{"id":6587,"date":"2021-07-19T14:17:45","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T20:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/?page_id=6587"},"modified":"2024-12-10T11:07:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T18:07:08","slug":"robert-thomas-palmer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/the-biographies\/robert-thomas-palmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Thomas Palmer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u00a0(Dora, Alabama, May 19, 1895\u2013Kingfield, Maine, October 7, 1985)1<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Oxford & Grantham<\/a> \u00a0 \u272f \u00a0 Training with No. 50 Squadron<\/a> \u00a0 \u272f \u00a0 Stamford, Thetford, Turnberry<\/a> \u00a0 \u272f \u00a0 France<\/a><\/p>\n

Palmer\u2019s father\u2019s family can be traced back to one of the English Palmers who came to Virginia in the first part of the seventeenth century. Descendants moved to South Carolina and Georgia, and in Palmer\u2019s grandfather\u2019s generation, to Alabama. Palmer\u2019s father, Robert Henry Palmer, broke with the family tradition of farming and went into commerce, becoming a leading businessman in Walker County, Alabama.2<\/a> His first wife died in 1885; Robert Thomas Palmer was the first child of his second marriage, to Joanna Gertrude Jackson, whose ancestors had similarly moved from Virginia to Georgia and then Alabama. Sometime prior to 1910, the Palmer family relocated from the small town of Dora (originally called Horse Creek), where Robert Thomas Palmer was born, to nearby Jasper.3<\/a><\/p>\n

Palmer attended college at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, graduating with a degree in electrical engineering in 1916.4<\/a> When he registered for the draft in June 1917, he was in Toledo, Ohio, working as an electrical engineer for the Toledo Railway and Light Company, but he soon applied to the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps.5<\/a> He went to Chicago for his physical exam and for tests designed to weed out those unsuited to flying: vision and hearing tests, and extensive tests for balance. He was whirled about in a chair \u201cand if it had not been especially constructed I would have been thrown out about 10 feet. Then stopping the chair suddenly they told me to sit straight up. I couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. This was exactly right and I passed.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. Some of the men after the chair test were so sick and nauseated that they were disqualified and some of them it did not affect enough so they were disqualified.\u201d6<\/a><\/p>\n

By early July 1917 Palmer was enrolled in ground school at the School of Military Aeronautics at Ohio State University at Columbus.7<\/a> Soon after he arrived he wrote his parents that \u201cI can receive the wireless calls just twice as fast as the rest of the fellows in my quarters. I can receive clearly 8 words a minute to their 4.\u201d8<\/a> This is worth noting, as mastering Morse code was a stumbling block for many of the students\u2014ironically, as few of the men who became pilots ended up needing it.9<\/a>\u00a0Palmer continues: \u201cMy lack of military training and experience is holding me back in the drilling as most of the fellows here have had several years of military work.\u201d Some of the students had been in a college cadet corps or R.O.T.C., but Palmer, coming from regular college course work, was probably not actually in the minority. \u201cWe are cadets just the same as the ones at West Point and Annapolis except that we have more privileges and our course is much shorter. After a month or six weeks here we go to Dayton, Ohio, to the advanced training camp.\u201d This was among the first of many assumptions about the future that would prove wrong; the war effort involved a great deal of extemporization and frequent changes of plan.<\/p>\n

When Palmer\u2019s ground school class<\/a> of about thirty men graduated September 1, 1917, he was among the twenty-four who had been selected to do their advanced training in Italy. They travelled to Mineola on Long Island and became part of a detachment of 150 men\u2014they called themselves \u201cthe Italian detachment\u201d\u2014setting out for Europe. Palmer wrote his parents in the first part of October that \u201cWe sailed from New York Sept. 18 at noon on the * * * * one of the Canord [sic<\/i>; sc. Cunard] liners and one of the largest and fastest boats on the world\u201d; the censor has removed the name of the ship,\u00a0Carmania<\/i>. \u201cWe went through * * * * [Halifax] and stayed there two days and then came on to * * * * [Liverpool] with a convoy of other boats. . . . I didn\u2019t see any submarines but we were close to them. A tramp steamer was torpedoed 10 mile in front of us and an American destroyer sank a submarine which attacked our convoy though I didn\u2019t see the fight as the tail end of the convoy was attacked and we were in front. This has been published in a London paper\u201d\u2014which presumably meant Palmer was not worried that his account would be censored. \u201cIt took us two weeks to cross the Atlantic as we were zig-zagging across to fool the Germans. We wore our life belts constantly most of the latter part of the voyage and kept submarine watch. I was on watch one night and was kind of disappointed in not seeing one.\u201d10<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Oxford & Grantham<\/a><\/h6>\n

