James “Jim” Thomas Fitz-Gerald, Jr., born July 13, 1920 in South Pittsburg, was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1940. Interested in aviation since childhood, he graduated in the first class of “Wings of West Point.” Assigned in April 1944 to the Eighth Air Force in England, he was taken prisoner in August after his plane was shot down over Germany during his twenty-eighth combat mission. He was held as a POW in Stalag Luft III Prison until his liberation in April 1945. After World War II, Fitz-Gerald, a U.S. Air Force captain and decorated veteran, was assigned to jet-propelled aircraft development at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. After being transferred to California’s Muroc Air Base, he piloted Bell’s “XS-1” rocket plane to Mach 1.1 in his first attempt on February 24, 1948, becoming the second man to break the sound barrier. He died on September 20, 1948, from injuries sustained in a September 9 plane crash in Van Nuys, California, and was buried at West Point.