Joshua Endicott

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As a 1st Lieutenant, he scored 13 verifiable victories as a flying air ace  during World War I, serving with both the French and U.S. air services and was for a time America’s leading Ace in the war.  He won the Distinguished Service Cross, second only the Congressional Medal of Honor. 

 

 He was born in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts, a descendent of the revolutionary war General Israel Putnam who told his men at Bunker Hill “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!” 

 

In high school he was superb athlete and orator and during the summers he attended Camp Becket-in-the-Berkshires.  There he became a close acquaintance of the camp director, Henry W. Gibson, with whom he later corresponded during the war.  As a camper from 1914–1916, and counselor in 1917 after his college freshman year, swimming was one of his passions and he became captain of the Life Saving Crew and Assistant Swimming Instructor. 

 

He was also an exceptional tennis player.  He was popular among campers and received the 1915 Honor Emblem and the 1916 Honor Button, the camp’s highest award.  He was  described in the camp newspaper Seen and Heard as “Modest and unassuming, yet genial and a good mixer, of high moral standard he was without question the most popular boy in the camp.”  Camp director, Henry Gibson said: “The sense of fair play, of consideration for the other fellow, of physical bravery, of moral courage — all of these qualities were given a chance to express themselves in his camp life.”

 

At camp following his freshman year at Harvard College, David went to Gibson in his tent and said, ““I am going across the seas to get in the big fight.” Then, he dropped out of Harvard and took a cattle boat to Europe, where he joined the French Foreign Legion on May 31, 1917. 

 

He was transferred to the French air service, trained at Avord, and was assigned to Escadrille Spa94 on December 12, 1917, but was reassigned to Spa156 on February 7, 1918.  In the latter escadrille he shot down four German planes and was subsequently transferred to Spa38 on June 1, 1918, where he shot down two more planes.   He was discharged from French service in June 1918 in order to join the American air force.

 

While serving with the French, on one occasion (June 15, 1918) he single-handedly engaged 10 German aircraft all at once and shot down five of them, but because the action took place behind enemy lines, only one of them was confirmed. 

 

Problem of Confirming Aerial Victories

 

Many allied pilots shot down more enemy aircraft than they were credited with because it was often hard to meet the standards of  official confirmation: the plane had to be proven to have been removed from action.  For example, in the chaos of a dogfight, a pilot might pretend to be shot down to escape, only to pull out of his dive later,

 

Confirmation was especially difficult if the action occurred behind enemy lines, where it was not possible to physically view the crashed aircraft or the captured pilot.  Because of prevailing winds, aerial combat commonly took place over or behind the German lines and German scores are generally considered more accurate than allied scores because German aces' victories were more easily confirmed on the ground.

 

The ideal situation was that of Manfred von Richthofen, Germany’s “Red Baron,” and the leading Ace of World War I, with 80 confirmed kills: at least 76 of his 80 planes can be tied to known British losses, so confirmation was easy. 

 

Switching to the US Air Service

 

After the United States entered the war, Putnam joined the United States Air Service as a 1st Lieutenant and for a short time assumed command of the 134th Aero Squadron before joining the 139th Aero Squadron as a flight commander.