by Phil Keith
Dr. Gros was acquainted with a very wealthy young American lawyer, Norman Prince, whose family had a large estate near Paris. Prince, as mentioned earlier, had graduated from Harvard University in 1908 and Harvard Law School in 1911, and as soon as the French went to war, he became determined to start a unit of American men to fly for France. Prince had obtained one of the very earliest American pilot’s licenses, completing his qualifications in 1911 while at Harvard Law School. Prince had the money and the ability to recruit potential pilots. Dr. Gros had the connections to the French government to make it happen.
In April 1916, the Escadrille Americaine was officially formed. This would be a unit of American pilots flying as one cohesive outfit, which was Norman Prince’s dream. The French insisted that the squadron had to be under French command and control, with French ranks, uniforms, and aircraft. The Americans didn’t mind: as long as they could be in the war, fight the Huns, and fly together as Americans, they would be happy to operate under French rules.
The Germans did mind: since America was still officially neutral, the German government protested to the US State Department. As a result, the Escadrille Americaine underwent a name change to the Lafayette Escadrille.
This new nomenclature overcame German objections, but it has caused a great deal of confusion over the years. All Americans who flew under the banner of France were part of the Lafayette Flying Corps, named, of course, for the Marquis de Lafayette, a young French aristocrat who became one of the great heroes of the American War of Independence. As nearly as can be determined with fragmented records, some 188 of the approximately 209 American pilots trained in France, by the French, flew in combat. Of these men, 63 died—55 were killed in action and eight perished in training accidents. Eleven of the Corps became “aces,” that is, pilots who shot down at least five enemy aircraft. All in all, Corps members destroyed 199 enemy planes, and earned numerous Croix de Guerres, Medailles Militaires, and Légions d’Honneur.
Many American pilots who fought in the Great War were reported as members of the Lafayette Escadrille when they were not. Only thirty-eight Americans served with the actual squadron named Lafayette Escadrille during its two-year history. All the other American pilots who were not assigned to the Lafayette Escadrille were scattered throughout other French fighter, bombing, and observation squadrons, but all were veterans of the Lafayette Flying Corps; thus, the confusion.
The new Lafayette squadron would be commanded by a Frenchman, the very capable and skilled Captain George Thenault, and he was supported by a cadre of five additional French officers. The makeup of the Americans who dominated the squadron had some interesting characteristics: twenty-eight were already serving or had served in the French forces, seven of those in the Air Service; twenty-three were from the Eastern states including nine from New York; their average age was twenty-six; eleven were the sons of millionaires; and thirty of them had attended or graduated from college, including nine from Harvard University.
The merry and ambitious band of American and French pilots who constituted the first men of the Lafayette Escadrille began their active pursuit of the enemy and glory on May 13, 1916, during the Battle of Verdun. Five days later, the squadron shot down its first enemy aircraft. The pilots of the Escadrille would go on to fly over three thousand sorties before the unit was disbanded and absorbed into the Army Air Service on February 8, 1918, as the 103rd Aero Squadron. The daring aviators would lose nine of their own killed in action while racking up forty confirmed and one hundred probable kills.
Dozens of books, several movies, and many documentaries have centered on the Lafayette Escadrille, and why not: this famed squadron produced some of the greatest aerial heroes of the war. Their names are etched in legend. Here is a partial roll call:
Norman Prince, Dr. Gros’s partner in establishing the Lafayette Escadrille, was ultimately credited with 122 combat missions and became an ace. Sadly, in bad weather, on October 12, 1916, the undercarriage of his Nieuport caught a telegraph wire as he was landing. The plane crashed on top of Prince, and he died in a French hospital three days later.
