Aspects of Anglo-US co-operation in the air in the First World War

Air & Space Power Journal, Winter, 2004 by Sebastian Cox

Three US squadrons commenced training in Canada and transferred with the Canadians to three airfields (Benbrook, Hicks, and Everman Fields) at Camp Taliaferro, near Fort Worth, Texas, in the autumn of 1917. The Canadian cadets occupied Benbrook and Everman Fields while the US cadets and the Canadian aerial gunnery school went to Hicks.

(10) An outbreak of influenza and associated medical quarantine precautions meant that a proportion of the additional eight US squadrons never arrived before the Canadians left in April. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the scheme was of great benefit to both the American and British Commonwealth air forces. As a result of the Hoare/Squire agreements, by April 1918 some 4,800 personnel were trained for the US air arm. This total included 408 fully trained US pilots along with a further 50 who had been partially trained. Two thousand five hundred ground personnel, officers and men, had been fully trained, with a further 1,600 part way through their training. (11) The first American squadron left Texas for England on 19 December 1917 with its full complement of 25 pilots, and three more followed in each of the next three months, thus completing the original agreement to train 10 squadrons. The first squadron (17th Aero Squadron) transferred to France in early February 1918 and was attached by flights to frontline RFC squadrons to gain combat experience. (12) In addition, some 1,500 flight cadets had been trained for the British Commonwealth air services. The new chief of the United States Air Service informed Hoare that these programmes had "conferred great and practical benefit on the United States Air Service." (13) The methods used in the Canadian gunnery school were subsequently in large part adopted by the US Air Service when it opened its own school at Ellington Field, Texas. (14) Although the original agreement provided for 10 fully trained US squadrons to serve with the RFC/Royal Air Force (RAF) in Europe, this did not come to pass. Only two US Air Service squadrons--the 17th and 148th Aero Squadrons--saw active service with the British, flying with them until November 1918, when they were absorbed into the US Air Service. One other interesting fact is worth noting regarding the Canadian training scheme: the very first cadets to arrive in Canada for training were from the US Navy and not the Army, and 20 of them completed their entire training in Canada and did not therefore transfer to Fort Worth. Amongst this initial party of US Navy cadets was James Forrestal, later a distinguished secretary of the Navy and secretary of defense. (15)