Merian C Cooper query

[duderank 2000]

With the remake of "King Kong" forthcoming I recently looked into the wartime career of Kong creator Merian C Cooper and found something puzzling. I discovered that in Norman Franks book "Bloody April, Black September" it is stated that a First Lieutenant Merian C Cooper of the 20th Aero squadron was shot down by Fokkers on 26th September 1918 and taken prisoner. Yet in several books about Rickenbacker, including his own excellent work "Fighting the flying circus", there are detailed accounts of a Captain Merian C Cooper filming EVR air to air in a mock dogfight with a captured Hannover that he brought down together with Lt Reed Chambers. The date of this second occurence is given as October 21st. So, were there in fact TWO Merian C Coopers, or did Franks just make an error?

Dear Duderank,
First off, EVR didn't write his first autobiography-- but not to worry, had Rick lived to 100, he eventually would've have taken credit for everything, including the invention of the flying machine-- it was ghost-written by Laurence LaTourette Driggs. Sorry to hear that you think it excellent-- because it's really an awful lot of tripe, something akin my often cited (but never written) "Boys' Book on War in the Air"...

There was a Captain Cooper-- his photo appears in Wooley's "The Hat-in-the-Ring Gang"-- and, for all I know, he did make the film alluded to by EVR...

(And you should be reading Wooley and not Driggs!)

As for Merian C. Cooper, this guy was the True Gen!

For what he did on the morning of 26 September 1918, he deserves the MoH: his plane afire and thinking his observer dead, he prepares to jump-- the observer, however, was just knocked unconscious, and now comes to-- Cooper gets back down into the cockpit and flies it so as to put out the fire (sideslipping)-- his arms were so badly burnt that he actually landed the plane using his knees to move the joystick-- both men live, were made POWs, and Cooper wounds were never properly looked after...

He later tells of Oscar Gude, the well-known coward, getting his lights punched out by a British RAF officer when he (Gude) bragged of having downed one (or was it two? I really must check my Driggs!) Fokker before he landed on that German field and was made a prisoner...

Oh, yeah, if memory serves-- didn't Rick win some races before the war?

As for Franks, the man is a true gentleman, does his homework, and is worthy of our respect, even if he still gets some matters wrong (especially Frank Luke)...

Yours truly,
Captain Lewis

[duderank 2000]

Thanks for answering. I honestly didn't know it was ghost written. As it stands though, another recent book about Rickenbacker by H Paul Jeffers carries the same story also claiming that "Captain Cooper" is the Kong guy. So I guess it's now taken as gospel even if it is made up like you say.

Dear DR2K,
Jeffers, to put it mildly, is a discredit to our field of interest and an embarassment to amateur historians; please note that, while he has written other books, this was his first escapade in WW1 aviation...

In many sections, he actually lifts from Driggs! To wit, he compares the shooting down of one aircraft by EVR to that of using a garden hose-- a simile that both EVR used in his 1967 autobio as well as Driggs in his 1919 magnum opus; I think, however, even here it was used to describe a different victory...

His description of the film being made by Captain Cooper, attributing it to Merian C. Cooper, is inexcusable; he just goes on and on, probably making it all up as he does so...

There was a Jeffers in the 94th, but I don't know if he was related to the novelist in question...

And now, since my claws are out, let me tear into Mr. Russell Guest: he, by the way, actually wrote the "Black September" section of BA...BS (page 125: "by Russell Guest / with Norman Franks and Frank Bailey")...

While the work, as it presently stands, is of great value, it needs to be revised. Just compare it to Wooley's accounts of combats (go by the dates), and you'll see that, in one case, Guest writes of the victories of one pilot as one in the morning and another that same evening, while Wooley describes this as a double victory during the morning. Guest mistook the military times of these victories, adding 12 hours to the time of one of these victories. Fair enough: it might have been that the mistake was in his source (most likely, the actual squadron record-- please note, I didn't say "official record"). Again, we're talking about revision, not discarding the work as a whole...