When the\u00a0Carmania<\/i>\u00a0docked at Liverpool on October 2, 1917, the detachment members learned that they were not to continue to Italy, but to go to Oxford University for training at the Royal Flying Corps\u2019s No. 2 School of Military Aeronautics there\u2014although apparently there was still some idea that Italy was possible. In his October letter Palmer writes \u201cWe will probably be here three weeks and then may go to Italy. I can\u2019t tell what the government may decide to do. We had an Italian lesson every day on the boat which shows how sure of our plans we were.\u201d One of their teachers had been Fiorello La Guardia, who may also have been responsible for the men having enjoyed the comfort of the\u00a0Carmania<\/i>\u2019s first class state rooms.11<\/a><\/p>\n

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Tommy Herbert and Palmer in a detail from a group photo<\/a> of R.F.C. cadets at Oxford in October 1917. Palmer is third from right in the third row up from the bottom. (Courtesy of Springs Close Family Archives.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once arrived at Oxford the 150 men of what came to be called the \u201csecond Oxford detachment\u201d were split into two groups, and Palmer was in the larger group of ninety men who were housed in Christ Church College with detachment member Elliott White Springs in charge. Palmer\u2019s roommates were his ground school classmate Thomas John Herbert and a man from the class ahead of him, Parr Hooper.12<\/a> Palmer noted that \u201cIt is very damp here but we keep a fire going in our room all of the time so that I am not affected by it much.\u201d13<\/a> In the aftermath of bibulous celebrations that also included members of the first Oxford detachment (who had arrived at the beginning of September), all 150 men were moved to Exeter College, so that all the Americans were housed together. Hooper wrote from Exeter that he had \u201cthe same two roommates here that I had at Christ Church and we get along very well. We drew a convenient room on the second floor. There is no heat and we wash in cold water in basins in a little yard outside the court.\u201d14<\/a><\/p>\n

As classes at Oxford covered much of the same material that the men had had at ground school in the states, the cadets were not overburdened with homework or studying but were free to explore Oxford and the surrounding countryside. Palmer wrote that he had \u201ctaken several long walks and canoe rides in the country and on the river here.\u201d He was ambivalent about England. It was<\/p>\n

very pretty and everything is very green. The whole country looks like some rich man\u2019s private park as it is so well tended. I suppose the greeness [sic<\/i>] and abundance of grass must be due to the fact that it rains every night. The English might call it fog but it is like rain to me. There is an abundance of fruit here but it is not sweet and has no distinctive taste. . . . It is an impossibility to see anything here but the surrounding country here as every house and yard or garden as they call it has a 20 foot wall built around them to keep out prying eyes. The whole town is a collection of high walls. . . . England is very pretty but I would not like to live here under any circumstances. I am too scientific. I suppose I\u2019d tear down the old traditions and build some new sanitary buildings. It would be a sacrilege here to drive a nail in the floor. The telephone and trains are what ours were 30 years ago.15<\/a><\/p>\n

Palmer, like many of his fellow cadets, noted that \u201cOxford is full of wounded and convalescent soldiers\u201d and also that \u201cThe Americans are very popular and we have gotten a great deal of applause.\u201d16<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bradley Cleaver Lawton, Hooper, Palmer, George Dana Spear, Albert Elston Weaver, and Perley Melbourne Stoughton signed a page in Foss’s diary on their way to Grantham.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

About a month after their arrival in England, the men learned that their time at Oxford was up. Twenty were selected to go to Stamford to start flying, but Palmer was among the 129 who were ordered to attend machine gun school at Harrowby Camp near Grantham in Lincolnshire (according to the\u00a0War Birds<\/i>\u00a0entry for November 6, 1917, one member of the detachment, James Whitworth Stokes, stayed behind in Oxford to be operated on for appendicitis). On November 3, 1917, the men rose early to pack for the train journey north. The trip took about six hours, including an hour stop for lunch near Bletchley Park. A little further on, at Sandy, they changed cars, and Palmer completed the third class journey in a compartment with six others, including Hooper and also Fremont Cutler Foss, who got his compartment mates to autograph his diary page for that day.<\/p>\n

The huts at Grantham<\/a> were a step up from the rooms at Exeter College. Hooper wrote his parents that \u201cThe living conditions are very good. We have hot and cold showers.\u201d He also noted that \u201cIt looks like we got sent here because there was no other place to send us to\u2014playing for time.\u201d17<\/a><\/p>\n

The day after their arrival at Grantham was Sunday and the cadets were at leisure. Hooper and Palmer explored the area. In the morning they \u201ctook a walk up over and around a neighboring hill. We got a good view of the town and found a flying school by walking towards the place where the machines were landing. It is an advanced school. We saw some interesting machines and some good flying.\u201d They wore themselves out with another long walk in the evening.18<\/a><\/p>\n

