Frank P. Lahm

Frank Purdy Lahm
Frank Purdy Lahm (1877-1963)
Allegiance	United States of America
Service / branch	United States Army
Years of service	1901-1941
Rank	Major General
Battles / wars	World War I
Awards	Legion of Merit

Frank Purdy Lahm (November 17, 1877 – July 7, 1963) was an American military aviation pioneer, one of the first military pilots, "the first American military man to go aloft in an airplane". and a general officer in the United States Army Air Corps and Army Air Forces.

Biography

Lahm was born in Mansfield, Ohio, to Adelaide Purdy Lahm and Frank Samuel Lahm. His mother died in March 1880. His father, also in poor health, went to Paris, France, to improve his condition and remained there until his death in 1931 as European agent for the Remington Typewriter Company. The elder Lahm visited the family home every summer and remained close to his son. Lahm, then two, and his four-year-old sister Katherine were placed in the care of relatives. Katherine lived with their aunt, Helen Lahm Greenwood, in Canton, Ohio, studied in France and at Smith College, and married an Army officer, Frank Parker, who retired as a major general in 1936. Lahm lived in Mansfield with another aunt, Mary Purdy Welden, who was a widow with two children, and became devoted to her as his surrogate mother. In high school he excelled as an athlete, lettering in both football and baseball, until his father brought him to France in 1916.

There he attended Albert-le-Grand, a Dominican school near Paris, France, where he played rugby and participated in gymnastics and mountain climbing. Betwen 1895 and 1897, Lahm spent two years at Michigan Military Academy preparing for West Point. There he was Lieutenant of the Corps and valedictorian of his class. He entered the U.S. Military Academy in June 1897. Although he graduated in the top fifth of his class, he found time for athletics. He held the rope climbing record at West Point, and his enthusiasm for horse riding led him into the cavalry on his graduation in 1901, ranked 23rd in merit in his class of 74 cadets. While at USMA he quarterbacked the football team and was captain of the baseball team. He set several records in gymnastics.

He became a second lieutenant, 6th Cavalry, and campaigned in the Philippines for two years. He toured China, Korea, and Japan during his return to the United States in 1903, where he was assigned to West Point as an instructor in modern languages for three years. He spent his summer leaves in France with his father, who taught him to fly balloons in the summer of 1904. In 1906 he was assigned to attend the École Impériale de Cavalerie (French Army Cavalry School) at Saumur.

Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps

Lahm's father had joined the Aero Club of France and owned the balloon the "Katherine Hamilton," named in honor of his daughter. The elder Lahm made frequent ascensions and initiated his son in a night ascension. In the summer of 1905 Lahm completed the requirements of six ascensions, including one at night and one alone, to earn his Fédération Aéronautique Internationale certificate as a balloon pilot. In July of the same summer Lahm was promoted to first lieutenant.

In 1906, while awaiting entrance to Saumur, Lahm won the International Balloon Race (Gordon Bennett Cup in ballooning), flying across the Channel from Paris, France to Fylingdales, Yorkshire, England, flying overnight from September 30 to October 1 with Major Henry Hershey of the United States Weather Bureau. Lahm contracted typhoid in the spring of 1907 and spent his convalescent leave at a rest home in St. Germain. It was in the home's garden that Lahm's father introduced Frank to Wilbur and Orville Wright. This was the beginning of a friendship which lasted until the two brothers died.

Frank Lahm (hand on upright by gas tank) with Orville Wright qualifying in the first U.S. Army aircraft

In August 1907, Lahm was detailed to the newly-created Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps in Washington, D.C. En route, he toured aviation sites in Germany and England, where he met Griffith Brewer, a balloonist who later became a pilot for the Wrights. At Fort Myer, Virginia, Lahm and a detachment of Signal Corps troops constructed a hydrogen generating plant and practiced captive observation balloon work. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone and an early aviation enthusiast, often invited Lahm to join visiting scientists in his Washington home for discussions on many subjects, especially aviation.

In April 1908 Lieut. Lahm reported to New York City along with Lieut. Thomas Selfridge. They are there with A. Leo Stevens of parachuting fame to teach a class of 25 New York National Guardsman in the use of a 35,000 balloon. Reported in the New York Herald on 1 May 1908, the exercise was the beginning of aviation for the National Guard. The First Aero Company went on to become the 102nd Aero Squadron, New York National Guard, now the oldest national guard unit in the Air National Guard. The unit was federalized in 1916.

