Raynal Cawthorne Bolling (September 1, 1877 – March 26, 1918) was the first high-ranking officer of the United States Army to be killed in combat in World War I. A corporate lawyer by vocation, he became an early Army aviator and the organizer of both of the first units in what ultimately became the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve Command.
Sent to France to lay a foundation for the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force as head of what became known as the "Bolling Mission," he remained in France instead of returning to the United States, served briefly in a number of staff positions and was selected for a future combat command. He was touring his future area of operations to learn the nature of the work he would be expected to perform when he was killed in action by German troops during the opening days of the 1918 spring offensive. He was the namesake of Bolling Air Force Base.
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Biography
Bolling was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and was a resident of Greenwich, Connecticut, from 1911 until 1915. In 1912, he commissioned Carrère and Hastings, the architects of the New York Public Library, to build an estate for him at 137 Doubling Road in Greenwich that he later named Greyledge. Greyledge was constructed between 1912 and 1914. Greyledge was an English-style manor situated on an estate that sprawls from 137 Doubling Road to Boulder Brook. In addition to a sitting room, family room, library and thirteen fireplaces, the estate was also home to a shooting gallery. Upon completion in 1914 Colonel Raynal Bolling and Anna Tucker Phillips Bolling moved in to Greyledge with their family of four daughters and one son. However, Bolling spent virtually no time enjoying his family and new home. In November 1915, Bolling, then a First Lieutenant in the Air Force, was appointed to the New York National Guard. The estate was later razed, in 2007, by its current owner despite a public outcry.
He attended the Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, graduating in 1896. He graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1900 and from the Harvard Law School in 1902.
Bolling was an attorney at Guthrie, Cravath, and Henderson. A little after a year there he began his career in the legal department of the United States Steel Corporation. By 1907 he was assistant general solicitor and married Anna Tucker Phillips, June 25, 1907, in Beverly, Massachusetts. She was the sister of William Phillips, a prominent career diplomat. He also joined the New York National Guard. He and his wife had four daughters and a son, one of whom, Cecelia Raynal Bolling, died in infancy. In 1913 he was named general counsel of US Steel at the age of 36.
Military service
National guard aviation pioneer
In the summer of 1915 Bolling, along with his brother-in-law and seven New York businessmen, all members of the American Aero Club, began taking flying lessons on property owned by the Wright Company near Garden City, New York. They contracted with an aviation school operated by Edson and Herbert Gallaudet for the use of their Gallaudet C-2 dual-controls trainer, which had a 50-horsepower Gnome motor, and the services of 20-year-old Peter Carl "Tex" Millman as an instructor. By the end of July, Millman reported several of his students including Bolling were ready to try for their American Aero Club license.
Bolling was in sympathy with the objectives of the Preparedness Movement, a group of influential Americans advocating military preparedness for involvement in World War I and drawn primarily from wealthy lawyers, bankers, academics, and politicians of the Northeast. Starting August 10, he was a participant in the first "Business Men's Camp", a volunteer summer military training camp organized and funded by the Preparedness Movement in Plattsburgh, New York, with the encouragement of Major General Leonard Wood, commanding the Army's Eastern Department. There he organized a "motor machine gun troop" and arranged for Millman to fly Gallaudet's C-2, re-engined with a 100-horsepower Gnome and termed the "Military Tractor," from the camp to demonstrate its military usefulness. Despite a long delay caused by lack of a safe landing ground nearby, Millman made 20 flights over a three-day period. Bolling also arranged for use of the American Aero Club's six-person balloon, the America III, to make a demonstration for the trainees.
In September, after the Plattsburgh encampment was over, Bolling began preparations for organizing an aero company for the guard. He secured the services of three additional flying instructors and began recruiting personnel. He received $12,500 in funding from the Aero Club of America (ACA) The funds provided Bolling were donated anonymously by two wealthy New Yorkers, including William K. Vanderbilt, specifically to establish a unit for the NY Guard. and rented both the "Military Tractor" and Gallaudet's earlier prototype, the C-1. Authorization to form an aviation section in the Signal Corps of the Guard was announced by New York Governor Charles S. Whitman in October, and Bolling, who had just completed his flying instruction, was then appointed to the ACA's special committee to support its implementation.
In November 1915, Bolling was appointed as a first lieutenant in the New York National Guard and organized the "Aviation Detachment, First Battalion Signal Corps, National Guard, New York." During the winter of 1915-1916, when it reached its authorized strength of four officers and 40 enlisted men, the detachment was designated the "1st Aero Company" and was the first national guard aviation unit in the United States. The pilots of the company were prominent young New Yorkers, many of whom had already had some flight instruction over the summer. Within a month, half of the 48 states had applied to the ACA for financial assistance in purchasing aircraft and equipment.