On the other hand, you might as well throw out the last two dates, September 29 & 30, from Guest's work, for all the good it would do one: it's not just that I strongly disagree with his account of Frank Luke's last flight, but the account of just what combats took place on the 30th just isn't accurate. This does a great disservice to Luke scholars (of which I claim to be #2, Steven Skinner being #1; and if you doubt me, DR2K, I'll scratch your eyes out!)...

Lastly, let me share with you some of The Forum's "dirty little secrets":

1) EVR did not shoot down 25 or 26 or even 20 German aircraft; according to our own Frank Olnyk, it was probably closer to 8. Don't believe me? Fine, see if I care, but just read NOT Driggs, but EVR's own reports: in one, he shoots fifty rounds into an enemy aircraft last seen banking vertically-- and he had the gall to ask for a confirmation!

2) If you must know, Lt. Frank Luke, Jr. of Phoenix, Arizona, was probably the USAS's "Ace of Aces" (in terms of confirmed victories while trained and serving as a pilot of the United States Air Service);

3) That Lt. Frank Luke, Jr. of Phoenix, Arizona, might very well have been killed on September 30th and not the 29th as is accepted. While this may generate some flame mail on the part of Skinner to yours truly, as well as a chortle or two from Vin (he's the Aussie who thinks Luke is mostly hype; I guess he never heard of Rickenbacker), I'm presenting it here just as a point for possible further discussion. Nevertheles, it is true that up until the early 1960's, September 30th was the date given for Luke's demise (I cite the original Cross & Cockade);

4) That Driggs and Whitehouse, despite my criticism of the former, deserve much more credit as serious historians than we are wont to give them today. In Whitehouse's case, the fault is that he never let a damn good story interfere with the actual fact; in the case of Larry Driggs, so much of what he wrote was later to be proven accurate, but the son of a bitch NEVER gave his sources;
&
5) That one contributor to the good ol' Forum is, in fact, a one-eyed feline with jet-black fur; let's just say that this topic is "paws off" so to speak, and just leave it at that...

"And a little cat shall lead them..."

Yours truly,
Captain Lewis

[joegertler]

There was a first person account written by Capt Merian C. Cooper. Title was "The Prisoner of War Experiences of Captain Merrian C. Cooper, 20th Aero Squadron, USAS." I don't know the date. But I read the two page article that gives his account of the air battle, capture, and treatment in quite a number of POW hospitals and camps, as a result. He said they were in a flight of 7 Liberty powered DH.4s of the 20th Aero Squadron and one from the 11th Aero sqdn, about 25 Km inside the German lines, near the village of Piennes, when they were attacked by 15-20 Fokkers. Five of the Dh.4s were shot down. Cooper said his plane had been shot to pieces. He was later interrogated by the German officers and asked who had shot him down, because there were several different claims. His observer badly wounded, he started a spin to avoid the surrounding attackers and he believes either a gas line or carburetor had been hit and spewed gas onto the exhaiust pipes. He managed to get it down as per the story above. (he was very critical of the DH4s, mentioning that most that went down, were in flames and totally destroyed, with their pilots). His personal account mentioned that he was captured by German infantry and that a German pilot landed to inspect the results. A nice touch was that the German Pilot went over to the DH and pulled out a framed picture of a female, that Cooper had attached to his instrument board, and put the photo in one of Cooper's pockets. (I assume the fire had been put out when it landed?) the rest of the story involved his very courteous interrogation and his experiences in a number of hospitals and POW camps that had very poor food, pretty decent medical care, and he almost never was quartered with other officer ranks and very rarely was accorded officer's priveleges or food etc.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by CaptainLewis

... as well as a chortle or two from Vin (he's the Aussie who thinks Luke is mostly hype; I guess he never heard of Rickenbacker)...

Chortle, chortle. On this forum, the same contributors who treat Rickenbacker’s claims with appropriate skepticism abandon objectivity and swoon like a mob of pre-pubescent teenyboppers at a Dannii Minogue concert when it comes to Luke.

Enjoyable reading, Captain

[duderank 2000]

OMG! What have I done? I've kicked over a mighty big can of worms with my little request and no mistake.

