Lt. SWAAB's MOH

[Luftmensch]

Hi, folks. This is Lt. Jacques Swaab of the 22nd Aero Squadron, before there was a 22nd Aero Squadron.

He would be the only Jewish American ace of the World War.

I’ve found the stories of Jewish combatants interesting because back then, all armies (including the U.S.) were rife with anti-semitism, and considered “rootless cosmopolitan Jews” to be of doubtful patriotism and loyalty. Rick, Forum Ace over at the `Drome, said in a related thread “I'm overwhelmed by the number of people who believe that Jews didn't fly, fight and die in WWI. I guess it must be a WWII carryover. But to question the loyalty of these people to their respective countries (whether Germany, France, England, or America) just seems a little bit appalling to me.”

[Luftmensch]

This postcard—for sale around the time Swaab was in knee pants—shows a scene that was a staple in camp memoirs before WW1. The “greasy Jew” comes to a spic `n’ span army camp anywhere in the world, in all his stereotypically unkempt appearance, and is chased away by the boisterous clean-limbed subalterns or enlisted men. In this card it is a U.S. Army camp and the merchant has been hit in the head by a boot and dropped his wares in his haste to get away. The memoirs usually recount, unapologetically, how the merchant shows up at camp or a departing troopship to try and collect some outstanding debt, and the deadbeat officer pulls all sorts of tricks and wiles in a reversal of the usual stereotype, including marching up the gangplank disguised as a private or hiding in a barrel and being hoisted aboard ship before the searching eyes of the merchant and the adjutant. The deadbeat officer sails off to die for his country and the Jew goes back to making money for his, seems to be the implication.

[Luftmensch]

Swaab was a millionaire’s son who—despite his terror and initial lack of flying ability—flew combat at the front when he had a cushy spot behind the lines as a squadron supply officer or working as an executive for The Fleer Corporation, his father’s employer. BTW Fleer manufactured the first ever bubblegum! It was called Blibber-Blubber which, after some tweaking, became the wildly successful Double Bubble. Swaab joked about his job blowing bubbles while recovering from multiple head wounds and a badly split lip.

Swaab’s is not a typical story today, when most American children of the elite prefer to fight their battles on Wall Street or in corporate boardrooms. I think also of the German Jewish veterans groups who published tracts after the war citing statistics on Jewish Frontkämpfer to refute myths about the stab in the back that allegedly brought Germany down. Also I think of the proud Jewish veterans who wore their iron crosses when they answered that knock in the night, only to have them confiscated before being shipped off in cattle cars.

Swaab’s commander, Ray Brooks, recommended him for the Medal of Honor for Swaab’s first flight, as well as subsequent actions flown while Swaab was still recovering from his wounds. When I read the account of his first flight it brings to mind the phrase, “the guts of a blind burglar”, as Swaab was about as unprepared as a blind burglar for what was to happen on his first trip over the lines. Brooks remembered Swaab as being “an excellent chap to be with, a well-bred fellow of good background, well taken care of by the ladies in the USA. He was suave and well-educated; Jewish, but not very religious.” I suppose no one likes a prig, whatever his denomination!

[Luftmensch]

Liberty DH4 on its back. This is one of several photos I'll post here from Harmon C. Rorison's collection of 85 negatives which I bought from Flayderman some years ago, and were kindly ID'ed by Alan Toelle. Rorison flew with Swaab in the 22nd Aero. Rorison ferried DH4s from Romorantin to other fields including the 1st Air Depot at Colombey-les-Belles.

Swaab started crashing aeroplanes early. When he was 18, he and his father’s chauffeur built a plane in his garage. They flipped a coin to see who would try it first and Swaab won, crashing the contraption into a wall. After installing a second seat they both managed to get the rebuilt plane into the air, and got good enough to perform simple maneuvers for local onlookers. It was later, at the School of Aeronautics at Ohio State that Swaab learned he and the chauffeur “had been doing things with our airplane that were supposed to be impossible.”

Swaab volunteered to fly in June, 1917, two months after war was declared. For his war experiences, I excerpt Jon Guttman’s excellent article on Swaab from the January 1997 issue of Aviation History:

Temple N. Joyce was among the most successful test pilots in the American Expeditionary Force in France…Joyce was surprised when a friend of his, just out of training, came bursting into his office and said, “Temp, can you get me a job as a test pilot? I’ve got orders for the front and you know I can’t fly worth a damn. If they send me up there, I know I’m going to get killed.”

“Nobody ever volunteers for test-flying,” replied Joyce. “You get drafted for that.”