World War I
Before Bolling could actually take command of his unit, he was detached in June 1917 for staff duty. French premier Alexandre Ribot had sent U.S. President Woodrow Wilson a telegram at the end of May urging the United States to contribute 4,500 aircraft; 5,000 pilots; and 50,000 mechanics to the war effort. Because of his legal experience Bolling was assigned to assist in the drafting of legislation to fund the development of military aviation in response to Ribot's proposal. The subsequent Aviation Act (40 Stat. 243), passed July 24, 1917, was the largest single appropriation for a single purpose to that time, $640 million.
In conjunction with that duty, he was also appointed to the advisory Aircraft Production Board of the Council of National Defense to head an aeronautical commission to Europe known as "the Bolling Mission," to represent Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and the Board. His commission consisted of himself, two Army pilots trained in aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two naval officers, seven civilian industrial experts, and 93 civilian manufacturing technicians. The commission was charged with studying the types of military aircraft being used by the Allied Powers, recommend types to be put into production in the United States, and determine what types should be purchased directly from European sources. Bolling was chosen for his business and legal skills in negotiating prices and royalties. The commission left for Europe on June 17, 1917, and arrived in Liverpool on June 26. After a week in London, where its members fanned out to English airfields and aircraft factories, the commission repeated the process in Paris for two weeks, Italy for ten days, and then returned to Paris. Bolling took advantage of his mission's "quasi-diplomatic" status and his brother-in-law's authority as an Assistant Secretary of State to communicate with Washington using the State Department's transatlantic telegraph cable.
Bolling reported to the Chief Signal Officer from Paris on August 15 and recommended that the United States send materials, engines, and parts for assembly of airplanes in Europe. To accelerate the number of American pilots, the report recommended that the best cadets then in ground schools be shipped to France to complete their primary flight training under French instructors. The report further recommended an air force of "fighting airplanes and bombers" well beyond the numbers of airplanes providing auxiliary support of ground forces by observation. In particular Bolling and his Army colleagues, Captains Edgar S. Gorrell and Virginius E. Clark, were impressed by the concept of long-range strategic bombing, influenced by the Italian use of Caproni bombers against Austrian targets. It was one of a number of aircraft the commission recommended for manufacture by American industry, including the Bristol and SPAD VII fighters, but of its recommendations, only the deHavilland DH-4 was suitable for American production methods or engines and thus built in quantity before the war ended. Bolling prepared the preliminary aeronautical contract with the French, calling for delivery of 5,000 airplanes by July 1, 1918, which was signed on August 30, 1917, by the French air minister and General Pershing, now in command of the American Expeditionary Force.
Death
On the morning of March 26, 1918, during the opening phase of the offensive, Bolling and his driver, Private Paul L. Holder of the 22nd Aero Squadron, left their hotel in Amiens, headed for the British aerodrome at Harbonnières. They found it deserted and continued driving east toward the front lines, where they encountered three British Army officers in Estrées-Deniécourt, including a major with whom Bolling had an acquaintance. The officers indicated that to the best of their knowledge the oncoming German forces were still five kilometers distant. With this assurance, they headed towards a hill about 2.5 km away from which they might be able to observe the battlefield. Only Bolling was armed, and that an officer's service revolver.
After driving only 300 meters, their car was ambushed by hidden German machine guns on both sides of the Amiens-Saint-Quentin Road (49.875°N 2.780°E / 49.875; 2.780 (Amiens-Saint Quentin Road)). Before Holder could turn the car around, German fire disabled its motor. Holder and Bolling took cover in separate shell holes, which were connected by a ditch that enabled Bolling to see Holder. The fire of the machine guns lasted fifteen minutes, after which two German soldiers approached Holder's position. When one of them fired twice at the unarmed Holder crouching in his hole, Bolling shot and killed the German with his revolver. The other soldier killed Bolling with two shots, one to the chest and the other to the head.
The German troops continued west, and while Holder pretended to be dead in hope of escaping through the lines after dark, he was captured a half-hour later by follow-on troops and made a prisoner of war. Bolling was the first high-ranking air service officer killed on the battlefield in World War I. His remains were never recovered.
Legacy
Bolling was posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government and the Distinguished Service Medal by the United States Army. The sculptor Edward Clark Potter created a life-size statue of Bolling that was cast in bronze by the Gorham Foundry of Rhode Island for permanent display near the town commons of Greenwich, Connecticut. The Indiana limestone background of the memorial shows aircraft in combat in low relief. Bolling is honored at the Memorial Church of Harvard University and by "Bolling Grove," a redwood grove on the Avenue of the Giants, paralleling U.S. Highway 101 along the South Fork of the Eel River in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California.
Bolling Field, District of Columbia, now a part of Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, was opened on July 1, 1918, and named to commemorate Bolling.