On This Day in Aviation History: April 14, 1918

The last edition of the Tideland News and the Carteret News Times…(out of Swansboro and Morehead City, NC…yes, we still take that paper as we did for 20+ years while living in eastern NC.  Today, though, living now in the Sandhills of NC, we have that paper delivered a few days late by mail so we can keep up with our old “stomping grounds”)…paper reported history.  This April 10^th edition of the Carteret News Times announced (as was also announced by Jimmie at our last board meeting, too) that the last AV-8B pilots were just graduated from their Harrier training detachment at MAG-14, MCAS Cherry Point. 

While I never flew them, I had the honor of commanding two different detachments of AV-8B Harriers at sea.  They’re amazing aircraft, the most difficult jet to fly in the inventory, but perfectly suited for the Marine Corps’ mission.  And, almost 106 years to the day that the last Harrier pilot was graduated from training, we also honor America’s first dogfights during WWI that ultimately led to the first American ace a month later.

According to History.com, “Six days after being assigned for the first time to the western front, two American pilots from the U.S. First Aero Squadron engaged in America’s first aerial dogfight with enemy aircraft. In a battle fought almost directly over the Allied Squadron Aerodome at Toul, France, U.S. fliers Douglas Campbell and Alan Winslow succeeded in shooting down two German two-seaters. By the end of May, Campbell had shot down five enemy aircraft, making him the first American to qualify as a “flying ace” in World War I.

“The First Aero Squadron, organized in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, undertook its first combat mission on March 19, 1917, in support of the 7,000 U.S. troops that invaded Mexico to capture Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Despite numerous mechanical and navigational problems, the American fliers flew hundreds of scouting missions for U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing and gained important experience that would later be used over the battlefields of Europe in World War I.

“In early skirmishes, slow-moving reconnaissance planes would take pot shots at each other with service pistols and rifles. Ground crews started mounting machine guns in front of the observer’s position, but they were hard to aim around the propeller, wings and struts.

Allegedly, a photo of the First Aero Squadron in France.  Courtesy Flickr.

“The breakthrough invention was the ‘interrupter gear’ or ‘synchronization gear,’ which allowed a front-mounted machine gun to fire a continuous barrage of bullets safely through the plane’s rotating propeller blades. All pilots had to do was aim the nose of the plane at the enemy and fire.

“Dutch-born engineer Anthony Fokker is credited with developing the first synchronization gear for the German army which he mounted on the single-seat Fokker E.1 in 1915. The lightweight plane was so nimble and deadly that the Allies nicknamed it the “Fokker Scourge.”

“Max Immelmann (21 September 1890 – 18 June 1916) in the cockpit of his Fokker E.I..  He was the first German World War I flying ace. He was a pioneer in fighter aviation.  He was the first aviator to receive the Pour le Mérite, colloquially known as the “Blue Max” in his honor. His name has become attached to a common flying tactic, the Immelmann turn, and remains a byword in aviation. He is credited with 15 aerial victories.” Courtesy Wikipedia