Enlisted Pilots
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Over the years, the air arm produced some 3,000 of them, and they have flown virtually all types of aircraft. Enlisted Pilots BY BRUCE D. CALLANDER HEN MSgt. George Holmes fi- tter the remarkable story of the enlisted le W nally retired, it marked a s pilots come to light. milestone in US Air Force history. New ts The Army had not been engaged Pilo Holmes, at fifty-nine, was neither in aviation very long before its first t the oldest nor the longest-serving ean enlisted pilot arrived on the scene. master sergeant, but something Serg That man was Pfc. Vernon Burge. f more distinctive. He was the last o In 1910, Burge and seven fellow en- pilot in the enlisted ranks. tesy listed men accompanied the Army's Holmes left in 1957, thirty-six cour to single plane, a Wright biplane, and years after taking flight training dur- their commander, Lt. Benjamin ing the 1920s. Commissioned in —Pho Foulois, to Texas. After serving World War II, he rose to the rank of there two years as a mechanic for lieutenant colonel, but reverted to Foulois, Burge was sent to the Phil- master sergeant after the war. ippines with a new Wright Model B, Holmes was among a handful of the Army's seventh airplane. He re- nonofficer pilots who transferred ported to Lt. Frank Lahm, who was into the new, postwar Air Force. in charge of setting up a flying When MSgt. Tom Rafferty died in school. a 1950 crash, Holmes became the When Lahm called for student pi- sole enlisted pilot on active duty. MSgt. George Holmes, the last of the lots, however, only one officer vol- Then there were none. "flying sergeants," stands in front of a unteered. Burge, by now a corporal, In the postwar force, men such as PT-38 on Bluebonnet Hill near Mathis, applied, and Lahm gave him Tex. He graduated from pilot training in Holmes and Rafferty were viewed 1921 and retired in 1957. lessons. In June 1912, Burge re- as novelties. Few recalled that the ceived his certificate from Federa- Army had used enlisted pilots dur- tion Aeronautique Internationale. ing the war. Fewer still were aware At the time, only a dozen other that, over the years, the service had Army men—all officers—were sim- produced some 3,000 of this unique ilarly certified. breed or that they flew virtually all Burge's accomplishment, how- types of aircraft. At times, the fail- ever, drew nothing but frowns from ure to remember seemed almost de- the brass. When Lahm informed liberate. Only in recent years has Washington about it, the Chief Sig- 98 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 1989 nal Officer of the Army declared ics. Ocker and Smith were excep- into combat. Only a handful of that teaching enlisted men to fly ran tions. They are counted among the American pilots continued to serve contrary to War Department policy. pilots who helped test and develop in enlisted status, mostly flying as Thus, although Burge continued to airborne radio equipment in 1916. test pilots, couriers, and instruc- fly, he spent his next few years By that time, World War I had tors. Among them was Sgt. Walter working mainly as an aircraft me- been raging for two years, and the Beech, who later founded his world- chanic. He eventually won a com- neutral United States was preparing famous aircraft company and pro- mission, however, and retired in itself for possible entry. Flight train- vided thousands of trainers to the 1941 as a lieutenant colonel. ing schools were set up at Chicago, Army in World War II. Memphis, and Mineola, N. Y. Har- The only flying enlisted men Following the Footsteps vard, Yale, and other universities known to have seen action in the Despite the Army edict, other en- listed men followed in Burge's foot- steps. William A. Lamkey, who en- SSgt. Pilot Ralph Jack- son of the 36th Squad- listed in the Signal Corps in 1913, wsl ron, 316th Troop Carrier Ne ' had already taken flying lessons as a Group, poses in his C-47 ts Pilo civilian, earning his FAI certificate at Del Valle, Tex. (later t n in 1912. Following further flight home of Bergstrom ea AFB). Hundreds of ser- Serg training in San Diego, Lamkey then f left Army aviation and flew mis- geant pilots were as- o signed to newly created tesy r sions for Pancho Villa's forces in the troop carrier groups in cou Mexican Revolution. He returned the summer of 1942. to to flying in World War I, this time Jackson's plane and with the Navy. crew, together with elev- —Pho en others of the 316th Sgt. William C. Ocker also earned TCG, were destroyed by his pilot's certificate from a private, friendly fire