James R McConnell

James Roger McConnell’s record in the war, and the changes wrought by his experiences overseas, epitomized the changing attitudes of a great majority of Americans who volunteered for French service before the US declaration of war. McConnell sailed for France in January, 1915, to join the American Ambulance Field Service, motivated largely by a sense of adventure. His journals and letters, detailing the heavy fighting he saw at Pont-a-Mousson and Bois-le-Pretre, were published in the magazine Outlook. The vivid imagery and humor in his publications spurred many other young Americans to seek adventure in the Ambulance Corps; however, the endless slaughter exacted a toll on McConnell, and he began to take a much more serious attitude towards the war and the principles at stake. McConnell resolved to have a much more active role in the war, eventually trading his ambulance for a Nieuport.

On February 6th, 1916, just one year after arriving in France, McConnell passed his flying exam, and in April, went to the front as one of the original members of the Lafayette Escadrille. McConnell continued to write about his experiences in France, but now his writings were laced with the romanticism of flight, and his book “Flying for France” did much to inform American public opinion prior to the US declaration of war. Described as “a pilot as modest as he was brave,” McConnell was as skilled at flying as he was in writing, and his fellow pilots came to depend on him as steady and daring companion over the front lines. After a terrible crash in August, 1916, that severely injured his back, McConnell was hospitalized until the next March. However, upon hearing news that the French were preparing a major advance, McConnell could lie in bed no longer. He convinced the doctor to allow him to return to the skies to help his fellow pilots; this, however, may have led to his demise. On the morning of March 19th, McConnell and Genêt were flying over the battlefields of the Somme when they encountered a pair of German two-seaters. Both squared off with one of the opposing pair, but after Genêt downed his foe, he could not find McConnell’s plane. Heavily damaged, Genêt returned to the airfield, vainly waiting for his friends plane to land. Several days later, advancing French troops found the wreck of McConnell’s Nieuport, and his body next to it. Within the diary in which he had kept such scrupulous and vivid notes, words that had inspired numerous others to cross the ocean in defense of liberty, the last sentence written was, “This war may kill me, but I have it to thank for much.”