{"id":3985,"date":"2019-02-08T14:53:03","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T21:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/?page_id=3985"},"modified":"2022-11-21T14:04:04","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T21:04:04","slug":"john-lavalle-jr","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/the-biographies\/john-lavalle-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lavalle, Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Nahant, Massachusetts, June 24, 1896 \u2013 Southampton, Long Island, New York, November 13, 1971).1<\/a><\/p>\n

The birth name of Lavalle\u2019s father, Juan Guillermo LaValle y Sch\u00fctte, gives some idea of Lavalle\u2019s complex paternal heritage. Juan Guillermo\u2014who took the name John William Lavalle when his widowed mother married an American doctor in Paris\u2014was the grandson, on his mother\u2019s side, of a German immigrant to Peru and, on his father\u2019s, of General Juan Galo Lavalle Gonz\u00e1lez Bordallo, an important figure in Argentine military and political history descended from Spanish nobility.2<\/a><\/p>\n

John William Lavalle came to the U.S. as a boy and attended the Concord New Hampshire St. Paul\u2019s School (founded by George Cheyne Shattuck, Jr., father of his stepfather). He went on to study at M.I.T. and became a prominent architect.3<\/a>\u00a0In 1895 he married Alice Cornelia Johnson, a Bostonian who could trace her family back to early seventeenth-century British immigrants and who was connected to prominent Boston families; her sister was married to a governor of Massachusetts.4<\/a>\u00a0The Lavalles had two children before divorcing around 1910, but the younger child, a daughter, died before she was two, leaving John Lavalle an only child.5<\/a><\/p>\n

Lavalle, like his father, attended St. Paul\u2019s and then entered Harvard with the class of 1918.6<\/a>\u00a0At Harvard, according to Caroline Ticknor\u2019s account of him in her\u00a0New England Aviators<\/i>, the main source of information about his wartime career, he joined R.O.T.C. and was at the Officers\u2019 Training Camp at Plattsburg in the summer of 1916. He was accepted for the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps in April 1917, but, like William Ludwig Deetjen, ran into problems with military bureaucracy\u2014which seems to have decided his last name was spelled \u201cLavelle\u201d\u2014 and was not assigned to ground school at M.I.T. until July; he was one of a group of eight men who are recorded as having graduated September 1, 1918.7<\/a><\/p>\n

Of those eight, six\u2014Lavalle, Leo McCarthy, Phillips Merrill Payson, Andrew Joseph Shannon, George Dana Spear, and Perley Melbourne Stoughton\u2014chose or were chosen for training in Italy, and these six were among the 150 men of the \u201cItalian\u201d or \u201csecond Oxford detachment\u201d who sailed to England on the Carmania<\/i>. They left New York September 18, 1917, and arrived at Liverpool October 2, 1917.<\/p>\n

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The white band on Lavalle\u2019s cap in this photo from Deetjen\u2019s album marks him as an R.F.C. cadet. (Wisconsin Historical Society, WHSArch #108199.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There they learned that they were not bound for Italy but instead were ordered to attend ground school (again) at the Royal Flying Corps\u2019s No. 2 School of Military Aeronautics at Oxford University.<\/p>\n

Once arrived at Oxford, the 150 men were divided into two groups. Ninety of the men, under their fellow cadet Elliott White Springs, were housed in Christ Church College, and sixty under cadet William Ludwig went to Queen\u2019s. A photo of Lavalle taken by Deetjen suggests he was among those housed at Queen\u2019s. There was initially a fair amount of grumbling about having to repeat ground school; the men were eager to get flying. But they made their peace with the situation and came to appreciate the university town and its environs.\u00a0 Towards the middle of the month they were ordered to exchange their American uniforms for British; around the same time their shenanigans prompted the authorities to move them all (along with members of the first Oxford detachment, who had arrived in early September) into one college, Exeter.8<\/a><\/p>\n

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At the end of October, Lavalle sent friends at the Harvard\u00a0Lampoon<\/i>\u00a0(of which he had been an editor) a sketch on R.F.C. Queen\u2019s College stationery depicting himself wearing an R.F.C. cap and uniform, including Sam Browne belt, and noting that he was now at Exeter College.9<\/a><\/p>\n

