This photo may have been taken some time prior to August 25, 1917, as a number of the men apparently did not graduate from ground school that day and were presumably moved to other classes prior to August 25, 1917. The men pictured here are (second Oxford detachment men in bold), left to right, back row: George B. Thomas, Henry L. Brownback, Wendell E. Borncamp, Norman K. Berry, Robert S. Stewart, W[esley] Benner, Paul J. Carr, Joseph P. English, Robert A. Anderson, Thomas B. A. Byrne; middle row: Francis K. Read, Lloyd Ludwig, Harry R. Humphries, Donald A. Wilson, Gilbert A. Woods, John P. Temple, William W. Wait, Parvin E. Paules, Galloway G. Cheston; front row: Robert H. Dippy, Howard S. Tierney, Donald S. Poler, Guy M. Baldwin, George A. Brader, Harold G. Olmstead, William J. Armstrong, Charles L. Osborn, Harold F. Alexander. This rare photo belonged to Lloyd Ludwig and was handed down in his family to his great nephew, Lloyd Ludwig, Jr., who kindly made it available. A high resolution version is available here.
This photo, handed down in Elwood D. Stanbery’s family is one of at least two photos of this group taken August 10, 1917 (my thanks to Stanbery’s great niece, Barb Pepper, for this copy). Another photo of the men—without their hats—belonged to Grider, passed to his sister, Josephine Grider Jacobs, and was reproduced on p. 199 of Sloan’s Wings of Honor, along with Grider’s identifications from the back. There appear to have been some errors in Grider’s spelling and/or in Sloan’s transcription of the names, and the matching of names to faces is uncertain. The photo appears to include some men who did not graduate with the class, while not including some (notably Callahan) who did. Several second Oxford detachment men can be identified in the photo. The man third from the right in the front row is probably Elwood D. Stanbery. The man to the left of him may be Walter Ferguson Halley. Just behind Stanbery is John McGavock Grider. In the back row, to the left of Grider, is, I believe, James Mitchell Coburn. I n the middle row, behind the man in the front row with legs crossed, is Marvin Kent Curtis (mustache). Second from the left in the front row is Bradley Cleaver Lawton. Other men in the photo, based on the identifications from Grider’s photo and University of Illinois School of Military Aeronautics records, apparently include Julian William Camp, Lionel Hamilton Dunlap, Otto Ferguson, George Albert Foss, Edward Grant Garnsey, Ralph H. [J.?] Johnson, Karl J. Heckert, Jr., Wilbur Hugh McEachran, Josiah James Pegues, Harlow Russel Price, Paul Fitch Sanborne, and James Whitworth Stokes. My thanks to Steve Ruffin for information from the UofI SMA records. Corrections and help with further identifications and matching names to faces will be welcomed.
This photo of the men at the University of Illinois’s School of Military Aeronautics, taken by Bernard Andrew Strauch on August 16, 1917, was among Jesse Frank Campbell’s possessions. His grandson, Duncan Campbell, had it restored and kindly forwarded a scan to me in 2017. A high resolution image can be viewed here. Because the far right and upper left of the original were badly damaged, a few men have disappeared at the right end, and the first six men in the back row, as well as the ninth and tenth, starting from the left, are not original, but have been “photoshopped” in—hence some duplicate faces. The same obtains for the second two men, starting from the left, in the middle row. Anker Christian Jensen also had a copy of this photo, and portions of his copy, reprinted in Marvin Skelton’s book on Laurence Kingsley Callahan, have been used for comparison, as has a section of the photo that Steve Ruffin reproduced on p. 159 of “Flying in France.” (Note: Skelton’s book appeared in at least two slightly differing editions, with some different photos.) Back row: Jesse Campbell is eighth from the left in the back row (and has been pasted in as first in the row). Middle row: Ninth from the right in the middle row is probably Mathews; the eleventh is Middleditch. Leach is twelfth from the right; someone has marked his forehead with the number 10; two men to the left is Merrill, marked with the number 7. Goad (long wide tie) is nineteenth from the right. Everett Richard Cook (not a second Oxford detachment member) is fourteenth from the left in the middle row (hands on hips). Front row (sitting cross-legged): Curtis is seventh from left in the front row; Callahan the eighth. Grider is fourteenth, just behind the white-haired man who is second from left in the front row of reclining men. The first man on the right in the front row may be Jensen; the second is probably Oatis, the fourth is Parrish, the fifth is probably Nial, and the sixth Pudrith. The eighth is probably Coburn; the thirteenth is McCook. Short front row (reclining and sitting): No identifications. Assistance with identification of other men in this photo would be welcome.
