Impressive grouping for an AEF pilot, Uniform, headgear, photos, documents, and more.
Contact Us About This Product
Description
2nd Lieutenant Douglas H. Kenyon – WWI Air Service Grouping.
Douglas H. Kenyon began training in 1916 at Plattsburg, New York, and graduating that course on August 8th. He had initially been a private first class in the Signal Corps Reserves- Aviation Section, and was discharged to become a 2nd Lt. Aviation Section, from Madison Barracks, New York. He attended an Flying School with the Royal Canadian Flying Corps beginning in September of 1917, and if history and New York Times is correct, Vernon Castle, the American dancer, and RFC of Canada most likely trained Kenyon and other American training pilots. He was promoted to 2nd Lt. with official date of promotion per Special Orders No. 31, Aviation HQ, Taliaferro Field, Fort Worth, Texas, was January 26, 1918.
On February 16, 1918, Kenyon was ordered to report to the Port of Embarkation, Hoboken, N.J., for transportation to England. He was then attached by record, to the 27th Aero Squadron. He reported to HQ, American Rest Camp, Momsey, England, and then ordered to proceed to Base Camp, No. 3, S.O.S., A.E.F., London, England, then by April 3, he needed to report for duty at Amesbury, Wilts, England, to commander No. 6, T.D.S., R.F.C. The Royal Air Force Aerodrome No. 6 Training Depot was expanded in October of 1917, to train American Enlisted, and Officers of the Air Service.
Douglas Kenyon would go through a series of various training bases, Central Flying School, the Aerial Fighting and Gunnery School at Turnberry, Scotland. On 19 July, he requests to HQ, Base No. 3, London, to be placed on flying status. He was sent to another school, for Navigation, and Bomb Dropping at Stonehenge, Wilts. around August 12, 1918.
Kenyon was issued his officer’s flying card with papers, and in Special Orders, No. 231, G.H.Q, AEF, was notified that he was officially on duty. Sometime in October, Kenyon had been admitted to the Fargo Military Hospital, Salisbury, England for an undisclosed illness/ accident. In November, he was transferred to the Rest Camp at Knotty Ash, Liverpool awaiting transfer to the United States. All during this time there are letters and documents relating to his turning flying equipment, closing accounts with various messes, both British, and American.
By August 28, 1919, Kenyon has been assigned to Hazelhurst Field, Long Island, as a Reserve Pilot. By 1924, in response to a letter, an officer in the Reserves Corps on active duty at Mitchel Field, N.Y. is writing Kenyon that he is welcome to come out and get flying again.
Although it appears Kenyon had no combat hours in the air, like most American pilots who were still training stateside after the Armistice, this grouping has sufficient quantity of documents to verify all his training, orders, documents on combat procedures, photos, cards, and much more. I will photograph a good amount for you here on site.
Contents:
- Wool Service dress coat & trousers with insignia and rank, bullion wings and WWI Victory Ribbon Bar with 1 star (mostly likely a “France” bar), and signed labels by Kenyon with date 12/11/1917, in both coat and trousers There are an additional pair of trousers in gaberdine. Sam Browne Belt, marked “Made In Canada”. Wool Puttees.
- 2 Overseas cap, one with green/ black piping. Piped hag has size tag for 7 3/8, and 2nd Lieut. rank. The other is British style with double button front.
- Dog Tags. Identical pair, “Douglas H Kenyon / 2nd Lt/ AS.”
- Royal Flying Corps School, Toronto University, 1 inch ring binder notebook, with drawings of aircraft, notes on the same, with loads of information relating to aircraft, etc.
- Royal Canadian Flying Corps Transfer Card, begun Nov. 9 to Dec. 17, 1917. Also a separate Gunnery Card.
- Pilot’s Flying Log, begun Nov. 11, 1917, Sept. 7, 1918 at Stonehenge.
- Officer’s Photo Identity Card, dated Feb. 25, 1918
- Officer’s Photo -ID Card, dated 1920, signed by (then Lt. Col.) Major General Rush B. Lincoln.
- Leather flying gloves, marked Made In England. Size 8 1/2.
- Small silk British Flag.
- 3 Portraits in uniform, wearing wings on this uniform. Approximately 8×10.
- Certificate from Military Instruction Camp, Plattsburg, 1916
- 2 Discharges
- Various orders to England, orders to assignments, etc.
- Training course papers for RAF,
- 2 notebooks from School of Navigation, and Aerial Gunnery, Stonehenge.
- Receipts from Officer’s Mess No.6 Training Depot, RAF, Amesbury, and Stonehenge, Wilts.,School of Gunnery, etc.
- Royal Air Force Central Flying School, graduation certificate, dated June 8, 1918.
- More documents of British origin.
- Secret printed instructions “Regarding Precautions To Be Taken In The Event Of Falling Into The Hands Of The Enemy.
- Regulations for Pilots, HQ Base Section No. 3, S.O.S., AEF- Aviation Section, London
- Various documents transferring back Quartermaster, and aviation equipments.
- Various orders, etc. relating to hospitals, rest camps, etc.
- Royal Air Force Record of Flying Clothing Issued, and RAF Journey Meat Meal Card.
- Commissions for Kenyon. One large old format illustrated dated 21 March, 1917. Signed by Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker., and H.P. McCain, Adjt. Gen’l.
- Aerial Photographs.
- Miscellaneous cards, etc.
- Post war letters and documents, and more.
Condition on the uniform and other clothing, uniform articles are in fine shape. Most of the paper is fine as well, with typical folds, creases, etc.. Some items may have tears, some missing paper along edges, particularly with the post war paper which is brittle, and very little of that. One photo portrait has a torn upper corner, but there. A nice WWI air service grouping with a great lot of documents and paper illustrating the intensive training our pilots received before entering combat assignments.
This is Douglas Kenyon’s Obituary in the New York Times, for February 5, 1964:
“Douglas H. Kenyon, a partner for 40 years in the law firm of Kenyon & Kenyon, 165 Broadway, died yesterday at St. Luke’s Hospital after a long illness. He was 68 years old and lived at 59 West 12th Street.
Mr. Kenyon was a specialist in trademark and patent law. Among his important cases were those involving patents on alloys that create white gold.
He was a native New Yorker and attended the Horace Mann School and Princeton. University, where he was graduated cum laude in 1916. At Princeton he was a member of the intercollegiate chess team.
After service in World War I as a pilot in the overseas squadron commanded by Vernon Castle, the dancer, Mr. Kenyon completed his law studies at Columbia University. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1920.
He was magistrate of the village of Belle Terre, L. I., from 1934 to 1939. He was a member of the American Bar Association and of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, serving as chairman of the latter’s patent committee from 1942 to 1945. He also was a member of the New York Patent Law Association
Surviving are his widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Church Tompkins Kenyon, and two sisters, Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Jr. of Wrightstown, Pa., and Frieda Kenyon of Washington.”