Homestate: Chicago

Role at OSU: Ph.D. Student

Date of Loss: 8 December 1967 (32 years old)

Cause: Plane Crash

Country of Loss: United States of America

Career:

Major Lawrence was born in Chicago, Illinois on 2 October 1935. He graduated from Englewood High School at the age of 16 in the top 10% of his class. He attended Bradley University as an Air Force ROTC Cadet where he earned his commission into the United States Air Force as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1956.

His impressive track record started early. He completed Fighter Pilot training at the age of 21 in Malden Air Force Base, Missouri. He became a married man at the age of 22, marrying Barbara Cress. When he was only 25, he completed an important Air Force assignment; teaching young pilots to fly in the T-33 for German Air Force. When he was 30 he graduated with a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from The Ohio State University. His thesis was over The Mechanism Of The Tritium Beta Ray Induced Exchange Reaction Of Deuterium With Methane and Ethane In The Gas Phase.

During his career in the Air Force, he flew over 2500 flight hours. Not only this, but he bravely flew in test aircrafts of the time, such as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and the North American X-15 rocket plane. In 1967, he was selected to be an Astronaut in the Air Force’s Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) program. He was the first black astronaut, although he unfortunately never made it to space.

On 8 December 1967, Major Lawrence was in the backseat of a F-104 instructing trainee Major Harvey Royer on the steed descent glide maneuver. The aircraft struck the ground too hard after a failed execution, requiring the pilots eject. Major Royer survived the crash, but Major Lawrence ejected sideways as the plane rolled over the runway, killing him immediately.

Major Lawrence’s name is inscribed on the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as well as remembered by Lawrence Tower at The Ohio State University.

-Dylan Van Tassell 2022