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

by Ruffin, Steven

  Raoul Lufbery sitting on the edge of the cockpit of Capitaine Thénault’s Spad S.1417 at Senard. On September 4, 1917, Luf downed his 11th enemy aircraft while flying this plane. The camera is pointing north towards the road in the background, which leads into Senard. (Chuck Thomas)

  It would take several weeks, but Willis’ friends would eventually learn—to their great relief—that his loss was not quite as final as they feared. He was, in fact, very much alive, and though no one yet knew it, his adventures in the Great War were far from over.

  Willis later related what had happened. During one of the attacks, enemy bullets from an attacking German fighter had disabled his airplane, forcing him to begin a violent descent to the ground, two miles below. The pursuing German fighter, accompanied by two of his comrades, stayed with him all the way down, spraying machine gun fire at him the entire time. During the course of this prolonged attack, his Spad was shot to pieces. Bullets whizzed past Willis so close that, reminiscent of James Hall’s close call, one well-aimed bullet knocked the goggles off of his head. Though his engine was dead, he executed every diving aerobatic maneuver he had ever learned and probably invented some new ones, as he tried to evade the streams of hot steel emanating from the Germans’ twin Spandau machine guns.

  As the beleaguered Willis approached the ground, he desperately used the last of his airspeed to hop a clump of trees, before plunking his broken Spad down onto the top of a hill overlooking Dun-sur-Meuse. The German pilot who, only seconds before, had been doing his level best to kill Willis, now flew over his vanquished enemy and cheerfully waved. He and his two comrades circled and then landed on the slope below him. They strode up to him, and as Willis later recounted, “They all saluted very properly as they came up—young chaps, perfectly correct. My machine was a wreck: thirty bullets in the engine, radiator and fuselage; exactly half of the cables cut, tires punctured, wings riddled.”

  Harold Willis’ Spad VII S.1615, after being forced down in enemy territory on August 18, 1917. He descended from an altitude of 12,000 feet with a dead engine, while under attack by his German pursuer, Jasta 16b Leutnant Wilhelm Schulz. In spite of that, he managed to execute a flawless dead-stick landing on the crest of this hill overlooking Dun-sur-Meuse, France. It earned him the unenviable honor of being the only pilot captured while flying for the Lafayette Escadrille. Note the bullet exit hole on the cowling, just behind the propeller. Jasta 16b later repaired this airplane, only for one of its pilots to overturn it in a marsh. (Greg VanWyngarden)

  It was not uncommon for combat airmen of this era to land beside their downed opponent. To bring an enemy pilot down alive in friendly lines was a rare event, so it was a thrill for the victor to meet—face to face—the man with whom he had just bested in mortal combat. It was also an opportunity to examine the downed enemy plane, to obtain the witness signatures needed for official confirmation, and to take some photographs and collect a few souvenirs.

  Another reason pilots sometimes landed next to their helpless adversary was to personally take charge of him—ostensibly, for interrogation—but in reality, to protect him from unfriendly ground troops. Almost without exception, the downed pilot was then escorted back to his victor’s aerodrome to begin his life as a prisoner of war in the least painful way possible—with a belly full of good food and liquor. In keeping with this chivalrous routine, the hosts typically considered it impolite to ask any questions about operational matters. Intelligence officers would interrogate the prisoner later.

  Accordingly, Willis’ captor, Leutnant Wilhelm Schulz, whom he described in a 1961 interview as “a very decent fellow and a good sport,” placed him into an automobile that took him straight to his pilots’ mess. Here, Willis and the German aviators shared a congenial breakfast—and probably also a few glasses of schnapps. He was then marched off to a prison cell, wearing only his pajamas and a sweater under his flight suit—and no money, cigarettes, or identification. Only then did the reality of the situation hit him. He had just become the first and only pilot to be captured while flying for the Lafayette Escadrille. He sat down on his bare cot and wept like a baby at the sudden and unhappy turn of events. However future actions would prove that the gritty Willis had not yet thrown in the towel.

