page_title: Camp Taliaferro
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Camp Taliaferro / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Guard at Commonwealth War Graves, Greenwood Cemetery, Fort Worth, Texas
context_page_description: Camp Taliaferro was a World War I flight-training center run under the direction of the Air Service, United States Army in the Fort Worth, Texas, area. Camp Taliaferro had an administration center near what is now the Will Rogers Memorial Center complex in Fort Worth's cultural area near University Drive and W Lancaster Avenue.
context_section_description: After the United States' entry into World War I in April 1917, General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing invited the British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) to establish training fields in the southern United States where the warmer weather would be more conducive for flying year-round. In June, the War Department inspected six sites around Fort Worth which had been offered by the Chamber of Commerce and by July, RFC representatives from Canada inspected five potential sites in Texas and Louisiana for use during the winter.
  After looking at sites in Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Austin, Wichita Falls, and Midland, in August the War Department signed leases with the RFC on three sites around Fort Worth.  Known as the Flying Triangle, these sites were Hicks Field (#1), Barron Field (#2), and Benbrook Field (#3) based on their locations; and construction began in late August and early September.
  The Canadians named the training complex Camp Taliaferro after 1st Lieutenant Walter R. Taliaferro, a U.S. Army aviator.  Taliaferro was killed in an accident at [San Diego], California, on 11 October 1915.  The Camp Taliaferro offices for the Air Service and RFC Canada were initially located in the basement of the Chamber of Commerce building in Fort Worth to handle pay, purchasing, and administrative services for their own personnel assigned at the three fields.
  Work on constructing the airfield had to be done quickly.  Cattle were moved out, and construction crews worked feverishly at the site. US Air Service squadrons which had been training in Canada began arriving in October 1917, and the RFC squadrons began to arrive in early November.
  The first winter of 1917-1918 was difficult.  Many men lived in tents in this snowy winter. RFC instructors trained about 6000 men there. In six months, 1,960 pilots were trained, completing 67,000 flying hours on the Curtiss JN4 Canuck, a two-seater biplane weighing 2,100 lb (950 kg) with a maximum speed of 75 mph (120 km/h). About 69 ground officers and 4,150 others received training in ground trades and skills.   During the winter, eight deaths were due to influenza and 39 RFC personnel died as the result of aircraft accidents, influenza, or other illnesses.
  Canadian cadets were at Benbrook and Everman Fields, while the US cadets and the Canadian aerial gunnery school went to Hicks. The training was a major life experience, sufficiently so for veterans to keep memorabilia long afterwards. For example, the wife of Harry Kuhlmann from San Jose, California, (22d Aero Squadron 1917-9) died in 1974, still holding Camp Taliaferro Post Exchange Tickets. In Cornell's Alumni News, L. H. Germer announced as his permanent address: Squadron 139, Field No. 1, Camp Taliaferro, Hicks, Texas. At Christmas, special postcards were available from the camp for residents.
  For those who survived the training, combat life expectancy was short. Only two US Air Service squadrons—the 17th and 148th Aero Squadrons—saw active service with the British, flying with them until November 1918, after which they were absorbed into the US Air Service. The obituary of one veteran may be typical: 
  ELLIOTT, Edward William. 1st Lieutenant. Son of Samuel A. and Myrtle Elliott; born September 9, 1895, Wapakoneta, OH. Living in Muncie, IN when he entered First Officers Training Camp, Ft. Harrison, IN, May 15, 1917. Commissioned 1st Lieutenant. Assigned to 27th Aero Squadron. Transferred to Toronto, Canada; then to Camp Taliaferro, TX. Overseas in March 1918. Killed in an air battle, Chateau-Thierry, France, July 2, 1918. Survived by widow, Reba Thorpe Elliott, Muncie, IN.
  Others survived the war, but to continue in aviation was almost as perilous:
  Edmund Pike Graves: born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on March 13, 1891. Middlesex School, Class of 1907; Harvard, Class of 1913. Enlisted as a cadet, Royal Flying Corps in Canada on July 9, 1917 to avoid a delay in getting into a U.S. flying program. Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, R.F.C. on October 29, 1917. Assigned as instructor in aerial gunnery at Camp Taliaferro, Hicks Field, Fort Worth, Texas. One o
caption: A guard at the Fort Worth war graves cemetery, Memorial Day 2005, Greenwood Cemetery, Fort Worth, Texas
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