The Lafayette Escadrille: A Photo History of the First American Fighter Squadron

by Ruffin, Steven

  Eventually, Parsons wisely decided that working for Villa—who was by now planning raids into US territory—might not provide the kind of future he sought. Consequently, he made his way back home to Massachusetts but did not remain there for long. When he learned of an American flying squadron forming in France, he signed on as a veterinarian’s assistant on the RMS Carpathia and waded his way to France in the manure of 2,200 horses. Upon arrival, he drove an ambulance until entering into the Aéronautique Militaire. He reported to the Lafayette Escadrille on January 25, 1917. The dashing Parsons was destined to become one of the squadron’s most colorful and successful members.

  * * *

  A planned new spring offensive was the impetus for the Groupe de Combat 13 move from Cachy to Ravenel. French Général Robert Nivelle, of Verdun fame, hoped to inflict a fatal blow to the German army that would end the war. Until it came about, the pilots at Ravenel were instructed to remain incognito and refrain from crossing the lines.

  The pain of this restrictive order was compounded by the abysmal living conditions at Ravenel. In spite of the men’s high hopes, their new accommodations were even worse than at Cachy. Moreover, the foulest weather of this exceptionally bitter winter—which James McConnell called “the coldest since 1870”—was still to come. No barracks existed, and until they could be built, the men were forced to live underground “like moles,” as Parsons phrased it, sleeping bundled up in their flight suits on dirt floors in a covered trench. It was so miserably cold that the oil in their aircraft engines congealed, their dampened hair froze into icicles before they could put a comb to it, and they suffered painful frostbite to fingers, toes, ears, and faces.

  The American pilots did manage to become airborne on the few days in February that were fit for flying, but in keeping with their orders to lie low and fly only defensive patrols, they engaged little enemy opposition. They made good use of the down time, however, by once again getting their unfinished barracks in livable condition.

  During this gloomy February, two members of the squadron managed to escape the misery—but neither by his own choice. Didier Masson was hospitalized with influenza. After he recovered, he was ordered to the flight training complex at Avord. Here, he served as an instructor until mid-June, before finally being allowed to return to the squadron.

  Also leaving was Frederick Prince, who had joined the squadron back in October with the best of intentions. However, the unwanted intervention of his domineering father—who understandably refused to risk losing his only remaining son in combat—forced Fred to leave the squadron without flying a single combat mission. He continued to serve in various French and American noncombat roles until the end of the war but never forgave his father for ending his combat career.

  The Lafayette Escadrille had been in existence for several months but had never reached full operating strength. Wartime attrition throughout the French Air Service had been claiming pilots as fast as the schools could turn them out, so N.124 was only one of many squadrons with a manning shortage. By late 1916, however, this was changing. The rapidly expanding French training program was producing more new pilots than ever, so a steady stream of replacements began flowing to the front. Haviland, Prince, Soubiran, Hoskier, Genet, and Parsons had already arrived and more were on the way.

  22. CAPORAL STEPHEN SOHIER BIGELOW reported to Ravenel on February 8, 1917, and flew his first combat patrol that same afternoon. He was born on March 18, 1894, in Boston, Massachusetts, to affluent parents, Joseph and Mary Bigelow. After graduating from Harvard in 1915, he attended the famous military training camp for civilians at Plattsburg, New York. When he heard of the new all-American flying squadron being formed, he sailed for France and entered into aviation training. His greatest attribute was that of a skilled pianist. In addition to flying patrols, he would keep the squadron entertained through some of its toughest months.

  23. CAPORAL EDWARD FOOTE “POP” HINKLE was the oldest man to serve in the Lafayette Escadrille. He was born on May 22, 1876, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to William and Lucile Hinkle. After graduating from Andover Academy, followed by Yale and Cambridge Universities, he studied architecture and design in Paris at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. He practiced his profession in the United States until 1910, when he migrated back to Paris. When the war began, he volunteered for the air service but was rejected as being too old. In mid-1916 he finally succeeded in circumventing the age restriction and entered into flight training. On March 1, 1917, at the ripe old age of 40, Hinkle joined the Lafayette Escadrille at Ravenel.