Payden kept this copy of the M.I.T. ground school class that graduated August 25, 1918. He is in the middle row, third from left. The man to the left of him is probably Griffiths. In the same row, third from the right, is Castle. Leyson is in the middle of the row, holding his hat. Carlton is on the far right in the front row. The man second from left in the back row is almost certainly Matthiessen; second from the right is almost certainly Sandford; fifth from right is Hamilton. Chalaire is fourth from left in the middle row. Other second Oxford detachment men who may be in the photo but whom I have not identified are Frost, Hollander, and Webber. The above is scanned from p. 19 of Payden, J.R.: Joseph R. Payden, 1915–1925, with the kind permission of Joan Payden. See here for a higher resolution image.
Payden collected the signatures of his M.I.T. ground school classmates on the back of his photo of Squadron 7. This has been scanned from p. 19 of Payden, J.R.: Joseph R. Payden, 1915–1925, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of Joan Payden.
Copies of this photo taken by Frank Hager Haskett have been handed down in the families of Clements, Hooper, Milnor, and Stier. Murray Kenneth Guthrie was in this squadron but does not appear in this photo. A higher resolution version can be seen here. See also the informal photo of the squadron at the Columbus engine lab below.
This photo of twenty-four of the twenty-six men in Squadron 7 at the engine lab was among Parr Hooper’s possessions. Left to right (second Oxford detachment men in bold): William Thomas Clements, Charles William Harold Douglass (in profile), Clarence Bernard Maloney, Thomas Frank Fielder, Harry Daniel Hundley, Lynn Lemuel Stratton, Parr Hooper, Reuben Lee Paskill (arms crossed), George Herbert Zellers, Roland Hammond Ritter, Allison Henderson Chapin (?), obscured (possibly Charles Barbour Rollins), Guy Samuel King Wheeler, Joseph Kirkbride Milnor, Roy Olin Garver (arms crossed), Joseph Frederick Stillman, Arthur Paul Supplee (?, behind Stillman), DeWitt Coleman, Jr., Arthur Sanford Richards (?), obscured, turned away, obscured, and James Frisbee Crankshaw. See here for larger image.
O.S.U. ground school, Squadron 8. Photo taken by Frank Hager Haskett at Ohio State University on August 13, 1917. This copy of the photo is among Foss’s papers. A higher resolution version is here.
This photo of twenty-two of the men in Squadron 8 was among Pryor Richardson Perkins’s possessions and is now at the Virginia War Museum at Newport News, Virginia. In front of squadron: Albert Anderson Price. Front row: Not identified, Albert Sidney Woolfolk, Ervin David Shaw, Dudley Hersey Mudge, Clair Rutherford Oberst (?), Earl Adams, Fremont Cutler Foss, William Henley Mooney (?). Back row, left to right: Robert Jenkins Griffith, John Chadbourn Rorison (?), Harrison Barbour Irwin, Lorenz Kneedler Ayers, Robert Brewster Porter (?), not identified, Roger Edwin Martz (?), Perkins, Thomas John Herbert, Earl William Sweeney (?), Stanley Cooper Kerk (?), Albert Elston Weaver, Edward Carter Braxton Landon.
