162 Aero Squadron

[Jim]

The U.S. was only in the war for a very short period of time - just the last year or so of this 4 and a half year conflict. The U.S. was just getting geared up when the war ended in November, 1918. At the war's end there were only 45 Aero Squadrons in the fight, though there were something like another 130 or so Aero Squadrons that were either arriving or in training in Europe (again, they were not all groups with aircraft - many were airfield construction or maintenance, or mechanics or logistics or instructors or other kinds of support units for the fighter, bomber, and recon squadrons that had the aircraft). There were plans on paper to raise several hundred more. Also, the aero squadron numbers went up pretty high - the highest one I have heard of was the 1111 Aero Squadron so there were a great many missing numbers that had no intention of being formed.

What all of this means is that the chances of an American soldier who was in one of the Aero Squadrons having been a pilot who flew on one or more combat missions is fairly small compared to those who either did not fly a combat mission or who were simply not pilots.

[StephenLawson]

Originally Posted by Jim

Correct. Back then every unit in the Air Service was called an Aero Squadron and a fair number of them had little to do with flying airplanes. Also, the numbering of them is not very intuitive and there were many numbers that were never used and never intended to be used. Part of that was misdirection during the war - they hoped that the Germans would hear numbers way up in the hundreds and be tricked into thinking that the U.S. actually had that many Squadrons and lose their morale.

These units were often support operations for the units at the front. Training , supply and replcement pools - aircraft depots.