his surprise found the test easy.

Eisele had always been fascinated by flying, too, but didnt think he would ever pilot an aircraft. He hadnt imagined himself in the military as a youth, and he knew that learning to fly as a civilian was very expensive. He imagined a possible career in aeronautical engineering, as he was attracted to the technical side of aviation, but instead fell into an impressive flying career almost by accident.

Donn Eiseles story was one that intrigued me when I coauthored the space history book In the Shadow of the Moon. Eiseles fellow Apollo 7 astronauts Wally Schirra and Walt Cunningham had become extremely helpful colleagues by then, and it would have been easy to write about Apollo 7 from their viewpoint. Yet both had already written books about their space careers. Eisele, having passed away so young, twenty years before my book was published, was the untold story. He was the forgotten member of the crew, obscure enough that many space buffs were unsure how to spell his first name and pronounce his last name. Other astronauts didnt talk about him much either. Yet his story turned out to be a fascinating one. I was fortunate to be able to interview Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, Walt Cunningham, and Ed Mitchellall the astronauts who trained with Eisele for space missionsalong with many of his other colleagues, and as I did, the story grew ever more fascinating.

I learned, for instance, that fellow astronaut Tom Stafford seemed to have played a major role in all of Eiseles decisions once they both graduated from the Naval Academy and joined the air force. Stafford appears to have been the one to pull Eisele into both test pilot school and the astronaut corps. Once at NASA , Eisele came under the leadership of Wally Schirra, who had commanded Staffords first spaceflight. Stafford served as backup commander for Apollo 7, and Eisele in turn served on the backup crew for Apollo 10, a flight to the moon that Stafford commanded. A person with an immense amount of respect and influence in the astronaut corps, Tom Stafford was an incredibly valuable ally for Eisele in his career leading up to Apollo 7.

Many who knew him well also recalled Eisele as somewhat forgetful and absent-minded in his personal life during his NASA training years. His wife Harriet sometimes had to run forgotten items out to him at the airstrip before he departed on another long round of testing or training elsewhere in the country. Yet with the untroubled demeanor also came an inner calm and patience that many noticed and appreciated.

An only child who lost both of his parents not long after he entered the space program, Donn was a self-admitted loner. Yet he had a goofy, lighthearted side that many recall fondly. Numerous stories from his contemporaries tell of him singing at social events, doing intentionally corny impersonations, or racing one of his children around the backyard while carrying another on his back. It seems he delighted in impersonating other entertainers when at parties, with a talent for mimicry that many enjoyed.