David Archibald was born on March 15, 1921, in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. He enlisted in the Connecticut National Guard on February 24, 1941, and went on active duty in the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Army Air Forces in February 1942. Archibald was commissioned a 2d Lt in the U.S. Army Air Forces and awarded his pilot wings at Spence Field, Georgia, on May 28, 1943, and he deployed to England and joined the 368th Fighter Squadron of the 359th Fighter Group in August 1944, flying the P-51 Mustang. 1st Lt Archibald was credited with the destruction of 5 enemy aircraft plus 1 damaged on his final mission on December 18, 1944, and he was shot down and taken as a Prisoner of War in Germany the same day. He was held at Stalag Luft 6G in Germany until being liberated on May 11, 1945. Capt Archibald was medically retired from the U.S. Army Air Forces in August 1946, and then attended the Bentley School of Accounting and Finance in Boston, where he graduated in 1950. David Archibald Flew West on February 9, 1998, and was buried at Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, Massachusetts.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.