Wwi Us Marine Corps 1st Aviation Squadron Helmet

WW1 Painted 2nd Division 1st Marine Aviation Squadron Helmet complete with liner and chinstrap with a punched EGA or Eagle Globe & Anchor. Also to the rear of the helmet is a hand painted white Propeller. Excellent. When the United States entered WWI, the Marine Corps had six Marine officers classified as naval aviators; although none were identified as reservists.5 But the surge was on, and a large segment of the buildup in aviation manpower came via Marine Corps recruiting efforts, selecting highly qualified Marine enlisted men for aviation training and the Navy Reserve flying programs. Quick to get into the action, the first Marine Corps Reserve officer reported for aviation duty less than a month after war was declared. Reserve Marine Second Lieutenant Edmund G. Chamberlain was listed as “on aviation duty” on the muster roll of the Aeronautic Company, Advanced Base Force, Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, from Houston, Texas, on 2 May 1917. Chamberlain earned his wings as Naval Aviator No. 96 ½ and remained in Marine Corps aviation during the war, but not as a reservist. He integrated into the Marine Corps on 6 September 1917, prior to earning his naval aviator designation. Chamberlain was followed by Second Lieutenant Marcus A. Jordan from Washington, DC, who was listed as “on aviation duty” on 18 May 1917. By early July 1917, Jordan was posted on the muster roll of the 7th Company, 5th Regiment, at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and dropped from aviation duty, but remained in the Marine Corps Reserve.8 Jordan never lost his love of aviation, and it eventually cost him his life. He deployed to France with his regiment and, on 16 October 1917, worked his way back into aviation through attachment to the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, U.S. Army, where he was ordered to the Aviation Training School in Foggia, Italy, for “instructions in flying.” Jordan took his first training flight on 28 October 1917. Advancing rapidly, he took his last training flight on 6 November and became an “Instructor of Cadets in Machine Gunnery.”10 While attached to the 8th Aviation Instruction Center in Foggia and still a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps Reserve, but not a designated naval aviator, he was killed on 27 March 1918 in a crash during a training flight near Foggia. To more effectively build and prepare a Marine Corps aviation organization for war, just three weeks after the U.S. declaration of war in April 1917, the relatively small Marine Aviation Section, U.S. Navy Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, was divided with some of the Marines forming the Marine Aeronautic Company, Advanced Base Force, Philadelphia Navy Yard, under the command of Cunningham. At Pensacola, the training had been focused on seaplanes. The new aviation unit at Philadelphia was to be a combination land and water unit with training in seaplanes, land aircraft, and observation balloons.12 On 12 October 1917, to refine aviation organization and focus flight skills, aircraft types, and missions, the Marine Aeronautic Company was split into two units: 1st Marine Aeronautic Company and 1st Aviation Squadron.The 1st Marine Aeronautic Company, with 10 officers, only one who—Captain Francis T. Evans—was designated a naval aviator, and 96 enlisted men, emphasized seaplane operations and relocated to Naval Coastal Air Station Cape May, New Jersey. Among those officers arriving at Cape May on 14 October 1917 were two MCRFC officers who were not yet designated naval aviators: Second Lieutenants Alan H. Boynton and Amor L. Smith. Also on the initial muster roll of the 1st Marine Aeronautic Company was one Fleet Marine Corps Reserve sergeant and two privates in the National Naval Volunteers (NNV). Although deeply involved in training its potential Reserve pilots, the company immediately became operational, flying sea patrols from Cape May with its two Curtiss R-6 seaplanes. It became the first Marine Corps aviation unit to deploy in an operational mode for the war when, in January 1918, it arrived at Naval Base 13, Ponta Delgada, Azores, equipped and ready for sea patrols. The other unit formed from the Marine Aeronautic Company was 1st Aviation Squadron, commanded by Cunningham. The new unit, with 24 officers, including one Marine gunner, and 197 enlisted men, was moved a little later in October 1917 to an Army flying field, Hazelhurst Field, Mineola, Long Island, New York. Cunningham and the second senior officer, Captain Roy S. Geiger spent a great deal of that month away from the unit, leaving Captain William M. McIlvain as the senior officer present in the new command. While none of the officers were noted as members of the Marine Corps Reserve on the muster roll, three sergeants and five privates were, along with three NNV. Of the initial 24 officers, only 3 were designated naval aviators: Cunningham, McIlvain, and Geiger. The Army’s Hazelhurst Field focused on training pilots for landplane flying. The Marines of 1st Aviation Squadron remembered Ha