training at Williams Air Force Base in Chandler, Arizona. The group commander was known to be tough on his students, and Givens chose this location so he could be formed into a great fighter pilot. He started flying the T-28 Trojan at his new assignment, and learned fighter tactics, formation flying, and some aerobatics. Starting on June 3, he flew the two-seater T-33. On October 2, he moved from Chandler to Perrin Air Force Base, in Sherman, Texas, where he continued flying the T-33. In addition to training with the T-33, he began flying the F-86D, an all-weather, single-seat fighter jet with an all-rocket armament, and achieved supersonic speed for the first time while flying it. In 1954, he was promoted to first lieutenant, and was assigned duty in Japan as a flight commander and fighter pilot with the 35th Fighter-Interceptor Group until 1956. He served as an instructor at the Air Force Interceptor Weapons School from January 1956 to March 1958 and then attended the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California as a captain. Graduating as an outstanding graduate (Class 58B), he became an instructor in the Stability and Control Section. His next assignment took him to the Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California, where he was a project pilot with Air Development Squadron 4. While there, he not only conducted operational evaluations, but was responsible for compiling and developing the operation procedures and tactics for fleet operation of the F8U-2N—a single-engine, supersonic, carrier-based jet aircraft. He served as Assistant to the Commandant at the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School from November 1961 to September 1962 and then attended the Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class III), from which he graduated in 1963. When informed of his selection for astronaut training in 1966, he was assigned as Project Officer with USAF SSD Detachment 2 at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. He logged more than 3,500 hours flight time; 2,800 hours in jet aircraft. NASA career Givens was a Project Mercury finalist in 1959, and was one of nineteen astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966 for its fifth astronaut group. After completing basic astronaut training, he was assigned to the Apollo program, and briefly served on the support crew for the first crewed mission, Apollo 1, and then, after the fire, of Apollo 7. Death On June 6, 1967, Givens was