On November 3, 1917, most of the detachment, including Lavalle, went to Grantham in Lincolnshire to attend gunnery school at Harrowby Camp. Fifty of these men departed on November 19, 1917, for flying schools; Lavalle was among those who remained at Grantham and completed two two-week machine gun courses, the first on the Vickers, the second on the Lewis machine gun. Lavalle was presumably at Grantham for Thanksgiving festivities, but apparently at some point went down to London and, according to his fellow cadet, Fremont Cutler Foss, \u201cgot hell\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. for overstaying leave in London and being done out of 5 \u00a3 by a bogus R.F.C. pilot.\u201d10<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Portion
Portion of Foss’s list of men posted December 3, 1917, showing the cadets going to Rochford.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the beginning December, finally, the cadets still at Grantham were posted to training squadrons. Lavalle went with eleven others (Thomas Welch Blackburn, Jr., James Mitchell Coburn, Kenneth MacLean Cunningham, Roy Edwin Martz, Leo McCarthy, Uel Thomas McCurry, Linn Daicy Merrill, Thomas M. Nial, Elwood D. Stanbery, Horace Palmer Wells, and Louis McComas Young) to No. 61 Squadron at Rochford in Essex.11<\/a>\u00a0This was a home defense squadron flying S.E.5a\u2019s, but Rochford had for some time also been used for training, and there were evidently training planes available.12<\/a><\/p>\n

By January 1918, Lavalle had done enough dual flying, probably in Avros, to be allowed to advance to flying solo. On January 3, 1918, up alone in a two-seater plane for the third time, he found the weather calm enough and himself confident enough to write a letter home whilst flying, all the while enjoying some Page & Shaw chocolates, a gift from home highly coveted by the men overseas.<\/p>\n

Where on earth do you think I am? To tell the honest truth, I’m not on earth at all. I am 5000 feet in the air! All alone! The engine is making such a noise that I can’t hear myself think, but it is very smooth up here at 5000 feet, so I can run this \u2019bus with my left hand and write to you with my right! I am beginning to think that I am some<\/i>\u00a0aviator now, because I can go up and write letters in the air.\u00a013<\/a><\/p>\n

In the course of his hour and ten minute flight, Lavalle climbed to 10,000 feet, practiced dives and spins, and considered looping but thought better of it. Once back on the ground, he wrote in a P.S.: \u201cOnly four more hours to do in the air, before I transfer from \u2018C\u2019 flight into \u2018A\u2019 Flight, where we learn to do stunts.\u201d<\/p>\n

After about two months at Rochford, at the end of January, Lavalle was, according to Ticknor\u2019s biography, ordered to Amesbury. Amesbury itself was not an R.F.C. training site, but there were a number of airfields and training stations in the surrounding Salisbury Plane. It seems likely, but not certain, that Lavalle was posted to No. 6 Training Depot Station at Boscombe Down, just outside Amesbury. He evidently made good progress and by mid-February had completed enough flying hours to be recommended for a lieutenant\u2019s commission. Pershing forwarded the recommendation for \u201cJohn Lavelle Jr.\u201d in a cable dated February 16, 1918, and the commission was confirmed in a cable sent from Washington dated March 1, 1918; Lavalle was placed on active duty at Amesbury on March 22, 1918.14<\/a><\/p>\n

The March 30, 1918, entry in\u00a0War Birds<\/i>\u00a0reads: \u201cI hear that Nial and Lavelle [sic<\/i>] and Jake Stahl are in the hospital pretty badly smashed up.\u201d\u00a0 Ticknor reports that Lavalle \u201cwas in the hospital in London from April 1 to Aug. 8.\u201d I have not found a record of an airplane crash or any other mention of Lavalle\u2019s misfortune beyond an R.A.F. casualty card from May 1918.15<\/a> It appears that he was initially sent to the large Grove Military Hospital in Tooting and from there to the smaller American Red Cross Hospital at 98 Lancaster Gate.\u00a0 The abbreviation \u201cN.Y.D.\u201d on the card presumably stands for \u201cnot yet diagnosed,\u201d which seems inconsistent with injuries from an airplane crash.<\/p>\n

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Lavalle’s casualty card, from the RAF Museum in London.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ticknor writes that Lavalle returned to Amesbury in August and that he went from there to \u201c58 T.S., Cramwell\u201d; this should probably be No. 58 Training Depot Station, Cranwell, in Lincolnshire. She goes on to indicate that he was to join a night-bombing Handley-Page squadron there, but that this did not work out. Whether he was still attached to the R.A.F. and expecting to join an R.A.F. squadron or to be part of the planned American Handley-Page night bombing program (which was still not operational at the end of the war) is not evident. In any case, Lavalle was one of perhaps only two members of the second Oxford detachment (the other was Harvard DeHart Castle) trained to fly the Handley Page, the largest aircraft in the R.A.F. fleet. Lavalle at this point returned to Amesbury as an instructor and was from there posted to Turnberry on the last day of the war. His wait to return home after the armistice was relatively short. He sailed from Liverpool on the Lapland<\/i>\u00a0in late November, arriving at New York on December 4, 1918.\u00a016<\/a><\/p>\n

