Hero of the Angry Sky: The World War I Diary and Letters of David S.Ingalls, America's First Naval Ace

A Note on the Text

xvii A Note on the Text Principal Sources: Diary, two volumes, September 1917–November 1918 Letters to parents and others,April 1917–November 1918 Typescript diary/memoir prepared in the early postwar period Observations/Analysis re: training at Turnberry and Ayr Informal logbook entries scattered through the diary Technical notebook re: gunnery, equipment lectures at Turnberry RAF squadron reports This book incorporates the complete chronological text of David Ingalls ’s extant World War I letters and diary, technical notes from his time at Turnberry, an analysis of training at Ayr and Turnberry, random flight records, and official RAF squadron reports/flight reports, supplemented where appropriate by material drawn from his postwar (c. 1924) personal memoir.Also included is the transcript of after dinner remarks made at a 1924 reunion of theYale 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 xviii A Note on the Text 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. ...