case of war.24
By the spring of 1916, Davison had enlisted the support of several young comrades, including Harry Davison, Robert Lovett, Artemus “Di” Gates, Erl Gould, and John Vorys. Riding the wave of preparedness enthusiasm, he also gained the backing of influential private benefactors. Davison approached the Navy Department concerning his scheme and received modest encouragement, though no official support. Nonetheless, in July 1916, the fledgling group commenced training at aviation enthusiast Rodman Wanamaker’s Trans-Oceanic seaplane facility at Port Washington, New York, under the tutelage of pioneer flier David McCulloch.25 Of the dozen college boys who trained that summer, three soloed. Some of them also participated in naval reserve exercises.
Encouraged by the group’s successes, Davison and his mates increased their efforts to gain additional recruits after classes resumed at Yale—among them David Ingalls, just arrived in New Haven and still only seventeen—while intensifying discussions with the navy. In late winter 1917, when entry into the European war seemed inevitable, members of the group, now grown to more than two dozen volunteers, made plans to leave school and enlist. They did so with the support of President Hadley and Dean of Students Frederick Jones. On March 24, 1917, the Yale fliers traveled to New London, Connecticut, to complete the process. A few days later, they boarded a train to Palm Beach, Florida, to initiate instruction.
Commencement of unrestricted submarine warfare the previous winter had pushed the reluctant administration past the breaking point, and even as Ingalls and the rest of the Yalies begin training in Florida, President Wilson addressed Congress, asking for a declaration of war against Germany. The navy and its infant aviation arm would soon be called upon to do their part to defeat the U-boat scourge. The need was huge, the dangers great, and the threat mortal. In the first half of 1917, shipping losses to enemy submarines surged to intolerable levels, reaching nearly nine hundred thousand tons in April. Continued losses of that magnitude would quickly bring Britain to its knees. But in the opening days of hostilities, American naval aviation could not challenge the U-boat. Total flying resources consisted of a few dozen obsolete and obsolescent training aircraft; a lone underpowered, overweight dirigible; two balloons; a single understaffed and underfunded training facility at Pensacola, Florida; two score fliers (but none who had seen combat); and a few hundred enlisted ratings. The navy possessed neither aviation doctrine nor plans. No blueprints for wartime expansion existed, either for personnel or equipment.
Although the navy made modest technical progress in the years after the first fragile airplane took off from an anchored warship in 1910, it still lagged woefully behind the European combatants. In 1916, its three lonely assistant naval attachés posted to Berlin, Paris, and London supplied limited, circumscribed information about conditions in the war zone. A single lieutenant in the offices of the Aid for Material on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations handled aviation affairs in Washington. A simple description of naval aviation activities in Europe reflects the degree to which the navy fell behind its future allies and enemies.26
By the spring of 1917, Britain’s Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) operated a growing number of coastal bases stretching from Scotland to the south coast of England and Dunkirk in France, and in April 1917, it initiated the “spider web” antisubmarine patrols over the North Sea. The Royal Navy’s air arm also employed several land-based squadrons on the Western Front, carrying out patrol, reconnaissance, and bombing missions; its aircraft inventory included modern Sopwith Camels and Triplanes, Handley Page heavy bombers, and huge Curtiss-derived Felixstowe flying boats. The RNAS also possessed a large fleet of SS-type airships, along with a well-developed network of training facilities. Kite balloons operated regularly with the fleet. Naval aviators carried out combat missions in the Aegean Sea, at the Dardanelles, and in Egypt, East Africa, and elsewhere. The RNAS had mounted bombing raids against German airship facilities at Friedrichshafen, Cologne, Dusseldorf, and Cuxhaven and against munitions and industrial targets, as well as airborne torpedo attacks at Gallipoli. Britain led the way in marrying aircraft to the fleet, deploying more than a dozen balloon ships, seaplane carriers, and prototype-hybrid aircraft carriers. One of these warships, Engadine, played a small role at the battle of Jutland. More sophisticated vessels were on the way. Other innovations included aircraft with folding wings, designed for easy, onboard stowage; internal air bags to keep downed machines afloat; and use of scout planes aboard battleships and cruisers by means of turret-mounted launching platforms.
Though the RNAS developed the biggest forces, other nations followed suit. Germany built the largest fleet of rigid airships (zeppelins), which conducted extensive scouting/reconnaissance missions for the High Seas Fleet and launched heavy bombing raids against London and other British sites. Germany also constructed numerous seaplane bases on home soil, along the Baltic coast, and in Belgium, and from these locations, it operated the world’s most sophisticated floatplane fighters. In April 1917, German naval air forces initiated a series of torpedo attacks against Allied shipping in the Dover Straits. France constructed a string of antisubmarine patrol stations to guard the English Channel, Bay of Biscay, and Mediterranean Sea, and its naval forces employed kite balloons during convoying operations. Italy developed the speedy, highly maneuverable Macchi flying boat fighters, based on an Austro-Hungarian prototype, and conducted a back-and-forth struggle across the narrow reaches of the Adriatic Sea. In 1916, Austro-Hungarian seaplanes sank a British submarine moored in Venice and shortly thereafter fatally damaged a French submarine at sea. As early as 1915, Russian naval forces in the Black Sea labored, with some success, to sever Turkish sea-lanes, utilizing up to three seaplane carriers.
It was in the shadow of these developments that the United States entered the fray in April 1917. Under forced draft, naval aviation eventually amassed forty thousand officers and enlisted men, augmented by thousands of aircraft and dozens of bases, schools, and supply facilities in Europe and the United States. By autumn 1918, navy fliers were ready to make substantial contributions to the war effort, but the armistice intervened. In the short run, however, before such a force could be assembled and deployed, the country necessarily relied on the efforts of individuals such as David Ingalls and hastily organized groups such as the First Yale Unit to carry out its evolving aeronautical campaign.
1
Training with the First Yale Unit
March–September 1917
David Ingalls spent his initial months in the navy training with the First Yale Unit in Florida and on Long Island, New York, a process directed by Lt. Edward McDonnell, a 1912 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA), where he became a champion boxer. McDonnell served at Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1914 and received the Medal of Honor for heroism under fire. He began flight instruction at Pensacola a few months later and earned his designation as “Naval Aviator #18” (NA #18) in September 1915. In the spring of 1917, the navy ordered him to Palm Beach to direct training of the newly enrolled Yale fliers, assisted by civilians David McCulloch and Caleb Bragg, a small crew of petty officers and mechanics, and an assortment of civilian aides and staff. At the time, the college boys occupied Rodman Wanamaker’s southern Trans-Oceanic facilities on Lake Worth and boarded at the Hotel Salt Air in West Palm Beach.27
Work for the Yalies began immediately upon arrival, with the site and aircraft guarded by local militia. Divided into small crews, the neophytes studied signaling, Lewis machine guns, motor work, dual instruction, and finally solo flight, utilizing Curtiss F Boats—small, two-place, pusher-type, single-engine flying boats.28 Artemus “Di” Gates, who had flown in 1916, led David Ingalls’s crew, which also included Kenneth MacLeish, Kenneth Smith, and Robert “Pat” Ireland.29 Ingalls made his inaugural flight in early April, accumulating two hours of dual instruction in the first week, and he soloed on May 8. By late July, the unit logbook documented Ingalls’s nearly fifty hours in the air.
McDonnell’s work with the Yale Unit in Florida and later in New York mirrored similar ad hoc efforts in many parts of the country. Lacking sufficient capacity at its single training station in Pensacola, the navy turned to a variety of stopgap measures until larger facilities and formal courses of instruction began