  Strike Two for Courtney Campbell

  Back at Senard, the torrid pace continued, with patrols going out from sunup to sunset and some pilots flying several “shows” a day. Soon after Willis went missing, the piano-playing Stephen Bigelow engaged a formation of German Albatros fighters that were attacking one of the Sopwith bombers he was assigned to protect. In the ensuing fight, a bullet smashed into his windscreen, sending metal and glass fragments into his face, just as had previously happened to both Edmond Genet and Kiffin Rockwell. However, because of the intensity of the flying at this time and the need for every available pilot, Bigelow declined any time off for medical treatment. His decision to remain with the squadron was a testament to his dedication but not to his good judgment. His wounds became infected—a serious condition in this pre-penicillin era—and he was forced to enter the hospital. His recovery was slow, and by January 1918, he was declared physically unfit for further service and discharged from the air service.

  Not all the news at Senard was bad. Lovell had already scored on August 18, and before long, some of his squadron mates also found success. One of these was Ted Parsons, who had flown his fair share of combat over the past seven months without a confirmed victory. This changed on September 4, 1917, when he downed a Rumpler two-seater. According to the ever-self-deprecating Parsons in a 1961 interview, this victory was more accidental than intentional. As Parsons was executing a climbing turn, the Rumpler—which he had not even seen—suddenly appeared in front of him. “There he was, as big as a house and right in my machine gun sights. I guess it was just nervous reaction or something, but I just let him have it. He came all to pieces in the air.”

  That same day, Raoul Lufbery claimed his 11th confirmed enemy airplane, which he sent spinning down in flames near where Parsons’ victim had fallen. Then, on September 19, David Peterson and Ken Marr teamed up with the three crewmembers of a French Escadrille F.44 reconnaissance plane, to shoot down an Albatros near Montfaucon. And finally, on September 22, Luf scored yet again, for his 12th confirmed victory.

  On September 12, a ceremony was held out on the flying field, during which the Lafayette Escadrille was presented with a rare and unexpected unit citation. Groupe de Combat 13 Commandant Féquant had, weeks earlier, proposed the squadron for the award, and it was formally approved by Général Pétain. According to this document, the volunteer Americans who had traveled to France “in the spirit of purest sacrifice” had, “excited the profound admiration of the officers who have had it under their command and of the French escadrilles who, fighting by its side, have striven to vie with it in valorous deeds.”

  Raoul Lufbery, holding Whiskey, as Ted Parsons looks on. On September 4, 1917, both pilots succeeded in downing an enemy plane. It was Parsons’ first confirmed and Luf’s eleventh.(Willis B. Haviland Collection)

  During this period, the somewhat bloated squadron roster was being diminished by other losses besides those resulting from combat. Thomas Hewitt, who flew his last recorded patrol on August 16, finally left the squadron on September 17. The harrowing intensity of the missions the squadron was flying when he first arrived may have been too much, too soon for the new pilot. His courage and confidence seemed to evaporate, and his consequent lack of aggression rendered him unpopular and ultimately, unfit for combat. Ted Parsons later wrote, rather unkindly, about “Useless” that he, “showed a marked preference for making all his patrols either in the bar or, in the rare cases when he was in the air, behind our balloon lines.” Soon afterward, long-standing squadron member Willis Haviland also transferred out—ultimately, to accept a commission as a US Naval Aviator.

  On September 19, the same day that Peterson and Marr shared their first confirmed victory, the lucky Courtney Campbell—
of lost-wing fame—made yet another entry in the Lafayette Escadrille book of legends. The fearless thrill seeker was a good pilot and a dependable man in a scrap, but his almost-pathological need to push the limits alarmed his fellow pilots. Ted Parsons, who considered Campbell a “pain in the neck on patrols,” described how Campbell would—just for the fun of it—try to see how close he could fly to other squadron members’ planes without hitting them—sometimes with his whirring propeller only three feet from the other plane’s tail. Needless to say, such behavior was potentially fatal to both pilots, but, according to Parsons, “no amount of pleadings, coercion, or threats of physical retaliation was sufficient to make him desist from his distressing tactics in the air.”