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Detail from a photo taken by Parr Hooper at Grantham, showing Thomas M. Nial and Palmer, with an unidentified man in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next day instruction began on the Vickers machine gun. Hooper took a photo of Palmer working the gun, and Palmer also appears in a photo<\/a> taken by Joseph Kirkbride Milnor of cadets and an officer gathered around a Vickers. Hooper and Palmer continued to pal around together during free time on weekends. On November 11, 1917, they \u201ctook a bike ride across country to an advanced flying school where we saw some 130 mile an hour scout machines.\u201d19<\/a> There were R.F.C. airfields at Spitalgate and at Harlaxton, both within biking distance of Harrowby Camp; Spad 7s and S.E.5s\u2014fast scout machines\u2014were flown at Harlaxton.20<\/a><\/p>\n

A few days later it was learned that fifty of the cadets at Grantham would be able to leave shortly for training squadrons; when the fifty names were announced, Hooper\u2019s was among them, but Palmer\u2019s not. On Hooper\u2019s last weekend (November 17 and 18, 1917) at Grantham, he and Palmer continued their explorations. \u201cSaturday afternoon Robert Palmer and I took a long walk. It was a bit foggy (as usual) but we ran across some very pretty places and resolved to go out again on Sunday. . . . Sunday was a beautiful day. Bob and I started out right after breakfast with our cameras and made our first assault on the cathedral spire<\/a>.\u201d21<\/a> They had gone from Belton Park, north of Grantham, where Harrowby Camp was located, into Grantham itself; the \u201ccathedral\u201d was actually St. Wulfram\u2019s parish church in Grantham, remarkable for the height of its spire. \u201cThen we hired bicycles and went south along a high road parallel to the valley. The country was especially beautiful, and the air was swarmed with aeroplanes. We went up a pretty byroad and entered an estate at Stokes<\/a>\u201d\u2014this was Stoke Rochford Hall<\/a>, at the time owned by Christopher Hatton Turnor. \u201cI broke a chain on the way home, Robert towed me to a town where we had it fixed while we ate dinner at the home of a villager. (War talk\u2013he was in the Imp. Army.) The chain broke again and I towed Robert in.\u201d22<\/a><\/p>\n

Having completed the course on the Vickers gun, Palmer and the other cadets still at Grantham now studied and practiced on the Lewis gun. Palmer evidently applied himself: he had received a mark of \u201cgood\u201d on the Vickers, but pulled ahead to a \u201cvery good\u201d at the end of the two-week Lewis gun course on November 30, 1917.23<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Training with No. 50 Squadron<\/a><\/h6>\n
\"A
The men posted to Harrietsham, from Foss’s list of men posted December 3, 1917.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On December 3, 1917, the men still at Grantham were posted to squadrons. Palmer, along with Edward Carter Landon, Robert Jenkins Griffith, Harrison Barbour Irwin, Pryor Richardson Perkins, Hilary Baker Rex, and Albert Sidney Woolfolk (all of whom, with the exception of Rex, had been in Palmer\u2019s O.S.U. ground school class), was assigned to No. 50 Squadron in Kent; No. 50 was a home defense rather than a training squadron.24<\/a>\u00a0 Its aircraft at the turn of the year included the B.E.2e and the A.W. FK.8, both two-seaters used for reconnaissance and bombing, and the B.E.12b, a single-seater night fighter.25<\/a><\/p>\n

The squadron\u2019s headquarters was at Harrietsham, near Maidstone, but its flights were at this time detached to Bekesbourne and Detling.26<\/a>\u00a0 Griffith, Irwin, and Woolfolk went to C flight at Bekesbourne near Canterbury, while Palmer, along with Landon, Perkins, and Rex, was assigned to B flight at Detling.27<\/a> In a letter dated December 12, 1918, Palmer wrote that: \u201cOur aerodrome is quite isolated and there are lots of small woods and large fields with real hills to walk over so that I should be quite contented here. We have a good fire and library in our mess room and I never imagined that one could ever be so free while in the army. . . . There are several dogs here belonging to the English officers and I can generally get one of them to go with me when I walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer soon got his first opportunity to fly.\u00a0 \u00a0A few days after his arrival, he wrote home that \u201cI enjoy flying very much and have not had the slightest nervousness or fear while in the air which is surprising as most people are a little nervous on their first flight.\u201d28<\/a>\u00a0 But it was snowing as he wrote, and he goes on to say that \u201cI haven\u2019t flown alone yet and in fact haven\u2019t done much flying of any sort on account of the weather so that if I stay here it will be quite a long time before I am a finished aviator.\u201d Like all R.F.C. pilots, Palmer kept a flying log book, but either he did not record his initial flights (perhaps because they were not instructional) or those pages are missing. There is, however, a summary, which indicates that while at No. 50 he got in three hours in a B.E.2e and an hour in an A.W.29<\/a><\/p>\n

