Arthur Raymond Brooks

[Taz]

John- I know where I can get several copies. Will send you one when I get them. Thought I had two, but I gave one to my daughter, so am sending my only copy off to Achim. Price will be cheap.

Taz
Terry Phillips

[Aerowallah]

Many thanks! Did not know it existed until your post!
Now maybe I'll get more background on why Brooks put Swaab up for that MOH.
Rgds

[Taz]

John- Unfortunately my source only had one copy; we both thought he had several. No problem, though, here are several for sale. Musciano pumped out several of these small books, including one on Werner Voss Germany's Teenage Ace, and one on McCudden that I forget the name. Ray collaborated on his book. Will keep an eye out for other 22nd Sq stuff.

AbeBooks: Search Results - musciano and brooks

Taz
Terry Phillips

[Taz]

Achim- After tearing the house apart, I found the envelope with Ray's watercolor and several photos from the 1987 time period when he attended the Gathering of Eagles at Maxwell AFB. One in particular shows him with three lovely young ladies, one of whom is holding his hand. There is also an annotated personal history I will scan along with the photos and send. Should be able to scan tomorrow and get off early next week. My last flyfishing trip is this weekend. Hope it does not snow too heavily.

Ray was a great guy and I miss him.

Taz
Terry Phillips

[AAC Cadet Leader]

There are some nice pictures of Ray Brooks in his later years with Cole Palen on the Cole Palen's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (happy) thread.

[AchimEngels]

Thanks all!

Especially to Taz. Your package arrived today. What a joy. It is a very nice book.

The best part is that it will save me from telling any nonsense, even if the sequence about Ray Brooks is only a short one.

Please send me your email address and I will send you a low quality rendering of the initial sequence, so that you can see what it will be like eventually.

Thanks a whole lot.

Cheers!

Achim

[Kilian]

Hi mates. I found this article today in NY times about A. Raymond Brooks while i searched for info about 139th Aero Sqn. and thought it worth to be linked here (link is permanent from their archives so hopefully will not disappear)

The Last U.S. Ace of World War I

regards
Kilian
--

[FOKKERJ]

Originally Posted by Kilian

Hi mates. I found this article today in NY times about A. Raymond Brooks while i sarched for info about 139th Aero Sqn. and thought

it worth to be linked here (link is permanent from their archives so hopefully will not disappear)

The Last U.S. Ace of World War I

regards
Kilian
--

Hi Kilian,

Thanks for the great site. Great story.

Just in case!

New York Times
Friday, March 14, 2008

A. Raymond Brooks Is Dead at 95; The Last U.S. Ace of World War I

By GLENN FOWLER
Published: July 24, 1991

A. Raymond Brooks, the last surviving ace among American fighter pilots in World War I, died on July 17 at his home in Summit, N.J. He was 95 years old.

Military aviation was still in an embryonic stage in 1916 when Mr. Brooks, then a 21-year-old student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joined a small group of Americans in Toronto being trained by the Royal Flying Corps.

When he got to France in 1918 he joined the 139th Aero Squadron and climbed into a Spad biplane for the first time. Like his fellow pilots, he had purchased his own uniform and boots, and he had named his plane Smith for the Massachusetts college where his fiancee was a student.

"I was a pretty hot pilot, if I do say so," he said later. "But frankly, when you came down in those rough fields the plane could get pretty beat up. I didn't want Ruth's name on my plane, like a lot of the pilots did with their girls' names, so I called mine 'Smith.' If my plane got hurt, I didn't want anyone to say, 'Oh, Ruthie's down with a busted tail.' " Flew 120 Missions

Within five months of his arrival in France Mr. Brooks had become an ace by shooting down five German planes. Later he added a sixth. Altogether he flew 120 missions in four different planes. The first Smith was discarded, the second ended up in a shell hole, the third carried him through a nearly fatal flight and Smith IV is on display at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Mr. Brooks ended his World War I service as a captain and came back to the United States, where he married Ruth Connery. He flew with the Army Air Reserve and worked for the United States Commerce Department surveying air routes and supervising the installation of beacons to help pilots navigate the Appalachian Mountains from Virginia to Pennsylvania.

As a scientist and engineer for Bell Laboratories from 1928 to 1960 he helped develop radiotelephone communications and to perfect early radar. He maintained an active interest in flying into his 90's. Three years ago, at 92, he flew in a "breezie," a small plane where the pilot sits out in front in the open air, at an air show in the Midwest.

"They can't keep me out of anything that takes me up into the air," he said then. "I've flown gliders, breezies, hydroplanes and ultralights. I take every chance I can to go to hot-air balloon festivals."

His wife died in 1967 after 47 years of marriage. There are no immediate survivors.

Originally Posted by Taz

Achim- I will dig up the notes and scan one for you. You are right, Ray was avery nice guy. Like Barrett said, he had a way with the ladies. When I was his sponsor at the Gathering of Eagles at Maxwell AFB in 1987, he was constantly surrounded by young ladies. He told a marvelous war story too. Especially about the day they caught him in the Smithsonian restoration area sitting in Smith IV. They were ready to arrest him until someone recognized who he was and called off the dogs.

Taz
Terry Phillips

[Taz]

Kilian and J- Thanks for the article on Ray. We stayed in touch until right before he died and he remained bright and healthy, if a bit frail, until just before he died. He really was one of a kind, except there were hundreds like him in the USAS. A great number of educated young men from the Northeast from wealthy families served in the USAS in WW-I. Unfortunately the young men from those same families would never consider serving in the military now. A sign of the times.

Taz
Terry Phillips