during the civilian flying school. While he was Sicilian invasion. training as an Army mechanic in San Diego, Ocker moonlighted at the nearby Curtiss flying school. In payment, he got free flying lessons. Ocker later became an instructor. He was commissioned in 1917. In July 1914, on the eve of a gener- al war in Europe, the Army changed its mind and officially recognized enlisted pilots. An act of Congress created the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps and provided that "twelve enlisted men at a time shall, formed flying clubs to train Army war did so as observer-gunners. in the discretion of the officer in pilots. Reserve and National Guard They were pressed into service be- command of the aviation section, be units launched small programs. It cause of a shortage of officers for instructed in the art of flying." Vol- was not an orderly buildup. Training the task. Of these, at least five were unteers were to receive up to fifty was sporadic, subject to the whims credited with shooting down one or percent more pay. of weather and officialdom. The sta- more enemy planes. Though permitted to train a tus of the students was confused The postwar era saw a severe dozen at a time, the Army had pro- and changeable. contraction of forces. The US Army duced only seven enlisted pilots by Even before the US entered the Air Service, which reached a peak the end of 1914. Joining their ranks war, Americans were flying combat strength of 200,000 in 1918, was in 1915 was Cpl. Albert D. Smith, missions as enlisted pilots in the down to barely 25,000 by 1919 and who had logged forty hours as a Lafayette Escadrille and the British to 10,000 by 1920. Aircraft invento- civilian exhibition pilot before en- Royal Flying Corps. Both outfits ries plummeted. Many pilots left the listing. He was able to solo three made use of enlisted as well as com- service to barnstorm in surplus Jen- days after reporting for duty. missioned pilots. The British, in nies or to enter the emerging field of Though he soon left the Army, particular, found it hard to accept commercial aviation. Some, how- Smith returned as a captain in the that anyone other than an officer ever, reverted to enlisted status and war. and gentleman could fly. Socially, joined the small number of enlisted Enlisted pilots may have been le- the enlisted pilots were ostracized. men still being trained to fly. gitimated in 1914, but getting flying The emergence of the US as a time was a problem. There weren't belligerent in 1917 saw many en- Exciting Time for Aviation enough planes to go around, and listed American pilots simply trans- Still, the period after World War I enlisted men rarely got a crack at fer from the foreign outfits to new was an exciting time for aviation. them. Many of the enlisted pilots American units. Most, however, One of the most ambitious exploits spent their time working as mechan- were commissioned before going came in 1924, when four single- AIR FORCE Magazine / June 1989 99 engine Douglas biplanes embarked one ever dreamed of the Thunder- free rated officers for combat. An- on an around-the-world flight. Eight birds, the trio in their peppy little other was to use private flying schools flyers, two of them enlisted, made P-12s thrilled crowds and inspired a and civilian instructors for the first up the team. Sgt. Alva Harvey flew generation of youngsters to fly. The phase of flight training. Overage com- with the mission commander, Maj. group didn't last long. Chennault re- mercial pilots received direct com- Fred Martin, in the aircraft Seattle. tired in a few years, and McDonald missions and ratings as "service pi- Sgt. Henry Ogden flew with Lt. and Williamson left the Army to fly lots" to instruct and fly noncombat Leigh Wade in Boston. in China. There, all three were re- missions. Female pilots were formed The tiny armada took off from united when Chennault formed the into a women's auxiliary, the WASP, Seattle, hugging the western coast now-famous Flying Tigers in sup- or Women's Airforce Service Pilots, of Canada and the southern rim of port of Chiang Kai-shek. to ferry planes in the US. Alaska. There, Seattle crashed in a While Chennault's acrobatic team Those were the roles envisioned fog, and Martin and Harvey spent was wowing the crowds, other en- for the new sergeant pilots. The ten days hiking out to an Eskimo listed pilots were helping build the Army particularly wanted to avoid village. The other three planes con- air transport system that would be putting them in the position of being tinued southwest to Japan, down the vital in the next decade.