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      Hero of the Angry Sky

      The World War I Diary and Letters of David S. Ingalls,

      America’s First Naval Ace

      Edited by Geoffrey L. Rossano

      Foreword by William F. Trimble

      Ohio University Press Athens

      Contents

      Contents v

      Illustrations vii

      Foreword xi

      Series Editors’ Preface xiii

      Acknowledgments xv

      A Note on the Text xvii

      Abbreviations xix

      Introduction 1

      Training with the First Yale Unit 21

      Early Days in Europe 44

      With the RFC at Gosport, Turnberry, and Ayr 88

      On Patrol—At NAS Dunkirk and with the RAF in Flanders 143

      The Navy’s Big Show—The Northern Bombing Group 185

      Hero of the Angry Sky—Serving with 217

      No.213 Squadron 217

      Eastleigh and Home 288

      A Glance Back 316

      Afterword 330

      Appendix 1 340

      Appendix 2 342

      Bibliography 366

      Illustrations

      Following page 32

      Lt. David Ingalls

      The First Yale Unit in Florida for training, spring 1917

      F. Trubee Davison, founder of the First Yale Unit

      Artemus “Di” Gates of the Yale Unit, with Curtiss F Boat

      Members of the First Yale Unit relaxing in Florida 000

      Di Gates’s Number 7 crew with Curtiss F Boat in Florida

      Crew readying Curtiss F Boat training aircraft

      Lt. Eddie McDonnell and Col. Lewis Thompson in Florida

      The Yale Unit gathered for muster in Florida

      The Yale Unit in Huntington, New York, June 1917

      F Boats and a twin-float R-6 at Huntington Bay

      Members of the Yale Unit hauling a Curtiss R-6 trainer/scout aircraft out of the water

      Ensign Ingalls in his new uniform, early September 1917

      The SS Philadelphia (former City of Paris)

      Navy gun crews drilling aboard Philadelphia, summer 1917

      Following page 134

      Ingalls shortly after landing in England

      U.S. Navy facility at Moutchic

      FBA flying boat

      Robert “Bob” Lovett of the First Yale Unit

      Capt. Hutch I. Cone, director of naval aviation activities in Europe

      Avro 504 trainer

      Two Avro 504 trainers after a collision, winter 1917–18

      Ken MacLeish

      Sopwith Camel

      Upended Camel after a training accident

      Following page 178

      Hand-drawn map of Dunkirk harbor by Lt. Kenneth Whiting

      Lt. Godfrey Chevalier, CO at NAS Dunkirk

      George Moseley

      Yale Unit veteran Samuel Walker on a visit to Dunkirk, with Di Gates

      Hanriot-Dupont scout being lowered into the water by derrick at Dunkirk

      U.S. Navy station at Dunkirk after a German raid in late April 1918

      Seawall at NAS Dunkirk with Hanriot-Dupont scouts

      Ingalls, Ken MacLeish, and “Shorty” Smith at the Bergues aerodrome, April 1918

      Following page 278

      Ingalls with John T. “Skinny” Lawrence and acquaintance in Paris, May 1918

      Breguet 14B.2 at Clermont-Ferrand

      Observer/machine gunner Randall R. Browne of the First Aeronautic Detachment

      DH9 day bomber

      Aerial reconnaissance photograph of the dockyards and submarine pens at Bruges

      Capt. David Hanrahan, Northern Bombing Group commander, with officers

      Chateau at St. Inglevert, a point of rendezvous for members of the Yale Unit

      Ingalls in Flanders, possibly during duty with Northern Bombing Group, July–August 1918

      Ingalls with 213 Squadron mates, August 1918

      Following page 308

      U.S. Navy’s Flight Department at Eastleigh

      Warrant Officers Einar “Dep” Boydler and William “Bill” Miller at Eastleigh

      Warrant Officer William “Bill” Miller with Liberty motor–powered DH-9a day bomber

      Randall Browne and crew members at Eastleigh

      Ingalls with fellow officer at Eastleigh

      Members of senior officer corps of Eastleigh at armistice

      Ingalls with enlisted personnel of the Flight Department of Eastleigh at the end of the war

      RMS Mauretania

      Following page 334

      Ingalls with Admiral H. V. Butler in San Diego, 1929

      Foreword

      Curiously, given the scale and drama of the U.S. Navy’s World War I aviation effort, there are no published biographies of navy combat aviators. Now, thanks to Geoffrey Rossano, a skilled and knowledgeable historian whose recent works include a comprehensive study of the navy’s air arm in Europe, we have a fine-grained, up close and personal glimpse into the wartime career of David Sinton Ingalls, as told in his own words. The navy’s first and only World War I “ace,” credited with six victories while attached to an RAF pursuit squadron, Ingalls was still a teenager when he dropped out of Yale and volunteered for aviation training and service as a naval reserve officer. Like many members of the famed First Yale Unit, Ingalls came from the country’s privileged elite, and like his comrades in arms, he dreamed of the excitement, honor, and glory that modern air warfare seemed to herald. Of course, as Ingalls himself related, the reality was often much different. He endured days and sometimes weeks of tedium on the ground, underwent seemingly endless training, and flew innumerable fruitless patrols over “Hunland” behind the front lines. What to the public appeared to be romantic, chivalrous aerial jousting was in fact a deadly industrial age war of attrition in which men and machines were consumed as appallingly as they were by the artillery and machine guns on the ground.

      Using a veritable treasure trove of Ingalls’s letters and diaries, Rossano brings the air war to life with informative and unobtrusive editing skill. The result is that readers will have the rare opportunity to see World War I in the air firsthand. In Ingalls’s remarkably clear voice, we hear the range of emotions that often overwhelmed young men separated from their families and exposed to the dangers of flight and combat. We share Ingalls’s exhilaration in the sheer intoxicating sensation of flight and the satisfaction he experienced in successfully completing a mission. We see how he carefully worded his letters home to his mother and father to mask the dangers he faced. And we see how his nearly daily diary entries paint another, more realistic picture, vividly showing that

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