Raynal Cawthorne BollingThe given name "Raynal" is pronounced as in "canal." (September 1, 1877 – March 26, 1918) was the first high-ranking officer of the United States Army to be killed in combat in World War I. A corporate lawyer by vocation, he became an early Army aviator and the organizer of both of the first units in what ultimately became the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve Command.
Sent to France to lay a foundation for the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force as head of what became known as the "Bolling Mission," he remained in France instead of returning to the United States, served briefly in a number of staff positions and was selected for a future combat command. He was touring his future area of operations to learn the nature of the work he would be expected to perform when he was killed in action by German troops during the opening days of the 1918 spring offensive. He was the namesake of Bolling Air Force Base.
Biography Bolling was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and was a resident of Greenwich, Connecticut, from 1911 until 1915. In 1912, he commissioned Carrère and Hastings, the architects of the New York Public Library, to build an estate for him at 137 Doubling Road in Greenwich that he later named Greyledge. Greyledge was constructed between 1912 and 1914. Greyledge was an English-style manor situated on an estate that sprawls from 137 Doubling Road to Boulder Brook. In addition to a sitting room, family room, library and thirteen fireplaces, the estate was also home to a shooting gallery. Upon completion in 1914 Colonel Raynal Bolling and Anna Tucker Phillips Bolling moved in to Greyledge with their family of four daughters and one son. However, Bolling spent virtually no time enjoying his family and new home. In November 1915, Bolling, then a First Lieutenant in the Air Force, was appointed to the New York National Guard. The estate was later razed, in 2007, by its current owner despite a public outcry. He attended the Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, graduating in 1896. He graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1900 and from the Harvard Law School in 1902.
Bolling was an attorney at Guthrie, Cravath, and Henderson. A little after a year there he began his career in the legal department of the United States Steel Corporation. By 1907 he was assistant general solicitor and married Anna Tucker Phillips, June 25, 1907, in Beverly, Massachusetts. She was the sister of William Phillips, a prominent career diplomat. He also joined the New York National Guard. He and his wife had four daughters and a son, one of whom, Cecelia Raynal Bolling, died in infancy. In 1913 he was named general counsel of US Steel at the age of 36."Bolling Won Fame as Young Lawyer," New York Times, April 16, 1918. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
Military service National guard aviation pioneer In the summer of 1915 Bolling, along with his brother-in-law and seven New York businessmen, all members of the American Aero Club, began taking flying lessons on property owned by the Wright Company near Garden City, New York. They contracted with an aviation school operated by Edson and Herbert Gallaudet for the use of their Gallaudet C-2 dual-controls trainer, which had a 50-horsepower Gnome motor, and the services of 20-year-old Peter Carl "Tex" Millman as an instructor. By the end of July, Millman reported several of his students including Bolling were ready to try for their American Aero Club license.Aerial Age Weekly, Vol. I No. 19, July 26, 1915, p. 454.
Bolling was in sympathy with the objectives of the Preparedness Movement, a group of influential Americans advocating military preparedness for involvement in World War I and drawn primarily from wealthy lawyers, bankers, academics, and politicians of the Northeast. Starting August 10, he was a participant in the first "Business Men's Camp", a volunteer summer military training camp organized and funded by the Preparedness Movement in Plattsburgh, New York, with the encouragement of Major General Leonard Wood, commanding the Army's Eastern Department. There he organized a "motor machine gun troop" and arranged for Millman to fly Gallaudet's C-2, re-engined with a 100-horsepower Gnome and termed the "Military Tractor," from the camp to demonstrate its military usefulness. Despite a long delay caused by lack of a safe landing ground nearby, Millman made 20 flights over a three-day period. Bolling also arranged for use of the American Aero Club's six-person balloon, the America III, to make a demonstration for the trainees.Aerial Age Weekly, Vol. I No. 22, August 23, 1915, p. 591.