Gervais Raoul Lufbery was a French-born American who first trained as an aircraft mechanic then went into flying himself. Before he was shot down in 1918, he had chalked up seventeen confirmed kills, but his actual total was probably closer to an astonishing sixty. “Kills” were only credited when they were confirmed by another pilot or observer. Since Lufbery did much of his flying as a “lone wolf” he did not get credit for many of his combat engagements. Lufbery was already a legend in the Lafayette Escadrille when he was picked up for transfer to the American Air Service in April 1917. He was promoted to major and put in command of the fledgling 94th Aero Squadron. One of his star pupils was Captain “Eddie” Rickenbacker. Deathly afraid of dying in a flaming cockpit (which was all too common among the early pilots), Lufbery decided to jump from his burning aircraft after it was hit on May 19, 1918. He intended to fall into the river directly below his crippled plane. The fall was over 250 feet, so survival was still highly unlikely, but he missed anyway, landing on a spiked iron fence. Incidentally, early pilots did not carry parachutes, even though they were available. Using a parachute was considered an act of cowardice, at least until a wiser commanding officer finally figured out that saving a pilot via a parachute was a lot less expensive than training a new pilot to replace a dead one.
Victor Chapman was another Harvard graduate who answered the siren call to the skies. His story appeared in these pages earlier; so too the story about Kiffin Rockwell.
Among other notable Americans who flew for the American Air Service or the US Navy included:
Colonel (later Brigadier General) William “Billy” Mitchell was the first American to fly over German lines and as General John Pershing’s initial head of American air operations, he was instrumental in getting the Army Air Service up and operating in France.
Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest child of former President Theodore Roosevelt, was first assigned as a supply officer for the American Air Base at Issoudon. While working in supply, he continued his training as a pilot, something he had begun at Mineola Airfield on Long Island as a member of the 1st Reserve Aero Squadron. He completed pilot training in December 1917, and was posted next June, after advanced training, to the “Kicking Mules” of the 95th Aero Squadron. His first combat mission was on July 5, 1918. On July 10, he shot down a German fighter. Unfortunately, on July 14, Bastille Day in France, it was his turn to become the victim: Roosevelt was part of a four-plane photo recon mission when they were jumped by seven Fokkers. Roosevelt peeled away to take on the attackers, against the orders of his flight commander, who had signaled for his men to race for home. Three of the Germans surrounded Roosevelt and one of the Fokkers unleashed a burst, two slugs of which hit Roosevelt squarely in the head. He died instantly. His plane spiraled down to crash behind German lines. When the Boche figured out who the young American was—via love letters from his fiancée found in his flight suit—they respectfully buried him where he had crashed and notified the US State Department.
Quentin’s father was devastated. Already in poor health from an expedition he had taken to South America, the news of his “favorite child’s” death seemed to be a final blow for the old war horse. He, too, was dead within six months. Mineola Airfield, where Quentin had commenced his training, and also near his family’s estate in Oyster Bay, was renamed Roosevelt Field in his honor.
Edward “Eddie” Rickenbacker was a race car driver before the war and he took that “need for speed” right into the air. Posted to France as a sergeant first class and an aviation mechanic, he was soon commissioned as an engineering officer. While conducting his engineering duties he trained as a pilot in his spare time. He won his wings in June 1918. Within thirty days he was an ace—shooting down five enemy planes. By the Armistice that November he was America’s top ace, with a total of twenty-si
x confirmed kills: twenty-one aircraft and five balloons. For his wartime heroics he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross which was upgraded later, in 1930, into a Medal of Honor bestowed on him by President Herbert Hoover. He was also promoted to major, but he turned it down. Since he had completed his heroics as a captain, during the war, that’s what he preferred to remain, and for the rest of his long life, he was always “Captain Eddie.”