“I’ll volunteer,” entreated the fledgling. “Just get me a job as a test pilot; I need more time in the air!”

Joyce then brought his friend’s request to the head of the engineering department at the American training base at Issoudun. “Sign the damn fool up right away!” shouted the major, and so began the short and farcical career of a test pilot who would eventually become one of America’s leading aces of World War 1. [End of excerpt]

Edited November 16, 2009 by Luftmensch

[Luftmensch]

Three unidentified officers with their models, probably undertaking gunnery instruction at a French school.

Lt. Harmon C. Rorison seated in a clear-doped Nieuport type 24 at a French gunnery school.

In Jerry Valencia’s book Knights of the Air, Swaab states that while taking gunnery training in Furbara, Italy, a Captain Gordeske came to him with good news. He had gotten Swaab a job as a test pilot at the Ansaldo factory that made SVA5s. Swaab turned the offer down because he wanted to go to the front. “Don’t be silly,” Gordeske said. “They’re killing men up at the front every day.”

[Luftmensch]

Lt. Swaab in Rome. A postcard sent by his father Mayer, after whom Swaab named his Spads, to another relative.

[Luftmensch]

Nieuport 27 wrecked at Issoudun.

However, Temple remembers Swaab volunteering as a test pilot as soon as he finished his flight training back at Issoudun. Guttman continues:

The experience would do nothing to improve his shaky self-confidence. On his first day, Swaab made a perfect landing 10 feet off the ground—after which his plane pancaked down and was smashed to pieces. The third day, he ground looped and managed to break both wings. After the second crackup, Joyce’s commander told him: “For God’s sake, send that idiot up to the front. He’s safer there than he is back here!” When Joyce gave Swaab his orders to report to the pilot’s pool at Colombey-les-Belles, he came away with the impression that Swaab was green with fear. [End of excerpt]

[Luftmensch]

A third version told by Swaab to Orville Kneen in a 1933 interview, suggests that he was made an instructor against his will:

“There was only one way to get out of this assignment. He `boggled’ a test flight, deliberately made himself appear dumb and incompetent. By such tactics he finally saw action instead of merely training others, for which he was well fitted.”

My guess is Swaab was burnishing his hapless career as a terrified test pilot, because it didn’t fit his later image as a hero. In any event, terrified or not, competent or not, Swaab was assigned to the 22nd Aero, where he and a lot of other novice pilots would have to do or die in very quick order.

Swaab’s shooting star 22nd Aero squadron pin. The enamel damage is period, because this was its condition when Swaab had his medals mounted in a frame in the 1930s. The 22nd Aero DI was designed by Ray Brooks based on a vivid shooting star he saw while growing up in Framingham, Mass. The pin is stamped 14k and identical to Brooks’ pin in the Air and Space Museum.

[Luftmensch]

Swaab with the 22nd Aero.

After getting in a few practice hops, Swaab made his first combat flight on September 8, 1918.

“Why should I flatter myself by saying that I was frightened?

Terrified! Petrified!

Even those words do not adequately describe my condition.

That quote is from a colorful report written by Swaab in 1919. It is archived in the Brooks file at the Smithsonian, and attached to the Medal of Honor affidavits that I will post later.

His patch.

“I didn’t know it then,” he told Kneen, “but it was to be the biggest day of my life. It seemed as if I had barely fallen asleep when I was called—at four o’clock!” The patrol was made up of newbies. Led by Brooks who had only five trips over the front under his belt, the patrol was ordered by Capt. Bridgman to “Stick together…learn your planes…and be sure to keep inside your own lines.” Swaab would be seeing the front for the first time and was to familiarize himself with landmarks. Guttman’s excellent--and probably most accurate account--continues:

…Swaab recounted to Temple Joyce what happened during his first combat mission…He had been flying at the rear of a six-plane formation when the leader [brooks had already turned back with engine trouble] dove away almost vertically, followed in turn by each of the others. Swaab held back, convinced that his comrades were bent on suicide. Up to that point, he had been flying Nieuports, which had all borne placards instructing their pilots never to dive at more than 120 mph, and nobody had told him that Spad 13s were much sturdier and would hold together in a vertical dive.

Swaab prudently took his time coming down through a cloud, expecting to find all of his flight strewn in pieces over the countryside. Instead, he saw none of them at all.

Climbing back above the clouds, Swaab flew west for 20 minutes.