The Wright brothers brought an improved version of their 1908 plane to Fort Myer in 1909 for official War Department tests. After practice hops Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Lahm as a passenger, made the first official test flight on July 27. He and Lahm established a world's record for a two-man flight: one hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds. The Wright Brothers set out to fulfill their Army contracts by teaching officers to operate the machine. In October 1909 Wilbur Wright trained Lieutenants Lahm and Frederic E. Humphreys at a field in College Park, Maryland. Both officers soloed, with Humphreys going first. With little more than three hours apiece flying time, Lahm and Humphreys were pronounced pilots on October 26. When Lahm and Humphreys crashed November 5, the Army lost its entire air force, one plane. Both were uninjured, and the airplane was repaired, but the Signal Corps lost them when they returned to their regular assignments. In December 1909, because of requirements of the "Manchu Law", Lahm was forced to return to his branch and joined the 7th Cavalry at Fort Riley, Kansas.

In June 1910 Lahm attended Mounted Service School and graduated in June 1911. In October he married Gertrude Jenner in Mansfield, then rejoined the 7th Cavalry in the Philippines. At the request of the Signal Corps he opened a flying school at Fort William McKinley near Manila in March 1912. Lahm trained several pilots in the next two years using one Wright Model B plane, including Sergeant Vernon Burge, the first enlisted pilot in the Army.

Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps

In October 1914 Lahm was assigned to the 6th Cavalry at Texas City and Harlingen, Texas until April 1916. He became a captain on April 1, 1916, and having completed the required four years of troop duty in his branch, was detailed to the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, which had replaced the Aeronautical Divison as the Army's aviation arm in August 1914. He was transferred to North Island, San Diego, California as Secretary of the Aviation School and President of the Junior Military Aviator Examining Board.

In May 1917, after the United States entered World War I, Captain Lahm became commanding officer of the Army Balloon School at Fort Omaha, Nebraska, and in June was promoted to major. He suffered a broken leg in a fall from a polo pony in July, and as he was about to start sick leave, was offered a six-week inspection tour of balloon schools, equipment, and operations in both Britain and France. he recived his orders on July 25 and arrived in England on September 15, where he began keeping a war diary.

Service with the AEF

He participated in the Aisne-Marne, St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne offensives, and then in the occupation of a defensive sector. Lahm was inspector of the British and French balloon services and chief of staff, Air Service, First and Second Armies in France. In February 1918 Lahm became a lieutenant colonel and in September he was appointed full colonel.

Air Service and Air Corps

Colonel Lahm returned home in April 1919 and studied at the General Staff College in Washington D.C., until August 1920. He was a member and later in charge (G-3) of the Organization Section, Organization Branch of the Operation and Training Division of the War Department General Staff (WDGS) in the rank of lieutenant colonel, Air Service, from August 25, 1920 from until July 1, 1924. He was then Air Officer at the Ninth Corps Area at the Presidio of San Francisco, California.

On July 2, 1926, the Air Service was renamed the United States Army Air Corps by act of Congress and authorized two additional brigadier general positions as Assistant Chiefs of Air Corps. Lahm was advanced to brigadier general on July 17, 1926, for a four-year tour as commander of the new Air Corps Training Center established at San Antonio, Texas. The ACTC's charter included the coordination and management of training at the Air Corps Primary Flying School at Brooks Field, the Advanced Flying School at Kelly Field, and the School of Aviation Medicine at Brooks. At the end of his tour he reverted to his permanent rank of lieutenant colonel, assigned again as Air Officer, Ninth Corps Area until July 1931. Lahm was then sent to the U.S. Embassy, Paris, France, to act as assistant military attaché for air to France, Spain, and Belgium. He was promoted to full colonel on October 1, 1931, and named military attaché in 1933. He remained in Paris until 1935, with collateral duty as military attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Brussels, Belgium.

In October 1935 Lahm returned to the United States as Air Officer, Second Corps Area, at Governors Island, New York, until December 14, 1940, when he became Chief of Aviation to the First Army. He received the Legion of Merit for his contribution to this command during its important formative period. Lahm was promoted to temporary major general and served as commander of the Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center at Randolph Field, Texas, from October 21, 1941, to his mandatory retirement on November 20, 1941. He retired in the grade of brigadier general.

Lahm died July 7, 1963 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Sandusky, Ohio.

Legacy

In addition to the Legion of Merit, Lahm received the Distinguished Service Medal, the French Legion of Honor and the Portuguese Military Order of Aviz. Lahm was co-author in 1943 with Colonel Charles deForest Chandler of How Our Army Grew Wings. His war diary in World War I has been preserved since 1970 by the Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA) as the USAF Historical Study No. 141. The Air Force Academy's first hot air balloon was named in his honor in 1973.

References

This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6126