F. Trubee Davison

Frederick Trubee Davison (February 7, 1896 – November 14, 1974) was an American World War I aviator, assistant United States Secretary of War, director of personnel for the Central Intelligence Agency, and president of the American Museum of Natural History. Biography He was born on February 7, 1896, to Henry Pomeroy Davison. He graduated from Groton School and then attended Yale University as part of the class of 1918. He was a member of Yale's secret Skull and Bones society. War years Davison was the founder of the First Yale Unit, which is considered to be the first naval air reserve unit. He founded the unit in 1916 in response to the war that was raging in Europe. Davison and a handful of other students from Yale feared that the United States would soon be dragged into the war effort and would find itself poorly prepared, especially in aviation. Davison told his mother that the government was "asleep at the switch". After consulting with John Hays Hammond Jr. and Henry Woodhouse, Davison decided to pull together a group of twelve from amongst Yale's undergraduates to form a unit of flyboys that would possibly operate along the Atlantic Coast. Hammond and Admiral Peary of the American navy had worked out plans to develop a type of coast guard along the eastern shores that would operate from the air. They wanted to set up a series of seaplane stations which would each have a specific piece of territory to patrol. Davison took to this idea immediately and formed the unit. In the First Yale Unit with him were Robert A. Lovett, John Vorys, John Villiers Farwell III, Albert Ditman, Wellesley Laud Brown, Artemus L. Gates, Erl Clinton Barker Gould, Allan Wallace Ames, C. D. Wiman, Albert Dillon Sturtevant, and H. P. Davison Jr. Davison and his friends began their aviation training privately with the help of pilot David Hugh McCulloch in the summer of 1916 while staying at the Davison's house at Peacock Point. in Locust Valley on Long Island.