  On the day in question, Campbell was up to his usual antics, this time with the nervous, no-nonsense squadron second-in-command, Lieutenant Maison-Rouge. Campbell positioned himself just above the French officer’s plane and, ignoring his angry gestures to back off, lowered his Spad to where his wheels were only inches above Maison-Rouge’s top wing. What happened next was almost predictable: either a slight misjudgment by one of the pilots or a bump in the air drove the wheels of Campbell’s Spad down into Maison-Rouge’s top wing. They punched through the fabric, and embedded themselves into the wing. Locked together, as Parsons described it, “like Siamese twins,” they made two very careful circuits of the field, as those watching in horror below alerted the ambulances. Finally, Campbell decided to end it, one way or another: he hauled back on the stick. His luck held and his Spad broke free, allowing the petrified and enraged Maison-Rouge to glide in for a safe landing. Campbell then proceeded to put on an aerobatic display that Parsons said “nearly took off the tops off of the hangars before he landed without even a flat tire.” The carefree daredevil had just had his second brush with death in as many months. He would not have to wait long for his third and last strike.

  On September 18, 1917, Willis B. Haviland left the Lafayette Escadrille, after nearly a year with the squadron. He served briefly in Escadrille SPA.102, before becoming a US Naval Aviator. By war’s end, he was one of the most decorated former Lafayette Escadrille pilots. (Washington and Lee University Archives)

  The harrowing experience traumatized Maison-Rouge, who was already unhappy—and unpopular. He angrily lashed out at the Americans, calling them “sauvages” and, within a matter of days, Capitaine Thénault removed him from the squadron roster and sent him to the rear for reassignment. Eventually, the high-strung Frenchman was reassigned to another squadron and on May 31, 1918, was shot down and killed. Meanwhile, his replacement at SPA.124, who would soon arrive, would be a much better fit with the “savages” of the Lafayette Escadrille.

  A Mother’s Heartbreaking Visit

  Despite the regrettable combat losses of Willis and Bigelow, the pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille were feeling in justifiably high spirits over their recent successes in the air: five confirmed and several unconfirmed kills in less than three weeks. However, another sobering loss, occurring under particularly tragic circumstances, would soon bring their spirits back down again.

  Douglas MacMonagle had been with the squadron for just over three months and, during that time, had established a solid record that gained him the respect of his fellow airmen. At 7:35 a.m. on the morning of Monday, September 24, 1917, MacMonagle took off on a patrol with Raoul Lufbery and Robert Rockwell. Also assigned was Ted Parsons, but he had trouble starting his engine and was forced to take off a few minutes later. The three Spads were climbing in a V-formation over the lines, when Luf spotted a large formation of German fighters above them. He immediately began maneuvering to bring his flight into a more advantageous position.

  Unfortunately, the aggressive MacMonagle missed or ignored Luf’s signal and turned his Spad directly into the attacking formation of enemy fighters. They swarmed over him like angry hornets, and before Lufbery or Rockwell could intervene, it was all over. MacMonagle’s Spad spiraled straight down into a wood near the town of Triaucourt. He was dead at the controls, with a bullet through his head.

  It was Carl Dolan’s depressing task to retrieve his friend’s body and bring it back to the aerodrome. Then, he had to go to the train station to meet Mac’s mother, Minnie, a volunteer Red Cross nurse who was working in Paris. She had just arrived at Senard to visit her son, but instead, had to hear the heartbreaking news that he had just been killed. Douglas MacMonagle had, like several of his fallen squadron mates before him, predicted his own death. According to Dolan, in a 1962 interview, MacMonagle had confessed to him that his number was up and that he was certain he was about to die. Another premonition had come true—and once more, “Bad Luck Monday” had claimed a victim from the Lafayette Escadrille.

