Parsons, Last Escadrille Ace, Dead
Rear Adm.
Edwin C. Parsons, a hero of two world wars and the last ace of the Lafayette Escadrille, died Thursday in a Sarasota, Fla., hospital. He was 75.
Born in Holyoke, Mass., Parsons went to California where he learned to fly in 1912. In 1914 he spent nearly a year in Mexico training pilots for Pancho Villa's forces.
After the outbreak of World War I, he worked his way to France as an assistant veterinarian on a horse transport and joined the volunteer flying unit that became the Lafayette Escadrille.
During 1917-1918 Parsons flew scores of combat patrols and received the French Medaille Militaire, the Croix de Guerre with eight palms, the Legion D'Honneur, the Cross of Leopold and the Belgian War Cross.
His other decorations included the U.S. Bronze Star for heroism in the Pacific in World War II.
With the Escadrille disbanded, Parsons returned to the United States and was a member of the first class of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and served as a special agent for three years.
In the mid 1920s, Parsons went to Hollywood as a script writer and technical expert. He enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1934 and advanced to the rank of rear admiral at the time of his retirement in 1954.
He wrote a book, "The Great Adventure" in 1937 which later reprinted under the title, "I Flew With the Lafayette Escadrille."
Parsons was married in 1955 to Catherine Gardner McKay whose son by a former marriage is Gardner McKay, star of the old television series "Adventures in Paradise."
Independent Press-Telegram - Friday, May 03, 1968
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