Colonel John M. Davies served as Commanding Officer of Scott Field, Illinois, the U.S. Army Air Forces' principal radio training school during World War II. A rated command pilot and technical observer, Davies had flown since the earliest days of American military aviation, training with Italian and British air services during World War I and serving sixteen months overseas in that conflict. In 1942 he toured the United Kingdom and Africa as senior air observer for the Command and General Staff School. This portrait appeared in a Scott Field commemorative publication documenting the base's wartime leadership and mission of training AAF radio operators and technicians. Project: 218127