WWI era major events
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During World War I, David Ingalls was
Navy’s sole air ace
Lt. j.g. David Ingalls was not pleased. He had enlisted to work on Navy airplanes in March 1917, become qualified as a naval aviator, earned his commission and gotten a taste of the fighter aircraft life training with the British.
The unexpected reassignment to bombers was not on his radar.
During a mock engagement that was supposed to teach Ingalls what it was like to be a bomber tailed by an enemy fighter, Ingalls turned the tables. In a display of audacity that came to define Navy fliers, Ingalls, flying an underpowered trainer, swung around behind his instructor, “tailing him relentlessly in view of hundreds at the aerodrome below,” author Narayan Sengupta wrote in his 2010 book “American Eagles, The Illustrated History of American Aviation in World War I.”
Having amply demonstrated his aerial skills, Ingalls was quickly reassigned to the 213
Squadron, which flew the Royal Air Force Sopwith Camel, and found the action he was looking for. From Aug. 11 to Sept. 24, 1918, he shot down or helped down five enemy airplanes and an observation balloon. Ingalls, awarded both the British Distinguished Flying Cross and the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal, was the Navy’s sole air ace of the war.
Getting back to base in those days, an official Navy history notes, could be quite the adventure. Flying low over enemy lines so as to be less visible from a distance was the preferred tactic, but allied pilots still suffered significant casualties, including at least
seven Marine pilots and gunners.
“The only danger in this low flying is from the machine guns,” Ingalls told his parents in a letter home. “The Huns had these scattered all over their country to get aeroplanes in similar predicaments. I knew fairly well where they were thickest and went along for at least five minutes without a shot. Then suddenly I heard a rattat, my motor [faltered], gas poured out of the tank below the seat, and clouds of white vapor rose from it. … Evidently I had run into a bad place, for I was shot at till I crossed the lines,” Ingalls wrote.
Ingalls’ achievements capped a remarkable eight-year span for naval aviation that began Nov. 14, 1910, when civilian barnstormer Eugene Ely volunteered to fly a 50-horsepower Curtiss biplane off a Navy scout cruiser’s short, makeshift wooden deck in the waters off Norfolk, Va. That feat, followed two months later by Ely
landing on another temporary ship’s deck and yet another takeoff, convinced officials and most importantly, Congress, that sea-based aviation was worth pursuing.
The Navy dates the beginning of naval aviation to May 8, 1911, when Capt. Washington Chambers signed a requisition ordering a Curtiss Triad, the Navy’s first airplane: A-1.
In the years that followed, the Navy developed a seaplane (known as a hydroaeroplane), dirigibles and aerial weapons, including machine guns, bombs and aerial torpedoes; conducted its first shipboard catapult launch and established its first physical requirements and standards for flight qualification. Fliers learned how to take aerial photos, use aerial radios and spot mines and submerged submarines.
They gained their “wings of gold” — the winged foul anchor device worn by qualified Navy fliers — in 1917. Close to eight years later, on April 8, 1925, Navy Lt. John Price made the first night landing on a carrier.
By 1920, the Navy had two fully operable aircraft carriers — Lexington and Saratoga — and both were taking part in fleet exercises. Naval aviation’s development slowed during the Great Depression, but ramped up as the “ominous rumblings of limited wars,” as official naval history put it, began echoing across the oceans.
Ingalls’ remarkable story didn’t end after World War I. He came home, studied law at Yale and became assistant Navy secretary for aeronautics, where he tripled the number of naval aircraft and pushed for a fully deployable carrier task force. He returned to active duty after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and as chief of staff for Forward Area Air Center Command on Guadalcanal, directed the transport of allied supplies in the Pacific. After retiring as a rear admiral, Ingalls became a newspaper publisher and returned to his law practice. He died in 1985.
Believe the next to last paragraph should begin with In 1930.
Didn’t have LANGLEY until about 1926, then Sara and Lex