  Douglas MacMonagle (right) and a colleague stride across the aerodrome at Senard, with a Nieuport fighter in the background. On September 24, 1917, he took off on a patrol with Raoul Lufbery and Robert Rockwell and, during an ensuing dogfight, was shot down and killed. He died at about the same time his widowed mother arrived at Senard to visit him. Instead, she spent her time there attending her son’s funeral and settling up on his hefty bar bill. (Washington and Lee University Archives)

  The men of the squadron grieved the loss of the popular MacMonagle. Ken Marr wrote of him in an October 31, 1917, letter to Paul Rockwell that, “Mac was a boy with courage and that’s about the best thing I know of these days.” His body was buried at the cemetery at Triaucourt and later moved to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in Romagne. In 1928, his remains were transferred, for the last time, to the crypt at the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial.

  Dissension in the Ranks

  The men of the Lafayette Escadrille had yet another reason to feel disheartened during these turbulent times. Dr. Edmund Gros, now a major in the US Air Service, had recently visited the squadron and urged the American pilots to apply for commissions in their own country’s still mostly nonexistent air service. The United States had entered the war completely unprepared, and its infant air arm was in the process of being built from the ground up. Gros felt that the dozens of veteran American airmen serving throughout the French Air Service—including the pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille—were best suited to form the core of the US combat squadrons currently being formed. Warning that those who chose to remain with the Aéronautique Militaire would cease to receive financial support from the Franco-American Flying Corps (now called Lafayette Flying Corps) Committee, he even went so far as to suggest that they replace the French roundel insignia they proudly displayed on their Spad fighters with ones painted in American colors.

  None of this sat well with the American pilots. First and foremost, they were loyal to France, the country that had trained and treated them so well. Further, none of them relished the idea of serving under superior officers with no combat experience, as would be the case if they joined the US Air Service. Besides, there were only vague promises—and no guarantees—that they would be accepted and commissioned at an appropriate rank. The ridiculously stringent physical, mental, and educational requirements, in place at the time for entering the US Air Service, were daunting. Postwar statistics show that only a small percentage of the tens of thousands of applicants could pass muster, and many of the pilots of SPA.124—accomplished combat veterans though they truly were—were well aware that they would never qualify without a generous allowance of waivers. The French had accepted these men—most of whom were considerably older than the average US Air Service applicant—with their defective eyesight, hearing, sense of balance, and other defects. After months of stressful combat flying, some were now in even worse shape.

  All of this uncertainty affected morale within the squadron, and it also began to affect the men’s performance. Groupe de Combat 13 Commandant Féquant, who only three weeks earlier had recommended the Lafayette Escadrille for a citation, penned a contrasting memorandum. In it, he noted “an uneasiness pervading the Escadrille Lafayette,” in which “the majority of the pilots seem to be disinteres
ted in maintaining the high reputation of their unit.” Charging that the squadron’s “soul has fled,” he attributed this negativity to the uncertainty they felt about their future and suggested that it was damaging the excellent reputation the squadron had established over the past 16 months. He therefore recommended that the Lafayette Escadrille be “cleanly and quickly” eliminated and its pilots disseminated throughout other squadrons in the Aéronautique Militaire. This was serious stuff, and clearly, drastic changes were in the making.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, it was time for the Lafayette Escadrille to move again, and the German Air Service provided an explosive sendoff. On the evenings of September 25 and 27, 1917, German bombers attacked the aerodrome at Senard, setting fire to a hangar and destroying at least seven SPA.124 aircraft. As they flew over, Lieutenants Raoul Lufbery and William Thaw entertained themselves on the ground by blasting away up into the darkness with ground-mounted machine guns. They did no apparent damage but were gratified the next day when someone found a blood-spattered German map and helmet lying out on the field. Their aim had apparently been better than they imagined.

  A candidate for the US Air Service takes the “Chalkline Test,” which SPA.124 ace Raoul Lufbery would probably have failed. Men of the Lafayette Escadrille were skeptical of ever obtaining US commissions, mainly because of the notoriously stringent physical requirements. US Army doctors had the luxury of far more applicants than they could accept, so they applied screening requirements to extremes. Many of the pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille were—in the eyes of US Air Service flight surgeons—too old, too blind, too deaf, or otherwise unfit to fly. In the end, wisdom prevailed and nearly all received waivers. (US Air Force)