Hero of the Angry Sky. David S. Ingalls
is the transcript of after dinner remarks made at a 1924 reunion of the Yale fliers. Obvious misspellings have been corrected. In the few instances where Ingalls’s handwriting made deciphering a word or phrase problematic or where words have been inserted to provide clarity, the editor has so indicated with brackets—[ ]—in the text.
Chapter organization reflects discrete periods in Ingalls’s wartime instruction and service, beginning with chapter 1, his early training in Florida and New York. Chapter 2 covers his voyage across the Atlantic and early months in England and France. Chapter 3 includes material related to training with the Royal Flying Corps from December 1917 until March 1918. Chapter 4 documents Ingalls’s service at NAS Dunkirk and with No.213 Squadron, RAF, in the period March–May 1918. Chapter 5 is devoted to his months of training for duty with the Northern Bombing Group and service with an RAF bombing squadron. Chapter 6 covers his time at the front with No.213 Squadron in August–October 1918, the months when he scored all of his aerial victories. Chapter 7 describes Ingalls’s final wartime duties at the navy’s assembly and repair facility at Eastleigh, England, and his trip home.
The volume incorporates both editorial comments and annotations. The editorial material is designed to place Ingalls’s words and actions into historical context, while offering a succinct narrative of his life and the events of his military career. Most of this information is located at the beginning of chapters or in extended footnotes. The objective is not to retell the entire story of naval aviation in this period. Rather, every attempt has been made to give substance to Ingalls’s own voice, to let one young man tell his own story, completely, for the very first time.
Finally, the annotations. Throughout his surviving letters, diary, and other documents, David Ingalls mentioned a vast cast of characters, organizations, places, and events. A few are well known to the casual reader, but most are not, even to those well versed in the history of the period. Many references, at a distance of nearly a century, are quite obscure. To address this issue and help the reader understand the flow of events but not overwhelm Ingalls’s narrative, the editor has indicated the terms, characters, places, and other material to be identified with a footnote number, with the actual identification/explanation placed at the bottom of the page.
Abbreviations
AA antiaircraft
A & R assembly and repair
AEF American Expeditionary Force
BM Boatswain’s Mate
CNO Chief of Naval Operations
CO commanding officer
C.P.S. Carson, Pirie, Scott
DFC Distinguished Flying Cross
DSC Distinguished Service Cross
DSI David Sinton Ingalls
DSM Distinguished Service Medal
DSO Distinguished Service Order
EA enemy aircraft
FAD First Aeronautic Detachment
GM Gunner’s Mate
HOP high offensive patrol
j.g. junior grade
MG machine gun
MM Machinist Mate
NA Naval Aviator
NAS Naval Air Station
NBG Northern Bombing Group
NRFC Naval Reserve Flying Corps
QM Quartermaster
RAF Royal Air Force
RFC Royal Flying Corps
RNAS Royal Naval Air Service; Royal Naval Air Station
VC Victoria Cross
Introduction
In 1925, Rear Admiral William S. Sims, commander of U.S. naval forces operating in Europe during World War I, declared, “Lieutenant David S. Ingalls may rightly be called the ‘Naval Ace’ of the war.”1 Of the twenty thousand pilots, observers, ground officers, mechanics, and construction workers who served overseas in the conflict, only Ingalls earned that unofficial yet esteemed status. In contrast, by November 1918, the U.S. Army Air Service counted more than 120 aces.2
The Cleveland, Ohio, native’s unique achievement resulted from several factors. Unlike their army peers, few naval pilots engaged in air-to-air combat. Instead, most patrolled uncontested waters in search of submarines. A bare handful served with Allied squadrons along the Western Front, the true cauldron of the air war. By contrast, David Ingalls spent much of his flying career stationed at NAS Dunkirk, the navy’s embattled base situated just behind enemy lines, or carrying out missions with Royal Air Force (RAF) fighting and bombing squadrons. He did three tours with the British, all without a parachute or other safety gear, and he hungered for more. The young aviator managed to be in the right place at the right time, and as was true for nearly all surviving aces, luck smiled on him.
David Ingalls’s personal attributes played a crucial role in his success. A gifted athlete, he possessed extraordinary eyesight, hand-eye coordination, strength, agility, and endurance. An instinctive, confident flier, Ingalls learned quickly and loved the aerial environment. With a head for detail, he easily mastered the many technical facets of his craft. He was also an excellent shot and unforgiving hunter. Finally, Ingalls possessed the heart of a youthful daredevil, a hell-raiser who gloried in the excitement and challenge of aerial combat. He seemed fearless and quickly put one day’s activities behind him even as he prepared for the next mission. He went to war a schoolboy athlete and came home a national hero. And he was still only nineteen years old when the guns fell silent.
Although Ingalls’s wartime experiences are compelling at a personal level, they also illuminate the larger but still relatively unexplored realm of early U.S. naval aviation. According to military historians R. D. Layman and John Abbatiello, naval aviation carried out a wide variety of missions in World War I and exercised far greater influence on the conduct of military affairs than heretofore acknowledged. Aircraft protected convoys from attack and played an increasingly vital role in the campaign against the U-boat. Aviators aided the efforts of naval units and ground troops in military theaters extending from the North Sea and English Channel to Flanders, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Iraq. Fleet commands, most notably in Great Britain, worked to integrate the new technology into ongoing operations and develop innovative applications.3
As the United States developed its own aviation priorities, missions, and doctrines during 1917 and 1918, it aspired to similar success. Despite his extreme youth, David Ingalls was repeatedly selected by the navy to play a pathbreaking role in this process. He began as one of the very first pilots dispatched to Europe for active duty “over there.” Once ashore, he became one of only three aviators chosen to receive advanced training at Britain’s School of Special Flying at Gosport, preparatory to assuming the role of flight commander at beleaguered NAS Dunkirk. During the terrifying German advance of March–April 1918, he and three other American pilots joined a Royal Air Force fighting squadron operating over Flanders. Later that year, he became one of the initial members of the navy’s most significant offensive program of the entire war, the Northern Bombing Group (NBG), and then flew several bombing missions with the RAF. After just a few weeks’ ground duty with the NBG, Ingalls returned to British service for two months, becoming the only navy pilot to fly over the front lines for such an extended period. While with the RAF, he served as acting flight commander ahead of many longtime members of his squadron. In recognition of this work, he became the first American naval aviator to receive Britain’s Distinguished Flying Cross. He finished his service as chief flight officer at the navy’s sprawling assembly and repair depot at Eastleigh, England.
Ingalls’s wartime correspondence offers a rare personal view of the evolution of naval aviation during the war, both at home and abroad. There are no published biographies of navy combat fliers from this period, and just a handful of diaries and letters are in print, the last appearing in the early 1990s.4 Ingalls kept a detailed record of his wartime service in several forms, and his extensive and enthusiastic letters and diaries