Palmer also mentions that he \u201cwas at a certain English town last week during an air raid by Germans\u201d\u2014this would have been the early morning raid of December 6, 1917 (also mentioned by his fellow Oxford detachment members Walter Ferguson Halley and Uel Thomas McCurry). \u201cI could hear the aeroplanes but could not see them. It looked quite lively with search lights playing through the air with anti-aircraft shells bursting everywhere in the air. British machines took the air after them and it was a thrilling sight to see them leave the ground with their flaming engine exhausts.\u201d\u00a0 (Rex noted in his diary that four planes from their flight went up.30<\/a>)\u00a0 R.F.C. planes were not able to intercept the raiders, but two of the Gotha bombers succumbed to anti-aircraft fire; one came down at Rochford in Essex, the other near Canterbury.31<\/a> Palmer wrote that he \u201csaw one of them and inspected the construction very carefully. It was a very large one with 2 engines and 3 passengers.\u201d32<\/a> The Gotha that came down in Kent was burned by its crew before their capture, so that, if this is the one Palmer saw, as seems likely, it would have been a smouldering wreck.33<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Stamford, Thetford, Turnberry<\/a><\/h6>\n

Towards the end of January 1918, after nearly two months at No. 50 Squadron and not much flying, Palmer, along with Landon, Perkins, and Rex, was posted to No. 5 Training Depot Station at Easton on the Hill about two miles south-southwest of Stamford (the second Oxford detachment members sent to Stamford in early November had been assigned to No. 1 T.D.S. about three miles to the east, near Wittering).34<\/a><\/p>\n

Palmer\u2019s log book shows that on February 6, 1918, he flew twice as a passenger, in a B.E.2e early in the morning, and in an R.E.8 in the afternoon.35<\/a> His next recorded flight, again in a B.E.2e, was not until March 4, 1918.\u00a0 Bad weather cannot account for Palmer\u2019s not flying during February, as the log books of second Oxford detachment members Pryor Richardson Perkins and John Warren Leach, also at No. 5 T.D.S. at this time, show them flying during this period. However, Perkins and Leach had been assigned to 2 flight, while Palmer was in 4 flight.\u00a0 \u00a0Leslie A. A. Benson was also in 4 flight at 5 T.D.S. during this period, and his log book is similarly blank in February 1918; it seems likely that 4 flight, in contrast to 2, had insufficient planes and\/or instructors.<\/p>\n

Palmer made three more short flights as a passenger in a B.E.2e on March 6, 7, and 8, 1918, before moving on to flying in DH.6s, two-seater training planes, and logging two hours and twenty minutes in DH.6s over the course of the month. On March 17, 1918, in a flight that did not count against his time towards graduation, he was a passenger in a DH.9 flown by his fellow second Oxford detachment member John Marion Goad: they flew for two hours, part of the time at 10,000 feet, from Stamford to Grantham and back.<\/p>\n

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From Palmer\u2019s Pilot\u2019s Flying Log Book. Courtesy of the Owls Head Transportation Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Goad had by this time already done enough flying to qualify for a commission, and Pershing\u2019s recommendation that he be commissioned a first lieutenant had been sent to Washington on February 26, 1918.\u00a0 Palmer, meanwhile, was among the many pilots in training who, for a variety of reasons, were still awaiting commissions. In a cable to Washington dated March 13, 1918, Pershing describes the situation of the approximately 1400 aviation cadets in Europe, some of whom had waited three months to start flying training, and some of whom, after five months, were still waiting and might have to wait another four. \u201cAll of those cadets would have been commissioned prior to this date if training facilities could have been provided. These conditions have produced profound discouragement among cadets.\u201d To remedy this injustice, and to put the European cadets on an equal footing with their counterparts in the U.S., Pershing asked permission \u201cto immediately issue to all cadets now in Europe temporary or Reserve commissions in Aviation Section Signal Corps. . . .\u201d36<\/a> Washington approved the plan in a cable dated March 21, 1918, but stipulated that the commissioned men be \u201cput on non-flying status. Upon satisfactory completion of flying training they can be transferred as flying officers.\u201d37<\/a> Thus Palmer was among the men recommended for commissions as \u201cFirst Lieutenants Aviation Reserve non flying\u201d in a cablegram from Pershing to Washington dated April 8, 1918.38<\/a><\/p>\n