Frank Luke was the second-leading scorer in terms of aerial “kills” for the Americans in World War I. The amazing aspect of his record, however, was that he notched his eighteen shoot-downs in a remarkable eight-day, ten-sortie rampage in September 1918, just two months after he had finished his flight training. The twenty-one-year-old son of—somewhat ironically—German émigrés grew up among the dusty copper mines of the Southwest. This “meteor” of an aviator was dubbed the “Arizona Balloon Buster” in that fourteen of his eighteen kills were German observation balloons. Stationary airships might not seem like challenging targets until you consider that they had machine gunners aboard, and they were almost always surrounded by ground-based antiaircraft and numerous machine guns. They were difficult targets to attack and a number of pilots paid the price for underestimating their lethality. Luke was fearless—and some said reckless. He usually worked with a wingman, but his favorite partner had been shot down and lost on September 18. On September 29, Luke took off alone, going after three balloons that had been reported aloft behind enemy lines. Under a galling fire, and using acrobatic twists and turns, he managed to shoot down all three targets. Ground fire was still dogging him, however. He ducked down behind a row of hills to avoid the persistent antiaircraft gunners. There was one machine-gun nest he did not see. Because of his treetop skimming, the gunners were actually above him on the crest of a hill. The crew fired down on Luke. One bullet slammed into his right shoulder and passed completely through his body, exiting at his left hip. Somehow, Luke turned on the gunners and strafed them, destroying their position. Mortally wounded, he still managed to land his Nieuport in a nearby open field. German soldiers rushed forward to capture him, but Luke somehow struggled out of his plane and started staggering away. He did not get very far. As he stopped, turned, unholstered his pistol and fired at the soldiers (missing them all), he dropped dead.
Luke’s astonishing war record would be capped with a posthumous Medal of Honor, the first of that war granted to an aviator.
Ernest Bleckley and Harold Goettler, flying as a team, were to gain immortality for a single mission in a DH-4 DeHaviland observation plane from the 50th Aero (Observation) Squadron. On October 6, 1918, the two young lieutenants, Goettler as pilot and Bleckley as observer, finally found the correct position of the famous “Lost Battalion.” This unit, a combination of the 307th and 308th Infantry Regiments of the 77th Infantry Division, had gotten surrounded by Germans in the Ardennes Forest and had been pinned down and fending off dozens of attacks for over a week. Refusing to surrender, the brave doughboys fell one by one until the original contingent of five hundred had less than two hundred. Numerous missions had been flown to try to resupply or at least pinpoint the position of the trapped men. Goettler and Bleckley were the aviators who finally figured it out, but they had to use their aircraft as a “guinea pig” target, drawing German fire, in order to properly triangulate the lost soldiers. It worked, but at a high price. When the pair determined the right location, and turned to speed away, a German machine gun managed to place the big lumbering DeHaviland squarely in its sights. Goettler was hit in the head and killed instantly. Bleckley, seated in the rear, had no aircraft controls in his cockpit and could do nothing to steer the aircraft. Somehow, with a dead pilot at the controls, the plane flew lazily ahead, slowly losing altitude, until it floated over the American lines, where it finally crashed in a field. Bleckley was thrown from his cockpit and sustained such ghastly internal injuries that he died in an ambulance on the way to a field hospital.
Luckily, ground personnel found Bleckley’s map and chart coordinates for the Lost Battalion in his crumpled cockpit. The information was rushed to the rescue forces who immediately set out to find and relieve the trapped doughboys. The incredible bravery and determination of these two aviators would be acknowledged with Medals of Honor for each of them.
David Ingalls was the first ace in the history of the US Navy—and the only navy ace of World War I. Since the navy did not operate land bases in Europe during the war (or yet have operating aircraft carriers), pilots designated for aerial combat were “loaned” to the Royal Air Force. Ingalls, who had dropped out of Yale in 1916 to join the Naval Reserve Flying Corps, finished his pilot training in 1917 and became Naval Aviator #85. In July 1918, he was assigned to 213 Squadron of the RAF. By the end of August he had shot down two observation planes, a reconnaissance aircraft, a Fokker fighter, and a balloon, thus giving him the five kills required to reach ace status. Between World Wars I and II, Ingalls dabbled in law, politics and government, but after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he donned his US Navy uniform again. During the war he commanded the Pearl Harbor Naval Station and rose to the rank of rear admiral.