[EARTHLING]

Captain Lewis

I have always regarded you as a peacemaker and am therefore surprised at your attack on the Commander of the 94th Squadron.
I would be glad if you would enlighten me further as to the cause of your wrath as I am no expert on America’s valuable contribution to the air war.
The reasons you give seem to be:
1. His claim of 26 victories should have only been 8. Did the Americans also go for the O.O.C. utilised by the British?
2. He had not written his autobiography it was ghost written by Driggs. Does this matter? I understand Bishop’s ‘Winged Warfare’ was similarly achieved.
3. Assertions have been made on this web site that the Medal of Honour in 1930 was actively campaigned for by Rickenbacker. Perhaps he thought he was worth it. Should false modesty have held him back?
I thought the book (Fighting the Flying Circus) was well written but then Driggs was a professional. Are you suggesting he was conned by Rickenbacker or advocating the conspiracy theory, when you say it was tripe? I did not get this impression.
Rickenbacker does pay tribute to others. Page 180 “Later Frank Luke, who in my opinion was the greatest fighting pilot in the war, passed me when he shot down in flames 13 balloons in six days! A record that has never been equalled by any other pilot.” I do concede however, that he, (Rickenbacker) wanted to be the best.
If scores are the biggest worry he is not alone in being criticised, viz:
Bishop, whose score in the three weeks in command of 85 Squadron raised many eyebrows?
Mannock’s 73 and he never said it was, is now shown as 61.
McCudden who only managed 9 as a patrol leader had fewer than Rhys Davids so he took to assassination by high level stalking in order to supplement his score.
Richtofen who according to Ira Jones preferred BE2C’s and climbed above the fray looking for stragglers. He even had cups made to celebrate his murders. How barbaric? He also took victories from his fellows.
I hasten to add that I don’t necessarily believe any of the foregoing but all these things have been said on this website.
I will finish with a quote from page 233: “It was the first machine that I had brought down behind our lines-or assisted to bring down, for Reed Chambers shared this victory with me-in such condition we were able to fly it again.” You could argue here that Chambers should have not shared as he brought it down but Rickenbacker had killed the observer and then his guns jammed.
I have no axe to grind in this matter and would be interested if the men serving with him had expressed doubts, as in the case of Bishop.
I look forward to hearing your always erudite comments.
Regards

EARTHLING

Dear Earthling,
Thank you for the compliments, and I will do the best I can to answer you; however, I will not touch upon, with one exception, anything outside of the USAS; further, this post will be my last for this thread, as I can't quite handle the irony of describing the exploits of a man who did so much to exploit himself...

1) EVR's own words, as available in his combat reports, do not support, in most instances, a victory, much less a clear-cut one. For example, and this from Frank Olnyk, EVR would write (I paraphrase), "EA was last seen in a vertical dive... Confirmation requested." And confirmation was given. In Wooley's book, "The Hat-in-the-Ring Gang", we have an examples of EVR's reports side-by-side with Driggs' later accounts: it's clear that Larry had a vivid imagination. There's even a report from Chambers in which he details two combats (neither of which was conclusive) and then requests one confirmation-- Wooley points out that it's just not clear which of the two Chambers was referring to...

2) The fact that the book was ghost-written speaks volumes: it accounts for the many, many innaccuracies in the book, especially dates and times. There is printed at the end of this work the official record of confirmed victories for the 94th-- the entry for November 2 (IIRC) contradicts the book's account.
As for Bishop, you might enjoy reading his post-war "Winged Peace"...

3) EVR was the only recipient of the MoH for 1930; in other words, it was not an effort on the part of the military to review the DSC winners to see if an upgrade to the MoH was in order. This is what happened, ten years earlier, to Bleckley and Goettler. Further, the account of just what happened on the afternoon of 25 September 1918 (Rick's MoH citation) differs, depending on whether one reads and believes Driggs' account or one goes to the source and reads EVR's combat report...

