US Navy and Marines in the air 1917-1918

[leo]

I know that US Navy fliers flew anti-submrine patrols in Curtis Sea-planes. Did the US Navy have any fighter units in France. Did the Marines have an air arm in France during WWI?

leo

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Leo;
The U.S. Navy did have Fighter Squadrons in France. U.S.Navy pilots were assigned to RNAS/RAF Fighter Squadrons, ie., Lt. David Ingalls. The USMC had the Northern Bomb Group with DeH4 aircraft in Northern France in 1918 and saw action.
Blue skies,
Dan-San Abbott

Thanks for this answer, I have been curious about this also.

"Sailor of the Air", by Irving Sheely, and The Price of Honor" by Geoffrey Rossano, are two first-person accounts by WW1 Naval aviators
Sheely was an enlisted observer, while MacLeash was a Yale unit officer killed in action--Rossano is the editor of his letters.
It's interesting to read them together. MacLeash seems like a snob who looked down on anyone without a commission or a Yale class ring; Sheely is a bright guy who seemed to like everyone he met--including MacLeash. No wonder he made Chief before demobilization.

[leo]

Thank you, gentlemen.

leo

A effort via interlibrary loan might enable you to obtain "The Wartime Letters of George Clarke Moseley" and the "The Yale Unit In WWI" (I'm recalling the titles from memory..?). Both give great detail on the Naval Aviation effort in Europe in WWI. McLeish's death was curiously odd: The book relates that he was found unwounded yet dead in a sleeping repose beside his undamaged Camel. The thought was that he landed with some mechanical problem and succumbed to poison gas of British origin. As re the social climate, I know one Sec. of The Navy (Forrestal, I seem to recall) who was bemused to look up his own WWI service record as a naval aviator and find he was noted rather negatively, for his familiar manner with enlisted men. I acknowledge that there must be respect for authority for a military unit to function of course- it is interesting how the democratically directed Bolshevik units rapidly returned to the un-"comradely" acknowledgement that rank and "its priviliges" were fundamental to combat efficiency. However- apparently for decades- (possibly until WWII?) the Soviet soldiery only saluted their own unit's officers- not officers in general. The attitude towards the enlisted pilot has normally been markedly ungenerous and condescending: I recall a interesting thread some months back on this topic. Also it was interesting how warmly recieved was Frederick Libby, a lowly corporal, when his English pilot-officers found out how well the cowboy could handle a Lewis. They pushed him into officer status (and then flight training) with little delay. I'm straying a bit! VBR. Lee