“Out From Under the Snow”
April 17, 2010
The third meeting of the mid-Atlantic Chapter of the League of World War I Aviation Historians
At the National Air and Space Museum’s facility at Dulles, The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
I made the three and one half hour drive (each way) for my first visit to this regional meeting. I am glad I did. This meeting, held in one of the classrooms at Udvar-Hazy functioned almost as a mini-seminar, not unlike what the national organization holds every two years. The organizers, who double as NASM employees, had the classroom set up with a projector and sound system so the 20 -or-so attendees could take it all in.
NASM Curator Dr. Jeremy Kinney started it off with a presentation about the US aircraft production and testing at McCook Field in Dayton, OH during WWI. This was a companion presentation to the Kinney’s article on the subject published in the Winter 2009 issue of “Over the Front.” He reveled it was based on research he had completed for a paper in the 1990s and was a one time submitted as an entry in the League’s student paper contest.
Kinny did a fantastic job of illustrating his talking points with archive photos of actives at McCook. He provided insight into the politics of this testing initiative and how it lead to technological changes in the aircraft the US was trying to build for the war - though ultimately the conflict ended before any of this innovation could make it to Europe.
A lively question and answer session followed.
Charley Gosse was up next with a review of the various aircraft fabric “Indian Head” insignias of the Lafayette Escadrille which are part of the NASM collection (6 in all). Of course, I was hoping to see the actual pieces, but this was strictly a slide show. He covered his work with Alan Toelle to try and authenticate each by matching them up to photos of the escadrille. Gosse showed how though the main components of the designs were the same from example to example, the bows at the bottom of each were unique. Attention to these bows is where the authentication process usually starts, but not where it ends. As usual, getting to see the actual colors, both of the paint and of the fabric, adds to my visualization of the black & white photos of the era.
Prior to the lunch break there was a short segment where attendees got to talk a little bit about projects on which they were working - both books and modeling.
After lunch Blaine Pardoe jumped in with a presentation on Lafayette Flying Corps member, Frederrick Zinn. This presentation is related to a book Pardoe will have published later this year on Zinn’s actives in both WWI and WWII. Zinn, a Michigan native, was in France at the outbreak of the war and was one of the first American’s to volunteer as a member of the French Foreign Legion. He saw action with many of the American’s who would establish the Lafayette Escadrille and by extension the Lafayette Flying Corps. After being wounded, Zinn applied to be transferred to aviation and was assigned as an observer and gunner because - wait for it - his vision so poor he did not qualify as a pilot. Apparently Zinn was one of only three members of the Lafayette Flying Corps who was not a pilot.
Zinn spent an extensive amount of time in French two-seaters, and stayed in touch with ex-Legion American fliers, establishing life-long friendships with the likes of Burt Hall and Paul Rockwell. Having impressed Billy Mitchell during one of his visits to the front, Zinn was one of Mitchell’s first staff member requests when the US joined the War. Pardoe’s research indicates Zinn was instrumental in integrating members of the Lafayette Flying Corps into the US Air Service after most of them had been initially rejected based on poor results of Army-administered physicals.
At the end of the war, Zinn was commissioned, at his own urging, to locate the bodies of missing US fliers. According to Pardoe, Zinn was successful in locating about 295 of 300 missing airmen. The search process he established was ground-breaking. With the start of WWII, though a very unusual path, Zinn continued his work of recovering missing fliers. Pardoe’s book is not a biography of the man, but an exploration of Zinn and his search methods though the stories of a dozen or so fliers from both world wars whom he helped recover.
The day was closed by a presentation from Stephen Miller about his travels though France and America in search of aviation monuments and memorials. Through maps, aerial photography and personal images Miller covered a wide range of American, French and German markers. Many of these were graves, but he also tracked down several crash site markers as well as monuments to missing fliers or those whose graves were lost due to continued fighting during the war.
After the meeting and during lunch all the attendees got the chance to exchange notes and research tips. Thanks to the presentations and my conversations I was able to collect several new research sources I want to track down which are related to my projects. As usual at League meetings like this, all kinds of sharing took place.
I want to thank everyone for attending, presenting and organizing this great meeting. I am sure I will not be able to attend all of these meetings, but this one was sure worth the trip. I would encourage anyone in the region to attend these meetings if possible. I know I will be keeping an eye out for the agenda of the next gathering - they think it might be in July.
