-
Lyman Case
- University of Michigan Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
LYMAN CASE We have “aerial smash” up here regularly. I had one on my ‹rst solo ›ight. I came down too quick and busted the undercarriage, my propeller, and the two lower wings. —Iowa City Citizen, August 17, 1917 a mother’s intuition Many of the early aviators in France served in the French Air Service as Fred Zinn had, training either in French units or as part of the Lafayette Flying Corps. Others were attached to service in the Royal Flying Corps or worked in conjunction with the British forces. Such was the case of the 17th Aero Squadron. Along with its sister unit, the 88th Aero Squadron, it operated over territory along the coast of France where the British dominated operations. For First Lieutenant Lyman Edwin Case, France was a world away from his home in Lamoni, Iowa. His widowed mother, Joanna Mae Case, had moved to Lamoni when he was three years old along with his brother and two sisters. He graduated high school in 1914 and worked a summer job as a typesetter at the Iowa City Press-Citizen newspaper to help pay for college. He enrolled at Iowa State University in the School of Applied Sciences. While the war in Europe raged he began his studies. When the United States began to turn to war Lyman enlisted in May of 1917. He trained at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, as part of the 492nd Squadron and was rotated for assignment to the Royal Flying Corps in England for his ‹nal aviation training. He attended gunnery school in Scotland and was reassigned to the 17th Aero Squadron.1 The 17th Aero Squadron was out‹tted with Sopwith Camels, earning their pilots the nickname “Camel Drivers.” The squadron was divided into three ›ights, A, B, and C. Lyman was assigned to A Flight under 125 William Goodnow, a veteran Royal Flying Corps pilot. Lieutenant Case (“Casey,” as he had become known to his peers) had ›own on several combat missions and was considered seasoned and not prone to the mistakes that rookie aviators made. At 10:30 a.m. on August 14, 1918, the 17th Aero Squadron was assigned duty escorting the Royal Air Force (RAF) 211 Squadron on a bombing raid against the German-held city of Bruges in Belgium. The Sopwith Camels moved in around the D.H.9s of the British and ›ew through the hail of anti-aircraft ‹re maneuvering toward Bruges. The planes were ›ying at fourteen thousand feet. Suddenly the German 1st Marine Feld Jasta plowed into the formation . Six of the aircraft were Fokker D VIIs, and one was a newer model monoplane. The ‹ght became brisk and very deadly. While the Germans were outnumbered, they were not at all intimidated by the fact and aggressively swarmed the formations.2 First Lieutenant Glen D. Wicks, on his ‹rst ›ight with the 17th Aero, saw that one of the Germans was swinging around to avoid engaging another Sopwith Camel. The arc of his ›ight lined him up perfectly for a shot. A short burst of seventy-‹ve bullets hit the cockpit of Flugzeugmeister Karl Goldenstedt in midturn. Goldenstedt’s plane didn’t waver; it ›ew on, curving upward and around, right into the path of A Flight. In an instant, the Fokker slammed into “Casey’s” Camel. The left wing cut across the Camel’s fuselage before shearing off from the force of the impact. Lyman’s plane dropped the fourteen thousand feet quickly with the Fokker slowly spiraling after it.3 Fred Zinn’s search for Lyman Case began and ended in Berlin. He had requested that each squadron commander provide him with details of every lost pilot, aircraft, and so on. “Casey’s” commander had been very thorough, not only giving Zinn the tail number of the aircraft (9455) but the engine number (101863 WD 44399) and the serial numbers of each machine gun. Also provided was a summary of Lyman’s last ›ight and the approximate area where he had gone down.4 Captain Zinn reached out to the Germans to check their records and to the Red Cross. The Germans were quick to respond. Their records showed that Lyman’s remains had been recovered by the 4th Deutsche Armee on the day of his crash. He had been wrapped in a blanket and buried in a German cemetery in Steenbrugge, near Bruges, in grave 728. 126 | lost eagles [3.238.226.167] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:46...