In the first weeks of April Palmer again for some reason logged no time in the air, only resuming flying on April 20, 1918, again in a DH.6.; on that day he practiced landings for the first time: \u201cover aerodrome 3 landings. Good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally in May things started to pick up. After many practice landings, Palmer was cleared to fly solo, which he did in a DH.6 on May 6, 1918. Two days later he made a cross-country flight\u2014a prerequisite for graduation<\/a> from this stage of R.A.F. training\u2014to Spittlegate (Spitalgate), near Grantham, and on May 14, 1918, he passed his height test, flying a B.E.2e at 9200 feet. Finally, on May 18, 1918, he flew his first solo in an R.E.8, a two-seater reconnaissance and bomber aircraft; this was the final hurdle for graduation. \u00a0 By this time it must have been clear that Palmer would go on to be a reconnaissance or bomber pilot, despite his having been recommended earlier by the officer commanding No. 5 T.D.S., Hugh William Grey Ripley, for scouts, i.e., for single-seater fighter planes.39<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Detail from Palmer’s R.F.C. Training Transfer Card showing the signatures of C. J. Truran (No. 50 Squadron) and H. W. G. Ripley (5 T.D.S.) recommending Palmer for scouts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Palmer experienced his first crash, fortunately minor, on May 21, 1918, when his rudder jammed while he was taking off. Nevertheless he went on that day to practice \u201cdiving on targets\u201d and \u201csteep turns and spirals.\u201d The next day he did photography practice, exposing sixteen plates. By the end of the month, he was able to record forty-three hours of flying time, including over thirty-one of solo flying; the flightless days in February and April no longer mattered. He was placed on active duty on May 28, 1918.40<\/a> The preceding day he, along with second Oxford detachment members Clayton Knight, William Henley Mooney, and Clarence Bernard Maloney, were posted from Stamford to Thetford where No. 12 Training Squadron, No. 35 T.D.S., and No. 128 Squadron were located. Palmer was initially assigned to No. 128, which had been formed earlier in the year as a day bombardment squadron.41<\/a>\u00a0At this stage, No. 128 was evidently focused on training (and it did not become operational, but rather was disbanded in July 1918).<\/p>\n

Palmer made his first flight at Thetford as a passenger in a DH.6 on June 4, 1918, and was back to flying a DH.6 solo two days later. He then went from passenger to pilot on an R.E.8 before going up as a passenger in a DH.9 on June 10, 1918. His log book indicates that the next day he began training at No. 12 T.S., flying solo in DH.6s and R.E.8s, and once as a passenger in a DH.9. Finally, in \u201cstormy weather\u201d the afternoon of June 18, 1918, when his was the \u201conly machine up,\u201d Palmer flew DH.9 [D]5593 for forty-five minutes (like many pilots, Palmer omitted the letter prefix when recording aircraft serial numbers in his log book). Perhaps because of continued poor weather, he did not go up again until June 24, 1918, but from then until June 28, 1918, he went up solo in DH6s and DH9s at least once, and sometimes three times, each day, practicing aerial fighting and machine gun firing. By the end of June he had flown just over seventy-five hours, almost sixty of them solo.<\/p>\n

Palmer\u2019s log book entries for July and the first part of August 1918 are extremely sketchy: he notes being transferred to Turnberry School of Aerial Fighting, but does not note dates or flights; his R.F.C. Training Transfer Card indicates he was assigned to Turnberry on July 4, 1918, and then to A.E.F. France on July 13, 1918.<\/p>\n

<\/a>France<\/a><\/h6>\n
\"\"
From Palmer’s Pilot\u2019s Flying Log Book. Courtesy of the Owls Head Transportation Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Palmer\u2019s next log book entry is undated, but it indicates that he was a passenger in a DH-4 piloted by \u201cBeebe.\u201d This would have been David Chapin Beebe, who, from about July 16 until about August 10, 1918, was at the Second Aviation Instruction Center at Tours.42<\/a> After two short flights as Beebe\u2019s passenger, Palmer made a thirty-five minute flight as the pilot of a DH-4\u2014this was the American-built version of the British DH.4, and not very different from the DH.9s Palmer had trained on. The DH-4 entries are followed by ones showing that second Oxford detachment member Forrest Thomas McCook took Palmer up twice in a Breguet, and that Palmer then took the plane up solo.\u00a0\u00a0On August 7, 1918, Beebe and McCook were among those ordered to the American 1st<\/sup>\u00a0Air Depot at Colombey-les-Belles, from which they were assigned to the U.S. 50th<\/sup> Aero Squadron.<\/p>\n

Palmer, however, remained at Tours.\u00a0 His flying, particularly his excellent landings, had attracted attention, prompting the higher-ups to select him as an instructor.42a<\/a>\u00a0 From August 12 through August 21, 1918, according to his log book, he took on the task of \u201cInstructing pupils DeH.4s Liberty Motors 400 H.P. (at times).\u201d (His fellow second Oxford detachment member William Hamlin Neely was also serving as a DH-4 instructor at Tours at this time). Some of Palmer\u2019s student passengers can be tentatively identified from his log book entries: Frederick Russell Zinn, William Landon Bradfield, Thayer Denton Hall, and Edward Moses Morris.<\/p>\n

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From Palmer’s Pilot’s Flying Log Book. Courtesy of the Owls Head Transportation Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Palmer also did some ferrying. On August 15, 1918, taking a break from DH-4s, he piloted a Sopwith 1\u00bd Strutter to Issoudun. He ferried a DH-4 back to Tours the next day, and the following day made the considerably longer flight in a DH-4 to Colombey-les-Belles, thus getting close to the front for the first time. On August 21, 1918, he made two flights, the last ones recorded in his log book. During the first he was \u201cchateau hopping\u201d; he then flew to Vendome and back. At the end of this log book page, Palmer wrote \u201cregulation U.S. Pilot Book from now on.\u201d43<\/a>\u00a0Unfortunately that book appears not to be extant. But, although Palmer ceased using the R.F.C. issued book to record individual flights, he did use it to write summaries of his activities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Thus, according to his log book, Palmer, from August 25 through October 15, 1918, was stationed at Chaumont, and from October 16 through February 5, 1918, at Toul. These dates turn out not to be accurate; they are perhaps approximations produced from memory.<\/p>\n

