When Ensign Curtis Read was shot
down in February, 1918, while flying over the French coast, his funeral
was attended by many British army and navy officers, and by
representatives of both branches of the French service. Besides the
company of American sailors there were squads of French and British
seamen, who marched in honor of the young officer. The city of Dunkirk
presented a beautiful wreath of flowers.
"Nothing," wrote Ensign Artemus Gates, captain-elect of Yale's 1917
football eleven, and a comrade of Read's in France, to the young
officer's mother, "could be more impressive than to see a French
general, an admiral, British staff-officers, and many other officers of
the two nations paying homage."
The death of Ensign Stephen Potter, who was killed in a battle with
seven German airplanes in the North Sea on April 25, 1918, followed a
glorious fight which will live in our naval annals. Potter was the first
of our naval pilots to bring down a German airplane, and indeed may have
been the first American, fighting under the United States flag, to do
this. His triumph was attained on March 19, 1918. Between that time and
his death he had engaged in several fights against German airmen,
causing them to flee.
And in this country our course of training has been marked by many
notable examples of heroism and devotion, none more so than the act of
Ensign Walker Weed, who, after his plane had fallen in flames at Cape
May, N.J., and he had got loose from his seat and was safe, returned to
the burning machine and worked amid the flames until he had rescued a
cadet who was pinned in the wreckage.
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