  24. CAPORAL WALTER LOVELL was born September 9, 1884, in Newton, Massachusetts, to Wallace and Josephine Lovell. The 1907 Harvard grad worked as a broker until 1914, when he joined the many other young Americans traveling to France to serve in the ambulance service. During his 16 months, he rose to the position of assistant section leader and earned the Croix de Guerre with star. In May 1916, he volunteered for aviation training and was formally assigned to the Lafayette Escadrille on March 1, 1917.

  25. CAPORAL HAROLD BUCKLEY WILLIS was born in Boston on February 9, 1890, to John and Myrta Willis. Like eight previous other pilots belonging to the squadron, he was a Harvard man, graduating in 1912 with a degree in architecture. At the war’s outset, he traveled to France to join the American Ambulance Field Service. Here, he earned the Croix de Guerre with star before giving up his noncombatant role and joining the air service. He reported to the Lafayette Escadrille with Lovell and Hinkle on March 1, 1917. He quickly became a valuable and reliable pilot and—like Bigelow—could, as Edwin Parsons put it, “make a piano do cartwheels and backflips.”

  Another member of the Lafayette Escadrille’s “Harvard Club” was Walter Lovell, of Newton, Massachusetts—he was an ‘07 grad and classmate of Elliot Cowdin. Lovell joined the squadron on March 1, 1917, at the age of 32 and excelled as a combat pilot, just as he had as an ambulance driver. Here, he stands next to his Spad VII fighter, which is undergoing maintenance. The diagonal stripe was his personal marking. (Washington and Lee University Archives)

  One of the most important contributions the artistically talented architects Willis and Hinkle made to the squadron was their re-design of its trademark insignia. Hinkle noted that the Seminole Indian head copied from the ammunition case “looked like an old woman with a drooping bonnet….” Consequently, he and Willis teamed up to design a more ferocious-looking Sioux warrior that would also better display the French and American national colors of red, white, and blue. The men of the squadron enthusiastically adopted the new design, which would become the definitive insignia used by the Lafayette Escadrille.

  On March 16, 1917, the squadron acquired yet another new member—though not a pilot. William Thaw went to Paris to pick up a new Spad, so he decided to take lion cub Whiskey along with him. Whiskey’s blind right eye had taken on an unaesthetic, clouded-over appearance, and Thaw wanted to get the cub a new glass eye. Unfortunately, no eye doctor was apparently willing to risk such a procedure on a half-grown lion cub, so Thaw did the next best thing: he somehow acquired a little female lion cub as a companion for Whiskey and shipped the two animals back to Ravenel. It did not take the men long to come up with a name for the new mascot: the Lafayette Escadrille now had “Soda” to go with its Whiskey.

  Harold Buckley Willis poses beside Nieuport 17 N.2551 with the original Seminole Indianhead insignia. Willis joined the Lafayette Escadrille on March 1, 1917, with Walter Lovell and Edward Hinkle. The 27-year-old Harvard-trained architect started his wartime career—like many of his colleagues—as an ambulance driver, before transferring into aviation. He and fellow artist Hinkle wasted no time in upgrading the squadron insignia to a more fierce-looking and colorful Sioux Indianhead. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

  The men of the Lafayette Escadrille continued to battle the elements at Ravenel. The changing weather of approaching spring transformed the field from a frozen, rutted wasteland that burst tires upon landing to a melted quagmire of gumbo, so
soft and gooey that men and planes, alike, mired to a standstill in it. Meanwhile, new pilots continued to stream into the squadron.

  26. CAPORAL KENNETH ARCHIBALD MARR was born on June 10, 1885, in Oakland, California, to Archibald and Alberta Marr. Soon after the war began, Marr was on his way from Alaska to France, delivering 300 Alaskan malamute sled dogs to the French army for use in the Vosges Mountains. This task completed, he decided to stay and see the war. He joined the ambulance service and served in the same section as future squadron mates McConnell, Lovell, and Haviland. He later followed their lead into aviation, and on March 29, 1917, into the Lafayette Escadrille. Because of Marr’s experience with Alaskan natives, his fellow pilots called him “Siwash”—a nickname he kept for the rest of his life.