This photo of men in the Princeton Aviation School, the precursor of Princeton’s ground school, has been reproduced in various places. The above is from the Princeton Bric-a-Brac yearbook for 1919 (p. 84), in a copy digitized by Ancestry.com. There appears to be no ownership mark, and thus no indication who might have written in the identifications. Men from the second Oxford detachment who appear here are: Neely (standing, far left), Sidler (standing, fourth from left), Vaughn (standing, sixth from left, in front of propeller), Bulkley (next to Vaughn), Bostick (standing, third from right), and Cronin (far right in front row). The fourth man from the left in the front row, with his hands clasping his ankle, is probably Springs. A reproduction of the photo on p. 108 of Wheaton J. Lane’s Pictorial History of Princeton (1947), identifies this man as M. S. Quay, but Quay himself, interrogated by Mike O’Neal, said it was not he. The caption to a reproduction of the photo in Vaughn’s War Flying in France (p. 5a) suggests that Springs is fifth man from the left, but that man is probably Erdman, as identified above and by Lane. Also in War Flying in France, the third man from the left in the middle row, kneeling, with goggles on his forehead, is identified as Dixon; Pictorial History of Princeton identifies him as F. A. Zunino, Jr. Based on comparisons with other photos of the two men, the Zunino identification seems more likely.
Staff and students of the Princeton Aviation School in front of a Curtiss Jenny in 1917. Judging by the men’s clothing, the photo was taken on a chilly spring day. Five men who went on to be members of the second Oxford detachment can be identified: William Hamlin Neely stands second from the left in the back row, and Harold Kidder Bulkley is fourth from the right. Bonham Hagood Bostick shows off his profile in the middle row, and Charles Edward Brown wears a campaign hat. Elliott White Springs sits in the front row, second from the right. Marshall Freeborn Mills of the school’s advisory board wears a flat cap, glasses, suit, and tie in the middle of the back row; it may be instructor Edward Ralph Kenneson with the goggles standing between Mills and Neely. Instructor Frank Ralph Stanton kneels between Bostick and Brown. This photo is copyrighted by the Western Newspaper Union, but does not, as far as I can tell, appear to have been used in any newspaper. A high resolution copy is preserved in the National Archives (NAI 26427813).
Bostick, Vaughn, and Springs appear in this photo of a Princeton Aviation School mishap. The “culprit” was apparently Allen Bevin (brother of second Oxford detachment member Newton Bevin). Source: “WW1 ‘Foggione’ Pilot, Allen Bevin.”
Orren Jack Turner took at least two photos of the first class to graduate from the Princeton School of Military Aeronautics. A copy of this one, rarely reproduced, belonged to Walter Boadway, who was originally a member of this class, but who, because of illness, did not graduate until September 8, 1917. Boadway’s wife gave the photo to Michael O’Neal, who generously shared a digitized version with me and gave me permission to include it here. Boadway provided identifications of the men on the reverse as follows: Front row (left to right): Cronin, Vaughn, Morris, Neely, Sidler, King, Bostick. Middle row: Dixon, Newt Bevin, Al Bevin, Kelly, Brown, Carpenter, Keenan, Newbury. Back row: Raftery, M. Pyne, Bardwell, Bulkley, Bond, P. Pyne, Nelson, Burger, Brewster, Knox, Taber, Holden, Springs. See here for larger version.
This photo by Orren Jack Turner of the first graduating class of the Princeton School of Military Aeronautics has been frequently reproduced. In Vaughn’s War Flying in France, the identifications provided are as follows: Front row (left to right): William B. Kelley, George A. Vaughn, Jr., Edward M. Cronin, Wistar Morris, Frank W. Sidler, Paul King, Hagood B. Bostick. Middle row: John H. Raftery, Meredith H. Pyne, Newton P. Bevin, Fairfax C. Burger, William H. Neely, unknown, Edmond T. Keenan, Frank J. Newbury. Back row: Elliott W. Springs, Allen W. Bevin, Harold K. Bulkley, George A. Bond, John F. Bohmfalk, Frank A. Dixon, Walter B. Knox, Captain Adlia H. Gilkerson (C.O), Charles E. Brown, Sydney E. Brewster, Percy R. Pyne, Lansing C. Holden, Arthur T. Taber, Paul D. Nelson. A copy of the photo at the Historical Society of Princeton identifies the unknown man as Darwin Eugene Bardwell; it is, in fact, Paul Vincent Carpenter.
