Hoist the flag and let her fly, Yankee Doodle do or die. Pack your little kit, Show your grit, do your bit. Yankee to the ranks… Over There (1917)
April 2007 is the anniversary of American entry into World War I. Ninety-years ago the strains and lyrics of George M. Cohan’s ballad “Over There” swept a nation mobilizing for war, one that proved a watershed event in world history.
With respect to naval combat, the Great War introduced two new weapons to naval combat, the development of naval aviation paralleling that of the submarine. At sea, they were destined to be adversaries, for the primary mission of flying boats operated by America and its allies was coastal patrol, guarding the seaplane approaches to Europe in an effort to protect merchantmen from attacks by German U-boats. Brushes with the enemy were relatively few, the handful of aviators assigned to exchange duty with foreign air forces on the Western Front and in Italy and those who flew with the Northern Bombing Group on missions bombing German submarine bases in Belgium among those who experienced their share of combat. Among them was Lieutenant (junior grade) David S. Ingalls, who while flying with the British Royal Air Force scored six kills, making him naval aviation’s only ace of the Great War. Flying from Italy, Landsman for Quartermaster Charles H. Hammann intentionally landed his flying boat in the Adriatic Sea in the midst of an air battle with Austrian fighters to rescue a downed squadronmate and fly him to safety, becoming one of five naval aviation personnel to receive the Medal of Honor during World War I.
Behind the front lines World War I provided vast experience in mobilization. In eighteen months of American involvement in the Great War, the number of aircraft in the inventory increased from 54 to 2107 and the personnel strength ballooned from 287 to over 39,000. Perhaps the most lasting effect of the American experience overseas was through observations of British operations, particularly aircraft carrying vessels that launched offensive strikes, convincing U.S. naval aviators of the need for aircraft carriers to serve the fleet as weapons in their own right and not just an auxiliary of the battle line. The museum’s new World War I exhibit presents a diorama consisting of four sections. Two of them present wartime scenes so authentic in detail that visitors feel that they can step back into time, climbing aboard a flying boat for an antisubmarine patrol over the chilly Atlantic or receiving a briefing in a shell-pocked house before taking off from a muddy airstrip for a mission over the trenches. The first war in which airplanes flew in large numbers, World War I spawned a nationwide interest in aviation, giving birth to the Barnstorming era in which aerial troupes or individuals performed death-defying feats and gave airplane rides at small towns all across America. The museum’s JN-4 Jenny, examples of which were the primary platforms for barnstorming pilots, appears ready to give a small town boy his first airplane ride. The final scene in the diorama takes visitors to the deck of a battleship operating in the warm Caribbean waters off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where during the winter of 1919 war surplus aircraft like the Sopwith Camel flew from makeshift wooden platforms constructed atop battleship turrets, a unique operation that marked the first steps towards carrier aviation in the U.S. Navy.
Complementing the exhibit is a mahogany display case filled with vintage artifacts from naval aviation’s experience during World War I. They include the uniform of a Navy Cross recipient who was a wartime veteran of both the Navy and the French Foreign Legion, the tip of a propeller holed by friendly fire, and a mandolin whose wartime owner adorned with a record of his travels overseas.