When next he descended through the clouds, he spotted an airfield below. “Eureka, I’m saved,” thought Swaab. “I’ll just land there and ask the boys where I am.” As he was coming in to land, another aircraft took off and started climbing up at him. “Fortunately, I turned in,” Swaab recounted, “or that crazy nut would have collided with me.” It was during his turn that Swaab saw a large gray cross on the tail of what he now recognized as a Fokker DVII. Unaware that a strong northeast wind had been blowing all day, he had made almost no progress in the opposite direction and had thus ended up over a German aerodrome...

[Luftmensch]

[Cont'd from previous post] Swaab recovered from his shock in time to pull around on the equally surprised German and give him a burst of machine-gun fire; the Fokker went down in flames. With one of his two guns jammed, Swaab pulled away into the sun, only to find himself being dived on by “a 100 enemy planes.” “Actually, there were only 10,” he explained to Joyce, “but I saw each one 10 times!”

Swaab fired at the leader and saw his antagonist go spinning down. Breaking clear, Swaab again headed west for the nearest hole in the clouds. Just before he reached it, another Fokker got on his tail. Swaab recounted what ensued in his diary: “The next instant I saw a group of about 10 Fokkers had enticed me into a game of ring-around-the-rosy, in which the object seemed to be for each one in turn to practice aerial gunnery on me!

“Fortune permitted me to get closer and closer to a cloud…when one chap who worked for Buffalo Bill shooting pennies off a blind man’s head mistook me for his old partner—and missed—gently touching my scalp with three bullets.

“The cloud had come closer to me and I headed for it when an unfortunate Boche got in the way of some American-made bullets and burst into flames. I made the cloud—vrilled a billion metres three times, passed away into semi-consciousness and next found myself pinned under my plane.

“French was being spoken! The people argued about my nationality, forgetting that the plane’s occupant needed assistance until they were awakened by my saying, `Lever ici [lift here]!’ I knew that phrase perfectly—a year of seeing it on every machine had impressed it into my mind…”

At the conclusion of their conversation at Issoudun, Temple Joyce commented: “Jack, I can understand how you could just inadvertently figure the right deflection to get a guy, but why in the devil didn’t they get you?” “Well, Temp,” Swaab replied, “you know I can’t fly, and when the sons of guns aimed at me, I was either skidding or slipping and never got where they were firing!”

Rorison poses with one of the surrendered Fokker DVIIs (OAW) 4174/18 at Grand (Vosges) in March 1919.

[Luftmensch]

Swaab's Presidential Wound Certificate or "Accolade" with Woodrow Wilson's facsimile signature on the bottom, dated two days after Swaab's action.

[Guttman excerpt continued]

Swaab was given up for lost by his squadron mates for two days. Even after he rejoined them, it was decided that, behind the cavalier humor, he was badly shaken up by the experience. He was therefore sent south to the mineral spa at Vittel to rest. He was soon joined there by Ray Brooks, who was in a similar condition after an epic dogfight of his own…

Brooks and Swaab soon came to the conclusion that returning to the front was preferable to the depressing sight of the physical and mental casualties who arrived at Vittel by the trainful each day. Both agreed to cut short their leave and rejoin the 22nd, which by that time had completed its operations over the St. Mihiel sector and was now flying over the even tougher Argonne Forest. [End of excerpt]

Brooks had shown up at Vittel crying uncontrollably, wracked with the fear that he had lost his entire patrol to enemy guns.

[Luftmensch]

"Jacques Swaab Teaches Germans How American Can Fight Against Great Odds." This NYC article dated 9/12/18 claims Swaab for its own son even though he was born and raised in Philadelphia, because he and his father had lived and worked in the city before the war.

[Luftmensch]

Swaab in front of his Spad XIII 18869 #15 "Mayer III" at Souilly.

In the Argonne the squadron flew against JG II and JG I, the Red Baron’s Flying Circus now led by Oblt. Hermann Goering. By that time Swaab’s hair, which had fallen out after the events of September 8, was now growing back, but “every hair was completely white…I never felt better,” he said! Brooks’ Medal of Honor statement describes Swaab as still suffering from his wounds when he made his next kills. Swaab quipped, “My lip [which he had badly split] was in such great shape that I was sure I would be back in the chewing-gum business”—a reference to Fleer, his employer before the war.

Swaab would become a double ace in little more than a month--a total of 65 hours in the air. In Knights, he said:

“Our average flight was an hour’s duration. We carried a maximum of two hours fuel in the Spad and, many times, like the French, if there was a cloud in the sky we didn’t fly. If we flew two hours in the day, we considered it a long day. So even the `on’ days were short.”

