Former Carlyle House Owner, Decorated WWI Aviator
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The Friends of Carlyle House Newsletter Fall 2010 “It’s a fine beginning” CarlyleCarlyle Connection Former Carlyle House Owner, Decorated WWI Aviator Jim Bartlinski For more than two and a half centuries, Colonel John heated cavalry skirmish known as Corbit’s Charge was Carlyle’s house has been an Alexandria landmark. Despite fought in the streets of Schaeffer’s hometown during the the estate’s historic significance as Major General Edward 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. This event most assuredly was a Braddock’s headquarters, Colonel Carlyle’s once grand topic of conversation among the town’s inhabitants for years Georgian- Palladian after the war. Hearing Aquia sandstone mansion these stories of past fell into disrepair over military glory, coupled the one hundred and sixty with the patriotic fervor years following his death that accompanied the in 1780. In 1940, a United States’ entry into Northern Virginia the First World War, businessman by the name may have influenced of Lloyd Diehl Schaeffer Schaeffer’s decision to purchased the property enlist to fight in what and saved Colonel British author and social Carlyle’s home from the commentator H. G. wrecking ball. Schaeffer Wells referred to as “The had a love of history, war to end war.” recognized the historic When the United States importance of the site, entered the war on April and operated Carlyle’s Lt. Lloyd D. Schaeffer’s bomber squadron, Escadrille BR-66, c. 1918 6, 1917, it looked like home as a museum into the adventure of a the 1960s, before selling lifetime for many of America’s young men, including the it to the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. twenty-one year old Lloyd Schaeffer. From factories, farms, Closer examination of Lloyd Schaeffer’s life reveals that coalmines, and universities, they enlisted, answering the he not only had a deep appreciation of history that led him to rallying call from across the Atlantic to go “Over There” and preserve one of Alexandria’s most important structures, but help safeguard democracy. They were hearty lads spoiling also was himself an active participant in events of major for a fight. However, they were green and knew nothing of historical significance. While in his early twenties, Schaeffer the grim realities of war. Nevertheless, they were young and served with distinction during the First World War as an felt indestructible. The idea of war as romance was still aviation observation officer assigned to the French Army. strong in the United States of 1917. Just over a year of Lloyd Diehl Schaeffer was born October 10, 1895, in the bloody fighting, accompanied by disease and hardship, would make that an outdated notion. small rural, Carroll County, Maryland town of Westminster, where his father served as postmaster and mayor. As a youth, On November 11, 1918, nineteen months after the United Schaeffer likely grew up listening to romanticized tales of States entered the fight, the Allied and Central Powers signed pitched battles and daring cavalry charges from veterans of the Armistice. During that period, 323,018 of America’s best America’s late Civil War. In addition, since Westminster is and brightest young men had been killed, wounded, or were only twenty-four miles south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a missing. However, for men like Lloyd Diehl Schaeffer, a The Carlyle House is a property of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. Carlyle Connection Bréguet Bre.14 B2 bomber Princeton, it opened its doors to train the Army’s new aerial warriors in July 1917. In just two months, the first Escadrille BR-66 graduates of the school would be on their way to wage war against the Central Powers in the skies over the trenches of Europe. While at Princeton, Private Schaeffer received an intensive course of study and physical training that extended over eight weeks. According to The Princeton Alumni Weekly, Schaeffer’s instruction at the Army School of Military Aeronautics included: “… infantry drill, the assembling, disassembling and firing of various types of machine guns, wireless telegraphy [radio telegraph communications techniques], construction and operation of all types of airplane motors, construction and rigging of airplanes, military and aerial topography, artillery observation, the theory of flight, meteorology, army regulations, military law and courtesy, organization of the armies of the world, and calisthenics.” strapping idealistic college student who went from the lecture hall to the Western Front, the war would take him to places he After graduating from the Army School of Military had only read about, broadening his view of the outside world, Aeronautics, the young Marylander most likely attended as well as providing for him a sense of his place in history one of the United States Army’s designated flying schools when he returned