In a letter home dated September 30, 1918, Palmer described a recent trip he had made ferrying a plane to the front.44<\/a>\u00a0Poor weather and low clouds meant he flew most of the time at \u201c1000 to 1500 feet\u201d\u2014making map navigation difficult\u2014\u201cand as the ground became higher near the front I flew the remainder of the distance at about 300 feet. I had a nice trip though.\u201d He did not linger once the plane was delivered: \u201cI had to hurry to get a truck in order to catch a good train back to Paris,\u201d where he wrote his letter. He is careful not to mention place names, but notes that the distance from his starting point to the squadron where he delivered the plane was over two hundred miles. This suggests that his starting point was considerably farther from the front than was Chaumont. If he was still stationed at Tours in the latter part of September, the distance would fit.<\/p>\n

According to John Sloan\u2019s\u00a0Wings of Honor<\/i>, Palmer was assigned to the 85th<\/sup> Aero, an observation squadron, on October 11, 1918.45<\/a>\u00a0An entry in the diary of Eugene Hornby Blanche suggests that Palmer actually arrived at the 85th<\/sup> and Chaumont-Hill 402, the aerodrome southeast of Chaumont, on October 12, 1918: \u201cTwo D.H.4s were piloted into the field this morning by Lieuts. Palmer and Sisson, both new pilots assigned to the squadron\u201d\u2014Winfield Earl Sisson was a member of the first Oxford detachment.46<\/a>\u00a0(Allison Henderson Chapin of the second Oxford detachment was also a member of the 85th<\/sup>\u00a0Aero.)<\/p>\n

About ten days later, Sisson asked Blanche \u201cif I would ride with him and needless to say as I like his flying very much, I accepted. Palmer asked [Hubert Matthew] Rice if he wished to ride with him and Rice also accepted. They are both good pilots and easily the best I have ever ridden with.\u201d47<\/a><\/p>\n

Palmer, in his log book summary for his time at Chaumont, mentions \u201cDropping French war loan bombs\u201d; this is clarified by Blanche\u2019s entry for October 25, 1918, at Chaumont: \u201cSisson and I, Palmer and Rice, and [Harold] Cohen and [Theodore Rector] Brace scattered propaganda over the town all afternoon in an attempt to promote the French Liberty Loan Drive.\u201d Blanche\u2019s entry shows that Palmer was at this date still at Chaumont and not at Toul, as Palmer\u2019s log book summary dates indicate.<\/p>\n

On November 1, 1918, still at Chaumont, Blanche describes how \u201cA couple of nights ago an officer attached to G.H.Q. [also at Chaumont] engaged us in conversation and wanted a ride in an airplane in the worst way.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. Palmer consented to take him up and I loaned him my coat. Palmer gave as pretty an exhibition of stunt flying as one could wish for with a D.H.4 and as a result the little lieutenant got deathly sick with the result that my coat was a total wreck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not until November 4, 1918, did the 85th<\/sup>, and Palmer, relocate to Gengoult Aerodrome at Toul. \u201cWe pulled into Toul late in the evening. . . . The officers obtained passes and we all rode in relays in the Dodge to the town of Toul where we had dinner at the Hotel Comedie.\u201d Insufficient accommodations at Toul meant that the enlisted men, as well as some of the staff officers, were quartered in a ch\u00e2teau in Manonville, some ten miles north of Toul. On November 7, 1918, \u201can orderly motorcycle rider came in with orders from the Captain [Herbert Alfred Schaffner] for Palmer, Sisson, and I to report to him at Manonville and we went up after lunch. . . . We have planned an initial flight for tomorrow, using five ships.\u201d48<\/a>\u00a0In the event, only one plane, Sisson\u2019s, was ready. Schaffner commandeered it and, with Blanche as his observer, flew to Metz and back without incident. Rain prevented flying on November 9, 1918, but on November 10, 1918, amidst rumors of an armistice,<\/p>\n

We received orders to hold ourselves in readiness and an hour later received orders to proceed toward Conflans and pick up the movements of any troops northward along the road, also burning fires which might indicate the destruction of war material preparatory to a general withdrawal.<\/p>\n

The flight was to be made in a V formation with the Captain and [Nathan Charles] Post leading. Palmer and Rice first on the right, and [David Bennett] Sain and [James Lafayette] Gober second on the right. Sisson and I were to be first on the left and Cohen and [James Christopher] Wallace [sic<\/i>; sc. Wallis] second on the left.<\/p>\n