  27. SERGENT WILLIAM EDWARD DUGAN JR. was born on Long Island, New York, on December 1, 1889, to William and Sally Dugan. After dropping out of MIT, young Dugan caught a tramp steamer to Nicaragua, where he signed on with a fruit company, overseeing a Costa Rican banana plantation. When war clouds formed over Europe, he sailed for France to be a part of the “great adventure.” On September 19, 1914, he joined the Foreign Legion and, for the next horrendous year and a half, fought nearly nonstop in all the major battles on the Western Front. In so doing, he served with fellow future Escadrille N.124 members, Thaw, Rockwell, Chapman, Hall, Genet, Pavelka, and Soubiran. Dugan’s hellish ground war finally ended when a wound landed him in the hospital. While there, Dr. Edmund Gros personally intervened to have him transferred into the air service. He reported to the Lafayette Escadrille on March 30, 1917. Having already more than proven his mettle under fire, the diminutive Dugan accorded himself well in the skies above France.

  Whiskey, with his clouded-over blind right eye and his new little mate, Soda. Whiskey was friendly and playful, and according to Edmond Genet, “just loves to be rolled on his back and tickled.” Soda, on the other hand, was “rather snappy” and proved to have a less amicable temperament. (Washington and Lee University Archives)

  28. CAPORAL THOMAS MOSES “JERRY” HEWITT JR. was born on December 21, 1894, in Westchester, New York, to Thomas and Sarah Hewitt. In December 1915, he worked his way to England on a tramp steamer and tried to enlist in both the Royal Flying Corps and Naval Air Service but was rejected because of citizenship issues. He then crossed the Channel to France and signed on with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps, where he served until entering into aviation training. Hewitt had established a good training record, so Capitaine Thénault chose him—along with Marr and Dugan—for his squadron. Hewitt reported on March 30, 1917, but unlike the other two men, failed to live up to expectations.

  The Death of James McConnell

  As the bleak winter weather in Northern France began to improve in March 1917, Général Nivelle finalized preparations for his upcoming April offensive. The operation, which would become known as the Second Battle of the Aisne, was destined to fail—though not for lack of effort by the pilots of Groupe de Combat 13. The assault was to be launched along a front extending from Soissons to Reims, toward the German-held Chemin des Dames ridge. However, in spite of precautions to the contrary, the upcoming offensive had become one of the war’s best-known secrets. Consequently, the Germans had already begun a strategic withdrawal northeastward to their highly fortified defensive position, the Hindenburg Line.

  This rapid enemy movement made accurate and timely aerial reconnaissance critical, so the men of the Lafayette Escadrille finally had a job to do. Not only were they tasked with harassing enemy troops on the ground and providing protection for reconnaissance aircraft, they were ordered to observe and report enemy movements. During the month of March, the squadron logbook—the Journal des Marches et Opérations—indicates that they flew approximately 160 sorties. As they began to rack up flight hours, encounters with enemy ground fire and aircraft also increased.

  Monday, March 19, 1917, dawned cool, cloudy, and windy—but suitable enough for flying. With 17 sorties in the making, it would be the Lafayette Escadrille’s busiest day of the month. Included in the day’s itinerary was a three-plane reconnaissance patrol assigned to James McConnell, Edmond Genet, and Ted Parsons. Soon after taking off from the aerodrome at Ravenel just before 9 a.m., Parsons dropped out of the formation with a dud engine and returned to the airfield. McConnell and Genet continued on toward enemy territory, which at that time was some 30 miles to the northeast. As they crossed the lines, they encountered two enemy aircraft. During the ensuing melee, the two men became separated, each involved with his own adversary.