home. for pilot training, possibly the Princeton Aviation School. When America entered the war in April 1917, Lloyd When Schaeffer successfully completed his flying lessons, Schaeffer was a senior at Pennsylvania College (now The Princeton Alumni Weekly states that cadets like him Gettysburg College) and a member of Sigma Chi fraternity’s were “commissioned an officer in the United States Army’s Theta Chapter. Soon after graduation on June 5, 1917, Aviation Section, Signal Corps.” The article emphasized Schaeffer registered for the Selective Service Draft. The recent that “Only commissioned officers” were eligible to “fly for graduate’s draft card describes him as tall, slender built, with Uncle Sam.” On November 12, 1917, the United States Army Aviation Section, Signal Corps selected Schaeffer for grey eyes and black hair. However, it appears that like many of th his contemporaries, Schaeffer could not wait for the draft and “Special Service” as an aviation observer in the 16 Foreign Detachment Aviation Section, Signal Corps. enlisted with the United States Army on August 22, 1917. nd Private Schaeffer took off the next day for the Aviation Corps Eleven days later, the newly commissioned 2 Lieutenant Lloyd Diehl Schaeffer sailed for France. of Princeton University in New Jersey for training in the Army School of Military Aeronautics. At the time Schaeffer joined The record is unclear on what initially happened to the Army School of Military Aeronautics, it had been just less Lieutenant Schaeffer upon his arrival in France. However, than fourteen years since the Wright brothers made their on March 11, 1918, he received additional training as a historic flight over the windswept dunes of North Carolina’s “student officer” at the I Army Corps School in Outer Banks. Furthermore, just nine years had passed since the Gondrecourt. Three months later, on June 23, 1918, United States Army had signed a contract with the Wrights to Schaeffer successfully completed his instruction and on the supply them with airplanes. By entering the Aviation Corps, next day, the Army assigned Schaeffer to the Officers Private Schaeffer was to become a pioneer in aerial combat. Reserve Corps Aviation Section. Before the naive American lieutenant was thrust into the horror and chaos of On Schaeffer’s twenty-second birthday, The Princeton th Alumni Weekly for October 10, 1917 reported that the United aerial combat, Schaeffer next attended the 7 Aviation States Army had established six aeronautic schools in May Instruction Center at Clermont-Ferrand for further training. 1917. Modeled after Great Britain’s Royal Flying Corps After this additional aerial combat instruction, the tall, schools, these training centers prepared young men like slender American was classified an observer-bombardier and “lent” to bomber squadron Escadrille BR-66 of the Schaeffer who volunteered for the Aviation Section of the th Signal Corps for aerial combat. Seeing the need and value of French Army’s 12 Escadre on July 7, 1918. BR-66 was to these schools to the war effort, the War Department selected play a support role in the Allied offensives, as well as Princeton as its seventh training center for American aviators. combating the Imperial German Army’s counteroffensives Designated as the Army School of Military Aeronautics at on the Western Front in 1918. The Western Front was the 2 Fall 2010 name applied to the regions in France and Flanders, where the B2’s bomb rack held thirty-two 17lbs bombs. To assist Allied armies faced those of Germany. Fifty-four days after his Schaeffer with aiming his bomb load, he could use the assignment to BR-66, Schaeffer would be involved in an aerial underside trapdoor, as well as two distinctive transparent combat over the trenches of the Western Front that nearly took surveillance panels in the sides of the observer- his life. bombardier’s cockpit, features that aided the B2’s effectiveness during the Allied offensives of 1918. The struggle for air supremacy during the First World War was a deadly game. The young aviators of the period became In March 1916, Captain Adrien de Kérillis and old and wise before their time. The majority of aerial warriors Sergeant Jaçques Rapin created Escadrille BR-66’s like Lieutenant Schaeffer were only between twenty-one and distinctive insignia, a stylized reddish orange (occasionally twenty-four years old. In this waning age of chivalry, aerial represented as gold) Egyptian falcon with spread wings, warfare was initially seen as a joust between valiant knights of sometimes depicted on a sun background. When the the air. By the time Schaeffer entered the war in 1917, any escadrille’s new B2’s arrived in October 1917, BR-66 ideas of gallantry that existed in 1914 when the war began were painted the bombers fabric covered areas in “the typical a distant memory for Europe’s combat airmen. Early in the French ‘light yellow’ finish.” A similar shade of “light war, an aviator’s life expectancy was about five weeks.