We climbed to 13,000 feet over the field and headed north. Wallace and Cohen had to turn back on account of motor trouble and we flew in a diamond formation with Gober and Sain the rear point of the diamond.<\/p>\n

We crossed the lines at about 14,000 feet and reached Conflans. We went through an aerial barrage and one or more of the flight were constantly hidden from view by the smoke of the exploding H.E.s [high explosives] . . . Out of the four ships that crossed the lines, two of them were shot up so badly that they were in the shop for repairs. Rice and Palmer were the luckiest without a single hole.49<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
The DH-4 flown by Palmer with observer Hubert Matthew Rice. Courtesy of the Owls Head Transportation Museum. See here<\/a> for another photo of this plane, from Benson, Miscellaneous papers and photos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Verso of Palmer’s photo of the DH-4 he flew with the 85th Aero. Courtesy of the Owls Head Transportation Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next day, according to Blanche, a photographic mission was scheduled, but the armistice intervened. Orders came that they \u201cwere to patrol along the front, remaining on our side of the lines\u201d; it is probable, though not certain, that Palmer and Rice took part in these patrols from Pont-\u00e0-Mousson to Thiaucourt.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Palmer, in a photo from early 1919. Each of the three chevrons on his left sleeve indicates six months of overseas duty. On his left shoulder is a Second Army patch. My thanks to Mike O’Neal for iconographic information. Photo courtesy of the Owls Head Transportation Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Afterwards \u201cPalmer, Sisson, [Charles Reed] Gould [sic<\/i>; sc. Goold] and I commandeered the Dodge and set out for Nancy about 5:00 in the afternoon. .\u00a0\u00a0. . It was as though a half a hundred New Year celebrations were rolled into one. . . .\u201d50<\/a><\/p>\n

Palmer\u2019s summary of his time at Toul indicates that his duties, beyond observation flights, included: \u201ctesting instructing, ferrying carrying cognac [!], putting in flying time.\u201d Although no longer recording individual flights in his R.F.C. log book, Palmer was keeping track of hours. He noted that while at Chaumont he logged 135 hours solo; at Toul, 120. He also, during some unspecified period, put in four hours at Paris (Orly) \u201cflying Sissons DH.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Palmer\u2019s log book, he remained with the squadron at Toul until February 5, 1919. After that he had a long wait before he could return to the U.S. Finally, on June 17, 1919, at St. Nazaire, he boarded the U.S.S.\u00a0Aeolus<\/i> and sailed home, arriving at Hoboken on June 28, 1919.51<\/a> He became a patent attorney, initially in New York, and then in Boston.52<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

mrsmcq July 14, 2021; revised to reflect Blanche’s diary, July 26, 2021<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Notes<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

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

1<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Palmer\u2019s place and date of birth are taken from Ancestry.com,\u00a0U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917\u20131918<\/i>, record for Robert Thomas Palmer. His date of death is taken from Ancestry.com,\u00a0U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010<\/i>, record for Robert T Palmer; his presumed place of death is taken from Ancestry.com,\u00a0U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935\u2013Current<\/i>, record for Robert Palmer. The photo is a detail from a group photo<\/a> of his ground school class at O.S.U.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

2<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See \u201cR. H. Palmer Passes Away.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

3<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0On Palmer\u2019s family and descent, see documents available at Ancestry.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

4<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Corolla 1916<\/i>, p. [101].<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

5<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0On his employment, see Palmer\u2019s draft registration, cited above.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

6<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0From a letter Palmer wrote to his parents on July 9, 1917, reproduced in \u201cRobert Palmer, Jr., Writes Parents Interesting Letter.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

7<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ibid<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

8<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ibid<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

9<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0See Bingham,\u00a0An Explorer in the Air Service<\/i>, p. 52, regarding aspects of training that did not correspond to the practice of many pilots in France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

10<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u201cA Walker County Boy in Royal Flying Corps.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

11<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See La Guardia,\u00a0The Making of an Insurgent,\u00a0<\/i>p. 167. But see also\u00a0War Birds<\/i>, entry for Sept. 20, 1917, where Major Leslie MacDill is given credit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

12<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Hooper,\u00a0Somewhere in France<\/i>, letter of January 8, 1918<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

13<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u201cA Walker County Boy in Royal Flying Corps.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

14<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Hooper,\u00a0Somewhere in France<\/i>, letter of October 27, 1917<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

15<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u201cA Walker County Boy in Royal Flying Corps.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

16<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ibid<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

17<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Hooper,\u00a0Somewhere in France<\/i>, letter of [November] 4, 1917.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

18<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

19<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Hooper,\u00a0Somewhere in France<\/i>, letter of November 13, 1917<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

20<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Sturtivant, Hamlin, and Halley,\u00a0Royal Air Force Flying Training and Support Units<\/i>, p. 302.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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21<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Hooper,\u00a0Somewhere in France<\/i>, letter of November 21, 1917<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