Lavalle, like a number of his fellow second Oxford detachment members, had interrupted his undergraduate studies; many colleges made provision for students in this situation and allowed them to apply for \u201cwar degrees,\u201d which Lavalle evidently successfully did. In the spring of 1919, two war poems written by him, \u201cCombat\u201d and \u201cOver Ypres,\u201d were published in\u00a0The Atlantic Monthly<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0The Century Magazine<\/i>, respectively, and both recount incidents involving British pursuit (rather than bomber) plane pilots. Lavalle went on to study painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and in Europe and became a prominent portrait and landscape artist; he also painted a number of World War I aerial combat scenes. During World War II he combined his military and artistic training by serving, among other things, as a camouflage artist.17<\/a><\/p>\n

mrsmcq February 9, 2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Notes<\/h3>\n

(For complete bibliographic entries, please consult the list of\u00a0works and web pages cited<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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1<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0For Lavalle\u2019s place and date of birth, see Ancestry.com,\u00a0Massachusetts, Birth Records, 1840-1915<\/i>, record for John Lavalle Junior. His place and date of death are taken from \u201cJohn Lavalle, Portrait Painter and Landscape Artist, Dead.\u201d\u00a0 The photo, probably taken in England in the spring of 1918, is from Ticknor\u2019s New England Aviators 1914\u20131918<\/em>, vol. 1, p. [281].<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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2<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0On Lavalle\u2019s father, his name(s) and descent, see Quirno Lavalle, \u201cLa Descendencia del General Lavalle,\u201d Balmaceda,\u00a0Historias de corceles y de acero (de 1810 a 1824)<\/i>, and Belgrano Lagache, \u00c1rbol Geneal\u00f3gico, page for John William Lavalle Schutte.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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3<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0On Lavalle\u2019s father, see \u201cObituary [for John Lavalle].\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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4<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0On Lavalle\u2019s mother\u2019s descent, see documents available at Ancestry.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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5<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See documents available at Ancestry.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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6<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ticknor,\u00a0New England Aviators 1914\u20131918<\/i>, vol. 1, p. 280; Mead, ed.,\u00a0Harvard\u2019s Military Record in the World War<\/i>, p. 564.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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7<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See \u201cGround School Graduations [for September 1, 1917],\u201d where his last name is spelled \u201cLavelle.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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8<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0On the new uniforms and on the move to Exeter, see\u00a0War Birds<\/i>, entries for October 16 and October 22, 1917.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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9<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Lavalle, [Sketch].<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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10<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Foss, diary entry for December 1, 1917.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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11<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Foss, Papers, \u201cCadets of Italian Detachment Posted Dec 3rd<\/sup>.\u201d In Ticknor,\u00a0New England Aviators 1914\u20131918<\/i>, vol. 1, p. 280, for \u201cRockford,\u201d read \u201cRochford.\u201d The relationship during World War I between Rochford and nearby Southend, where Ticknor records Lavalle being posted for one day, is not clear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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12<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Philpott,\u00a0The Birth of the Royal Air Force<\/i>, pp. 250\u201351.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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13<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0[Lavalle], \u201cYouth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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14<\/strong><\/a> \u00a0Cablegrams 612-S and 852-R; Biddle, \u201cSpecial Orders No. 35.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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15<\/strong><\/a> \u00a0See \u201cLavalle, J.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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16<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0War Department, Office of the Quartermaster General, Army Transport Service,\u00a0Lists of Incoming Passengers, 1917 – 1938<\/i>, Passenger list for Casual Officers, Air Service, on S. S.\u00a0Lapland<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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17<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u201cJohn Lavalle, Portrait Painter and Landscape Artist, Dead.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Nahant, Massachusetts, June 24, 1896 \u2013 Southampton, Long Island, New York, November 13, 1971).1 The birth name of Lavalle\u2019s father, Juan Guillermo LaValle y Sch\u00fctte, gives some idea of Lavalle\u2019s complex paternal heritage. Juan Guillermo\u2014who took the name John William Lavalle when his widowed mother married an American doctor in Paris\u2014was the grandson, on his … Continue reading “John Lavalle, Jr.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3991,"parent":30,"menu_order":72,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3985","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3985"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7685,"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3985\/revisions\/7685"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}