John “Jack” Swigert Jr. was born in Denver, Colorado on August 30, 1931. He is the subject of one of the two statues representing Colorado in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol.
Young Jack was fascinated by the planes he watched take off from Combs Field, a small airfield near his home. Not satisfied with just watching the planes, he took on a newspaper route to earn money for flying lessons! By age 16 he was a licensed private pilot.
In 1953, Jack graduated from the University of Colorado with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. He later earned a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering, however in 1953, Jack joined the U.S. Air Force.
After graduating the U.S. Air Force Pilot Training Program he was assigned as a fighter pilot in Japan and Korea. Upon completion of his tour of active duty in the Air Force, he served as a jet fighter pilot with the Massachusetts and Connecticut Air National Guard. Then Swigert went on to a position as an engineering test pilot for North American Aviation before applying to NASA.
In April, 1966 Jack Swigert was accepted into the NASA Astronaut Corps and became a specialist on the Apollo command module, becoming a member of the first support crew for an Apollo mission (Apollo 7).
Later, in 1970, three days before launch, Swigert, who was originally part of the backup crew for Apollo 13, received a call to replace Thomas Mattingly, a command module pilot who had fallen ill.
Swigert was one of three astronauts aboard the Apollo 13 moon mission, which was launched on April 11, 1970. It was the third lunar landing attempt. The mission was aborted after the rupture of an oxygen tank on the spacecraft’s service module. Swigert and fellow astronauts James A. Lovell Jr., and Fred W. Haise Jr., returned safely to earth on April 17 after approximately 5 days and 23 hours in space.
A few years after the Apollo 13 mission, Jack Swigert became interested in politics. He took a leave of absence from NASA and ran for the U.S. Senate. He was unsuccessful, but later campaigned for the House of Representatives to represent Colorado’s newly created 6th district. Sadly, during this campaign, Swigert was diagnosed with cancer. In 1982 Jack Swigert won the election to represent Colorado’s 6th district in Congress, but died a week before being sworn in.
In 1995, Swigert was portrayed by Kevin Bacon in Ron Howard’s film Apollo 13. In 1997, a statue of Swigert in astronaut attire, made by George and Mark Lundeen, was placed on display in the U.S. Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection.
Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute visit The Table of Contents and the Facebook Page. (I’ll be adding to the Substack Table of Contents as I transfer the Blog Posts. Please subscribe to this Substack 😊🇺🇸🤓)