One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

ment awarded him the Victoria Cross for the first wartime destruction
of an airship.
July 1: German aviator Kurt Wintgens became the first pilot to shoot down
an enemy airplane with a machine gun synchronized to fire through
the propeller without hitting it. Produced by Anthony Fokker, the
device gave the Germans temporary air superiority.
August 12: A British seaplane launched a torpedo that destroyed an enemy
vessel in the Dardanelles, marking the first time an airplane had sunk
a ship.
November 1: Capt. Raynal Cawthorne Bolling organized the Aviation
Detachment, 1st Battalion, Signal Corps (later the First Aero Company),
New York National Guard, recognized as the first genuine
National Guard aviation unit. Captain Bolling was appointed as the
first commander.
November 6: Cmdr. Henry C. Mustin of the Navy launched the first airplane
by catapult from a moving vessel—the USS North Carolina—in Pensacola
Bay, Florida.
1916
1915–16
March 15: The 1st Aero Squadron, under Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois, became
the first U.S. aviation unit to engage in field operations when it joined
Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing’s punitive expedition against Mexican
revolutionary leader Pancho Villa.
March 21: The French air service authorized formation of the Escadrille
Americaine, later known as the Lafayette Escadrille. Composed of
pilots from the United States, many of whom later served in U.S. air
units, this French unit trained Americans in aerial combat.
April 7: Mexicans fired on Army aviators Lt. Herbert A. Dargue and Capt.
Benjamin D. Foulois at Chihuahua City, Mexico, when they landed
with dispatches for the U.S. consul.
Curtiss JN–3s of the 1st Aero Squadron at Columbus, New Mexico, during the campaign
against Pancho Villa, 1916
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