TDIH: First American Aerial Victory

The U.S. military did not acknowledge Lt. Stephen W. Thompson’s feat for decades.

On this day in 1918, a member of the United States military, wearing an American uniform and acting under American colors, scores an aerial victory for the very first time.

The U.S. military, however, did not acknowledge Lt. Stephen W. Thompson’s feat for decades.

Thompson was an unlikely candidate for such an aerial milestone. After all, the first time he saw an airplane was after he’d already enlisted in the Army.

He’d been on a train when he happened to see a plane flying overhead. The sight intrigued him, and he looked for an opportunity to see a plane up close. He reportedly found one when a veteran pilot gave him a ride that included five loop-the-loops in a row! Thompson was hooked: He asked for duty in the Army Air Service.

He got his wish and was soon in France, serving in the United States 1st Aero Squadron and training to be an observer. “When we spotted German troop movements,” he later explained. “we’d write the information on paper, place it in a can and drop it into the American lines.”

Thompson’s unexpected aerial victory came on February 5, 1918. The American squadron hadn’t been activated for combat yet, and Thompson was visiting a nearby French airfield. One of the French pilots needed help: He was slated to make a bombing raid over Saarbrücken, Germany, but his gunner was sick. Could Thompson help?

“I needed the permission of my commanding officer, Major Ralph Royce,” Thompson later explained. “They telephoned him, and he gave me my orders.”

The mission to drop the bombs was uneventful—at first. The French pilot had dropped his bombs and was returning to base. Suddenly, the plane was attacked by German fighters.

“One of the Germans picked us out and in a moment was under us, coming up to give us a burst,” Thompson said. “I could not swing the twin Lewis machine guns at a target under the plane, but the pilot knew what to do. He kicked the rudder and the next moment, instead of being under us, the German was right beside us . . . . He was only about 20 yards away. Anyone can hit a plane that close.”

Thompson scored a direct hit on that German Albatross.

He would get two more aerial victories before the end of the war, but those hits came in July as he served aboard an American plane. While he hit two of the enemy that day, he wasn’t able to strike a third in time. Instead, the enemy scored several hits, taking out Thompson’s machine gun, shooting him in the leg, and shooting the American pilot in the stomach.

The pilot stayed conscious long enough to crash land the plane, but he died soon afterwards. Thompson made it to a field hospital, which was swarmed with other injured soldiers. He ended up digging the bullet out of his own leg before returning to duty.

For a long time, the Army erroneously credited a pilot named Alan Winslow as the “first” to get an aerial victory in the war. The mistake was in some ways understandable. After all, Thompson’s name had been censored out of news reports, and there hadn’t been an American witness.

On the other hand, the French had awarded him the Croix de Guerre with Palm for his action, so it wasn’t exactly a secret.

Thompson tried to get the oversight corrected after the war, but to no avail. It wasn’t until years later that the matter caught the attention of Royal Frey, the chief of research at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. He and others from Thompson’s hometown lobbied to have the record corrected.

In 1967, the military finally recognized Thompson’s “first.” By then, Thompson was a 73-year-old retired high school teacher—and he was thrilled. “I never thought I’d ever get it,” he smiled.

Sources can always be found on my website, here.