But, Earthling, the hits just keep on coming: some gleanings from my own research on Frank Luke:

A) There is an account of Campbell's which differs markedly from EVR's, in which Rick takes credit for a victory of Campbell's; the best we're left with is Campbell wondering why, many, many years later in his "Let's Go Where the Action Is!", Rick would ever have done such a thing... Campbell, by the way, gives one of the all-around best accounts of Luke's methodology in downing balloons-- the point being, this had to be something that Campbell "heard tell" about, as he was nowhere near the front during Luke's rampage...

B) There is another claim on EVR's part of downing a balloon that was in the process of being towed to the front line early one morning. The New York Times, usually one of the best sources for reporting the minutae of the USAS's airwar-- in many cases, the story could be unbelievable, yet is later verified from pilots' accounts and squadron records-- well, NYT credits the same feat to Frank Luke. (I'm just trying to raise a question here-- maybe the NYT got it wrong, maybe they both scored on balloons or even the same balloon, or maybe Rick was taking credit yet again for another's victory...)

C) I have no problem with Chambers and Rick claiming one victory each for downing just one enemy aircraft; it's not just a question of "that's how they did it in those days"-- we should respect the methodologies used in those days, only in that they help us to determine and better understand the events of those times. By the way, did you know that Chambers, in about 1967, came out in defense of the Cockburn-Lange "photographs"?

D) Vin is pronounced "vahn"...

E) Okay, okay, I lied: here's another reference to something outside of the USAS: Fonck's "Ace of Aces" was ghost-written-- and it's a pack of lies, according to (I believe) our esteemed Volker Nemsch-- that Fonck even invented a German ace to do battle with and eventually-- surprise, surprise-- shoot down in (appropriate) flames...

F) I have a vinyl recording of EVR giving an interview-- probably done in the 1960's (the record and dust jacket just don't say)-- in which he claims that the balloon strafe on the eve of the Chateau-Thierry offensive was all his idea (but you probably guessed that by now); I'm afraid there was no such balloon strafe. Further, Rick makes it clear in the interview that this was before the Meuse-Argonne-- where he also took credit (in an ESQUIRE magazine article from the early 1960's) for masterminding the balloon strafe that did take place on the morning of the 26th of September... which was, by the way, a royal balls-up! The Amis took off in the dark, which was dangerous; they had trouble finding their assigned targets, as it was too dark; and the Huns didn't cooperate by raising their balloons as it was too early in the morning...

G) Where was Frank Luke? Still on leave in Paris; but Frank could have told you that such an attack was a bad idea, as the condensation still on the balloon's envelope would (and did-- Chambers says as much in another combat report) actually extinguish the phosphorous of the incendiary ammo. That's another reason why Frank would attack the sausages in the late afternoon and evening-- after verifying the location of the balloon's nest that morning...

H) The sound that you're hearing in the background is Vin (pronounced "vahn") gagging.

Lastly-- I don't claim EVR was a liar; I do believe that he knew very well that his requests for confirmation would be accepted without question; Walter Williams of the 27th implied as much in an short Winsoc comment in C&C...

Respectfully submitted,
Captain Lewis

[Barrett]

FTFC has been variously described as "well written" and "batguano." (Maybe not mutually exclusive!) IMO driggs was more a cheerleader than journalist, but hey, that's his call.

EVR's claims include 10 OOCs plus the likes of "Fokker last seen in vertical bank." Honest. By reading his combat reports it appears he likely destroyed 6 aeroplanes and 5 balloons (including 2 grounders).

His MoH was purely political, coming 8 years after the second review of upgrades of the DSC. Previously he was scorned by congresscritters who resented his support of Billy Mitchell but the political tides shifted. Truth be tol', he absented himself from the 94th on his first day in command and went sporting beyond the lines. The purported site of his double victory 25 Sept was at least 15 miles east of the lines--rather beyond the ability of the poor little poilou to witness what he purportedly saw.

Luke's claims include only 4 aeroplanes, including the one he's photographed standing amid the rubble. It's safe to conclude that he got all or nearly all the balloons, as he was at pains to announce his intentions and land to collect affidavits thereafter. If anybody has info to the contrary let's hear it!