22<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ibid<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

23<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Palmer, R.F.C. Training Transfer Card.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

24<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See Foss\u2019s list of \u201cCadets of Italian Detachment Posted Dec 3rd<\/sup>\u201d in Foss, Papers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

25<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0On the planes used at 50, see Philpott,\u00a0The Birth of the Royal Air Force<\/i>, p. 408.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

26<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 \u201c50 Squadron (home defense), location of B flight, December 1917-January 1918\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

27<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 Rex, World War I Diary, entry for December 5, 1917.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

28<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 Palmer, letter dated December 12, 1918.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

29<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 Palmer, Pilot’s Flying Log Book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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30<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 Rex, World War I Diary, entry for December 6, 1917.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

31<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0H. A. Jones,\u00a0The War in the Air<\/i>, vol. 5, p. 104.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

32<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Palmer, letter dated December 12, 1918.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

33<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See the relevant date at \u201cKagohl 3 War Diary\u201d as well as at Castle,\u00a0Zeppelin Raids, Gothas and \u2018Giants\u2019<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

34<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See Palmer\u2019s R.F.C. Training Transfer Card and his Pilot\u2019s Flying Log Book. Further information on Palmer\u2019s flying is taken from his Pilot\u2019s Flying Log Book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

35<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Here and later, Palmer gives the serial number of this plane as [B]9993, which, according to Robertson,\u00a0British Military Aircraft Serials 1878\u20131987<\/i>, pp. 28 (9993) and 36 (B9993), was a B.E.2c.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

36<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Cablegram 726-S (March 13, 1918).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

37<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Cablegram 955-R.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

38<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Cablegram 874-S.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

39<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See Palmer\u2019s R.F.C. Training Transfer Card, where the recommendation is dated May 8, 1918. The recommendation seems already to have been made, undated, on the same page, by Capt. Cyril Jameson Truran of B flight, No. 50 Squadron.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

40<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0McAndrew, \u201cSpecial Orders No. 205.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

41<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See Palmer\u2019s R.F.C. Training Transfer Card. A letter from Fleet to Benson dated May 31 [1918] in the Leslie A. A. Benson Collection, 1917-1919, indicates that Knight, Mooney, and Maloney also went at this time to Thetford.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

42<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0See Benedict, \u201cSpecial orders No. 192\u201d and Harbord, \u201cSpecial Order No. 148\u201d regarding Beebe\u2019s assignment to and away from the 2nd<\/sup> A.I.C.\u00a0 And see Goettler\u2019s diary for late July and early August, which records when he, Beebe, and others were actually at Tours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

42a<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 Carol Palmer, private communication.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

43<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0On U.S. pilot books, see \u201cFlight log books for American pilots in WWI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

44<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Palmer, letter dated September 30, 1918.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

45<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Sloan,\u00a0Wings of Honor<\/i>, p. 387. Squadron rosters for the 85th<\/sup>\u00a0in Gorrell (C.5, E.9, and E.27) do not provide assignment dates; I do not know what Sloan\u2019s source was.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

46<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Flanagan, \u201cAn Observer with the 85th<\/sup>\u00a0Aero Squadron,\u201d p. 168. Flanagan inferred that the anonymous diary was written by Blanche; further research using information unavailable to Flanagan in 1982 confirms this identification.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

47<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ibid<\/i>., pp. 169\u2013 70 (entry for October 21, 1918).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

48<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ibid<\/i>., p. 172 (entries for November 4 and 7, 1918).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

49<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ibid<\/i>., pp. 172\u201373 (entry for November 10, 1918).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

50<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ibid<\/i>., p. 173 (entry for November 11, 1918).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

51<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0War Department. Office of the Quartermaster General, Army Transport Service,\u00a0Lists of Incoming Passengers, 1917 – 1938<\/i>, Passenger list, U.S.S.\u00a0Aeolus<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

52<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBob Palmer is Here from New York\u201d; Ancestry.com,\u00a01940 United States Federal Census<\/i>, record for Robert T. Palmer; and Ancestry.com,\u00a0U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942<\/i>, record for Robert Thomas Palmer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0(Dora, Alabama, May 19, 1895\u2013Kingfield, Maine, October 7, 1985)1 Oxford & Grantham \u00a0 \u272f \u00a0 Training with No. 50 Squadron \u00a0 \u272f \u00a0 Stamford, Thetford, Turnberry \u00a0 \u272f \u00a0 France Palmer\u2019s father\u2019s family can be traced back to one of the English Palmers who came to Virginia in the first part of the seventeenth century. … Continue reading “Robert Thomas Palmer”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6593,"parent":30,"menu_order":97,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6587","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6587","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=6587"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8957,"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6587\/revisions\/8957"}],"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\/6593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parr-hooper.cmsmcq.com\/2OD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}