During that month Swaab developed, according to Brooks, into a marksman and a virtuoso pilot. You can read descriptions of Swaab’s subsequent actions in the affidavits collected for Brooks’ Medal of Honor application on his behalf. They are now part of the Brooks Collection at the Archives of the National Air and Space Museum.

Lts. Murray E, Tucker, John C. Crissey, and Jacques Swaab stand in front of a Spad, states Toelle, that is probably C-Flight Spad XIII marked 2X. "The layout of the cocarde on the upper wing indicates that part is the product of Bleriot. But the camouflage on the tailplane and fuselage deck indicates it is a product of Kellner. The location is Souilly."

[Luftmensch]

The famous photo of Swaab's "Mayer III" in the snow at Souilly sporting the rarely seen "kill markings" for his confirmed tally of 10. Swaab claimed 17 victories, but only 10 were officially confirmed by the three required independent observers. Several kills were far inside German lines.

Officers pose with their top scorer Swaab's Spad "Mayer III"--Crissey on the left. Toelle notes that white outlines have now been added to the victory crosses encircling the shooting star some time after the famous photo of Swaab's ship in the snow, above.

[Luftmensch]

Swaab's Aero Club Medal, probably issued in late 1918. Early in the war the Club committed to presenting a medal to "every Allied flyer" but somewhere must have ran out of money. I've seen a handful to highly decorated pilots and some to obscure recipients, but a relatively small number next to their original commitment.

[Luftmensch]

I don't have Swaab's Aero Club Medal certificate, but I have another example and I'd like to share what a wonderful lurid piece of art it is...what with angels busy chucking bombs, succouring babies, and nasty vipers standing in for the beastly hun...

[Luftmensch]

[Luftmensch]

This article is dated January 13, 1919, while Swaab was reportedly with the American Third Army advancing into Germany. Proud papa atrributes his son's luck to papa's name on the side of his plane. In Kneen's interview after the war, Swaab admitted he also carried a 150-year old sheet of paper that prevented bad luck and kept people from catching smallpox in the past. I guess it worked. Swaab never caught influenza! Also, he carried a 20-franc gold piece with "Republique de la France" scored out and his name and "13" engraved.

[Luftmensch]

The conquering hero returns home.

Here Swaab presents a model Spad to Fiorello Laguardia, who at this time was a Republican congressman for the state of New York. Laguardia was a progressive and a bit of a New Dealer, who wanted to repeal immigration quotas on Italians, Jews, and other nationalities. He also saw flying service on the Italian front. The scene looks like it's on the steps of City Hall in New York, with other veteran pilots behind them, judging by their lapel pins.

[Luftmensch]

Nice obligatory studio shot before he puts his uniform on eBay! You can see his new squadron pin, but no medals yet...that's the subject of the second half of this saga...

[Luftmensch]

Meanwhile, working its way through the system is Brooks' application for a Medal of Honor for Swaab dated April 1, 1919 for "particular deeds." Referenced are Swaab's actions on September 8, 28, October 23, 27, 29 and 31st--the largest narrative being devoted to Swaab's first flight.

These are copies of extant documents in the NASM.

[Luftmensch]

Forwarded, recommending approval...by the Chief of Staff, A.S. U.S.A.

Another affidavit focusing on the September 8 action taken in Washington, DC, two months later.

[Luftmensch]

And then this testimony a week later, from the 22nd's new CO, back with the squadron at Mitchell Field, Long Island.

QUESTION: Can anyone comment whether Tyndall's statement, or its necessity in this process seems odd? With the emphasis on Swaab's first flight in Brooks' MOH application one might wonder whether it was pilot skill or luck that got Swaab through, especially as he was inexperienced. But this letter rates Swaab as to his present or overall skill as a pilot, except that 2nd graph that references his test pilot work, an opinion in some dispute.

Any intuition about what might be happening to this application? Because that's all there is in the NASM file, except for the following colorful report by Swaab, attached to the Brooks file, which covers all the actions Brooks references....

Edited November 16, 2009 by Luftmensch

[Luftmensch]

Swaab's statement, as found in the Brooks' File without any cover...

Note that it deftly leapfrog's over his test pilot experience at Issoudun!

[Luftmensch]

It would make this group more colorful if a case of anti-semitism could be proven. But there is no evidence of that extant in the Brooks' File. I suppose a lot of MOH applications were downgraded after the war to DSCs, and that's what happened here. Looking on the bright side, an MOH might have frozen this group in place with the family who evidently wanted to sell it, and it might have been lost to history.

Other documents in the file include

--personnel rosters

--Daily Airplane Reports

--Colombey-les Belles plane assignments

--reports on planes missing over the lines

and this nifty Honor Roll