Field of Dreams - 2011 League of WWI Aviation Historians Conference - Post 8

Ken Emery - America’s First Foreign Air Campaign: the Punitive Expedition

From Columbus, New Mexico, and as a representative of the “First Aero Squadron,” Ken Emery told the story of the America’s first military air activity on foreign soil (Mexico) prior to the US joining WWI in 1916.

Under the command of General Pershing, these early aviators, through many misadventures attempted to aid the US Army during their incursion into Mexico – mostly flying Curtis Jennies.

Basically, everything, which could go wrong, did. Most of the aircraft on the mission were destroyed in various accidents, fires, and from what seemed to be paranoia of the pilots operating in a country where they did not speak the local language.

I am starting to wonder if the title of the conference should have been "Field of Curtis."

Field of Dreams - 2011 League of WWI Aviation Historians Conference - Post 7

The Forgotten Americans: Aerial Combat over the North Sea and English Channel - Colin Owers

As a nice complement to the film on the first US Naval aviators, Colin Owers, provided an excellent presentation on the use of Curtis flying boats in British operations from the start of the war. We were guided through the various models of aircraft, often produced in small numbers. All of this, proceeded the entry of the US into the war.

Humorous note: At one point the British were attempting to christen a new plane. When a British flag could not be located for the ceremony, they found a British postage stamp to stand it for the flag.

Field of Dreams - 2011 League of WWI Aviation Historians Conference - Post 5

Screening of the documentary film "The Millionaires Unit"

After a brief introduction by film producer Darroch Greer, we next got to watch a mostly complete cut of “The Millionaires’ Unit” a documentary based on the book by Marc Wortman. 

This is the story surrounding the beginnings of US Naval Aviation. The nucleus of this group were Yale students, mostly of wealthy families. This was a really nice production. The producers expressed interest in hearing from attendees about what they liked and disliked about the film. There were many offers of assistance and some small corrections expressed after the presentation, but generally the movie was very well received by the group.

Darroch stated their ultimate goal would be to have the documentary shown by PBS, possibly on the series “American Experience”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxHeGONIoNk

Film Teaser on YouTube:

Web Site of the file – designed to raise funds to complete the film: http://www.millionairesunit.org/