  The 28th member of the Lafayette Escadrille, Thomas Hewitt Jr., could fly and he looked sharp in his crisp new uniform. Unfortunately, he lacked the “right stuff” to become a successful fighter pilot. Early missions unnerved him to the point where he became overly reluctant to fly. He served without distinction, earning from Ted Parsons the disparaging nickname “Useless,” before Capitaine Thénault finally removed him from the squadron roster. His life after the war continued in a tragic downhill spiral. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

  Genet squared off with an aggressive two-seater and exchanged machine gun fire with the enemy gunner until the two nearly collided. Both scored hits, but Genet received the worst of it. Bullets severed one of his control rods and a main upper wing support, while a metal fragment flew into his left cheek, cutting a deep gouge in it. With a severely shot-up airplane and a bleeding face, he finally managed to escape back to friendly territory. In spite of the damage and painful wound, he circled over Ham for 15 minutes, waiting worriedly for Mac to join back up with him. As he circled, he tried to stem the flow of blood and prayed that his weakened top wing would not go sailing off into the slipstream. When Mac failed to show, Genet reluctantly turned and limped his way back to Ravenel, where he landed and relayed the disturbing news to his squadron mates. Two hours later, Lieutenant de Laage and Raoul Lufbery took off and patrolled the area where Genet had last seen Mac, looking—unsuccessfully—for any trace of him. Meanwhile, the men back at the aerodrome waited anxiously, watching and listening for any indication of their friend’s return, but it never came. Where he had gone, no one knew, but they braced for the worst.

  Not until four days later, March 23, did the truth become known. That evening Groupe Commandant Féquant received a call from a French cavalry commander, whose unit had been operating in an area recently vacated by the Germans. A local woman had led them to the smashed wreckage of a Nieuport, serial number N.2055, and a bullet-ridden body lying beside a road, near the village of Petit-Détroit, a mile south of Flavy-le-Martel. The body had been stripped of everything—personal effects, papers, even outer clothing and shoes—but there was no doubt as to the dead pilot’s identity: it was McConnell.

  According to the woman, he had been bounced from behind as he dove toward his intended quarry. Why this experienced pilot allowed himself to be surprised in this manner will never be known. It could have been carelessness, but another reason is more likely. He was still disabled with his injured back when he took off on his last mission. Only six days before his death, he had written in a letter to Paul Rockwell, “I’m worse off than when I went to Hospital and feel damned discouraged. Don’t know what to do about it. Seems hopeless.” Because of his severely restricted mobility, he was probably unable to turn and look behind him as his killer, Leutnant Heinrich Kämmerer of Jasta 20, approached. McConnell’s plane was seen diving straight down into an apple orchard that had been recently destroyed by the retreating Germans.

  Some of the men of the Lafayette Escadrille remembered back to the Christmas evening dinner at Cachy, when McConnell had suddenly looked around and exclaimed, “My God! Thirteen of us here. That’s sure death. Wonder who’ll be the next to get it?” Perhaps he had a premonition, much like the one Kiffin Rockwell had the night before he died when he gave Paul Pavelka his burial instructions. Presentiment or not, McConnell had answered his own question. The squadron had lost the fourth of its seven founding members: C
hapman, Rockwell, Prince, and now Mac. The only original member now still with the squadron was the ever-resilient Bill Thaw.

  McConnell was buried without ceremony where he fell, in a coffin made from the door of a nearby pillaged house. It was as he had requested in a letter he left for his comrades. Written with his typically sarcastic wit, the letter ended:

  My burial is of no import. Make it as easy as possible for yourselves. I have no religion and do not care for any service. If the omission would embarrass you, I presume I could stand the performance. Good luck to the rest of you. God damn Germany and vive la France.

  On April 2, 1917, a memorial service was held for McConnell at the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, also called the American Cathedral in Paris. It was well-attended by fellow pilots, ambulance service members, friends, and at least three women who believed they had been engaged to the handsome flier. In 1928, his remains were transferred from his wartime grave at Petit-Détroit to the crypt at the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial, where they rest today.

  Edmond Genet was devastated. Still barely 20 years old and already suffering the guilt from his Navy desertion and grief for his lost love, he blamed himself for McConnell’s death. He wrote his mother on the day after Mac went missing, “I’ll avenge him if it costs me my own life.” The next day, Genet wrote to McConnell’s good friend, Paul Rockwell, that he felt “utterly miserable over the whole affair,” and in his diary, he wrote, “I feel horribly depressed over it. If I had only been able to get to him and save him from his fate! … I’m out after blood now in grim earnest to avenge poor McConnell.”