The fighter pilots3 of the Lafayette Escadrille and the Lafayette Flying Corps initially flew the Nieuport 11, a single-seat fighter. Later, in October 1916, they would transition to the larger Nieuport 17. The Nieuport 11 was nicknamed Bébé, or “Baby” in French. The aircraft was almost eight feet tall, with a wingspan of nearly twenty-five feet, and a length of nineteen feet. The entire plane weighed less than eight hundred pounds, empty, with a maximum takeoff weight of twelve hundred pounds. It was powered by a nine-cylinder, air-cooled rotary engine that could crank Bebe up to almost one hundred mph. The effective range was about two hundred miles and the plane could fly as high as fifteen thousand feet. Armament consisted of one Lewis or Hotchkiss machine gun mounted above the wing so that the bullets would not interfere with the propeller.
The Nieuport 17 was slightly longer, taller, and wider. It was a bit heavier and could carry two hundred more pounds. It was a bit faster (110 mph) and could fly higher (17,400 feet). Its main advantage, however, was its armament: early versions had a better Lewis gun, one that could be reloaded in flight more easily, and later models had a synchronized Vickers gun that could shoot in conjunction with the pilot’s line of sight and through the rotations of the prop. These were significant improvements.
Both Nieuport models were more advanced than their German competition which, early on, was the Fokker Eindecker mono-wing model. The Nieuports had better controls that gave them improved flight characteristics and maneuverability. It wouldn’t take long for the Germans to catch up, however, and even surpass the Nieuports with improved Fokkers.
The Nieuports were soon to be replaced by the SPADs, first with a VII model, then the very versatile and popular XIII. The SPADs were bigger, heavier and faster (two hundred–plus mph). They also had water-cooled engines, better maneuverability, and synchronized guns. The XIII, when it was deployed in May 1917, had twin Vickers machine guns with four hundred rounds of ammunition for each. At that moment, the allies and the French had the best fighter aircraft in the skies.
By the time Bullard got to his first squadron, the SPADs were nearly ubiquitous across the Lafayette Flying Corps, and it would be in a SPAD VII that he would at last take to the air against his enemies.
Unfortunately, he had no weapon to use against a more personal enemy. Dr. Gros made sure that Bullard’s monthly stipend for American aviation volunteers was always the last one handed out. He also later withheld from Bullard a special certificate of gratitude from the French Ministry of War presented to every American who flew for France. Whenever Bullard’s name came up for inclusion, advancement, recognition, or extra compensation, Gros shot him down. He even went so far as to petition the commanders of the French Air Service to block Bullard from serving at the front.
France was so desperate for
trained pilots in 1917 that the requests of Dr. Gros were simply ignored. On August 27, Corporal Eugene Bullard was posted to Squadron N-93, at the front. Also along for the ride, tucked safely inside Bullard’s flying tunic, was his pet capuchin monkey, Jimmy. Bullard was not exactly sure how he had come to be Jimmy’s keeper. It had something to do with a leave in Paris, a night of excessive drinking, some card playing, and some bets. He woke up the next day “master of the monkey.” The two were soon bosom companions, however, and Jimmy went on every flight as Bullard’s good luck charm.
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1 The Crisis, Foreign News, January 15, 1918. The article did not specify but should have stated Bullard was in the French Air Service, not the American Air Service.
2 James N. Hall and Charles B. Nordhoff, The Lafayette Flying Corps (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1920), vol. 2, 21.
3 American pilots who flew for France who were not fighter or pursuit pilots flew a variety of other aircraft. Some planes were strictly for bombing, or observation or scouting. Besides the Nieuport (series) and a few SPADs, perhaps the next most utilized aircraft were the two-man DeHaviland DH-4 bomber/observation planes.
8
THE GRAND SKY BALLET
A few minutes before 8:00 a.m. on September 8, 1917, Corporal Eugene Bullard climbed into the cockpit of his single-engine SPAD VII. His mechanic had the aircraft warmed up, engine idling, prop spinning. His double-barreled Vickers gun was primed and loaded. Bullard would have four hundred rounds of 7.7mm ammunition to fire at his adversaries—should he encounter any. Viel, the mechanic, was wiping down the windscreen one last time: a few tiny droplets of oil from the two hundred hp, eight-cylinder, Hispano-Suiza radial engine had flicked off and flown backward, toward the cockpit.