In September, after the Plattsburgh encampment was over, Bolling began preparations for organizing an aero company for the guard. He secured the services of three additional flying instructorsOne of the instructors was a fellow guardsman, Lieutenant Alexander Blair Thaw II, whose brother William Thaw was then flying with the Lafayette Escadrille. and began recruiting personnel. He received $12,500 in funding from the Aero Club of America (ACA)The American Aero Club had instituted a subscription fund, called the "National Aeroplane Fund," in May 1915 to "develop aviation corps for the militia" after the apparent success of similar efforts in Europe. The earmarks for the 1st Aero Company eventually grew to $59,000. The funds provided Bolling were donated anonymously by two wealthy New Yorkers, including William K. Vanderbilt, specifically to establish a unit for the NY Guard.Aerial Age Weekly, Vol. II No. 5, October 18, 1915, p. 101. and rented both the "Military Tractor" and Gallaudet's earlier prototype, the C-1. Authorization to form an aviation section in the Signal Corps of the Guard was announced by New York Governor Charles S. Whitman in October,Aerial Age Weekly, Vol. II No. 4, October 11, 1915, p. 79. and Bolling, who had just completed his flying instruction, was then appointed to the ACA's special committee to support its implementation.Aerial Age Weekly, Vol. II No. 6, October 25, 1915, p. 125.
In November 1915, Bolling was appointed as a first lieutenant in the New York National Guard and organized the "Aviation Detachment, First Battalion Signal Corps, National Guard, New York." During the winter of 1915-1916, when it reached its authorized strength of four officers and 40 enlisted men, the detachment was designated the "1st Aero Company" and was the first national guard aviation unit in the United States.Although several naval militia units had announced themselves as "organized," none had aircraft and only one had pilots, whereas the 1st Aero Company had both. The pilots of the company were prominent young New Yorkers, many of whom had already had some flight instruction over the summer. Within a month, half of the 48 states had applied to the ACA for financial assistance in purchasing aircraft and equipment.Aerial Age Weekly, Vol. II No.14, December 20, 1915, p. 326.
Flying instruction began immediately at Garden City Aerodrome, with 56 flights in November alone. Throughout the winter of 1915-1916 the 1st Aero Company conducted flying operations, but by April continuing bad weather and engine problems slowed progress in training. The company returned its rented trainers to Gallaudet and acquired five more of disparate manufacture and age, including purchase of a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny". In addition, the company attended weekly classes in aircraft engines and the theory of aviation at the Columbia School Of Engineering.
The company, commanded by now-Captain Bolling, was mustered into federal service on July 13, 1916, and began a five-week encampment. The Army opened the "Signal Corps Aviation Station, Mineola" at the Garden City Aerodrome on July 22 and the 1st Aero Company received regulation training from two regulars, 1st Lieutenants Joseph E. Carberry and Walter G. Kilner, both veterans of the Punitive expedition in Mexico with the 1st Aero Squadron. On August 1 the aviation school received the first of forty new aircraft to be delivered over the next eight months, most of them Curtiss Jennies, authorization to buy fuel, and to hire three civilian instructors and seven mechanics as staff. In addition to the 1st Aero Company, the newly formed 2nd Aero Company NYNG also arrived for training (but was not federalized or subject to Carberry's orders), as did 14 officers from the guards of other states, all of which enabled the company to train as a unit. Bolling passed a flying test for an expert pilot's license on October 25, receiving Fédération Aéronautique Internationale certificate No. 536, and passed the Reserve Military Aviator (RMA) qualification test.
Intended for service in Mexico, the 1st Aero Company never left Long Island but did train 25 of its own members as pilots before mustering out of federal service in November 1916. It is recognized as the Air National Guard's oldest unit and its lineage is carried by the 102d Rescue Squadron, New York ANG. The increasing numbers of Army aircraft at Mineola enabled the company to continue flying even after it returned to the jurisdiction of the national guard.
At the same time as these events involving Bolling's unit, a parallel private pilot training program was underway. After American troops under General John J. Pershing entered Mexico in March 1916, a group of wealthy New Yorkers underwrote another school at nearby Fort Jay in New York City. The organizer was attorney Phillip A. Carroll, who had been one of the nine men trained by Millman the previous summer. Called the Governors Island Training Corps, the small group of candidates began instruction on May 2. They trained daily under the authority of and in conformance with regulations set down by General Wood with the goal of passing the RMA test and being commissioned in the new aviation section of the Signal Reserve Corps.Passed June 3, 1916, the National Defense Act provided for an additional 296 officers and 2,000 men in the Signal Corps specifically for the aviation section. Ultimately 17 men participated, ten completed the course, and seven including Carroll received ratings and commissions by May 1917.