Harold Hartney Harold Evans Hartney was a Canadian - born World War I flying ace with the United States Army Air Service , credited with seven confirmed and one unconfirmed aerial victories . Early life and service . Hartney graduated from University of Toronto in 1911 and worked in his brother ' s law office in Saskatoon . After earning a graduate degree at the University of Saskatchewan , he became a barrister . He joined the Saskatoon Fusiliers , and played cornet in the town band . He married in 1914 , just prior to World War I ' s start . On 28 October 1914 , Hartney enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force . His Attestation Paper , filled out for his entry at Saskatoon , gives his height as 5 feet 9½ inches , his complexion as fair , and hair and eyes as brown . His next of kin is given as Irene McCeary Hartney , care of Russell Hartney . Harold Hartney claimed three years prior service as a lieutenant in the Harbord Cadets and as a trumpeter bandsman in the 48th Highlanders . After he shipped out to England in May 1915 , he visited an aerodrome at Folkestone while training nearby on Dibgate Plains and crossed paths with fellow Canadian Billy Bishop . That incidental meeting at Folkestone Aerodrome steered Hartney to the Royal Flying Corps . On 21 October 1915 , he transferred to the RFC . Flying service . By the beginning of the Somme Offensive , Hartney had been assigned to 20 Squadron as a Royal Aircraft Factory FE . 2 d pilot . On 1 July 1916 , while flying over the developing ground attack , Hartney found himself under fire from a Fokker E . III . Hartney smacked his gunner alert , sideslipped from danger , and racked his Royal Aircraft Factory FE . 2 d into an Immelmann turn . He came out slightly above the German , who was now in a head - on firing pass . Hartney ' s gunner fired five four - round bursts . Hartney ' s recollection was , " His tank ablaze , he pulled up almost directly in front of us , then whip - stalled to Eternity . " Despite the flames , Hartney was credited with an " out of control " victory . On the way home , Hartney and his gunner got into eleven more skirmishes , clearing three incidental machine gun jams . In one skirmish , they tailed another German and sent him down in a smoking plunge to earth for what was officially another " out of control " win . By the time the FE . 2d landed , the gunner had run one gun dry ; the other was jammed . The plane was a bullet - riddled wreck , trailing torn fabric . Seven bullets stuck in the engine ' s water jacket bled off its coolant , and the engine " froze " , with four of its Rolls - Royce pistons sticking to their cylinder walls . Tattered streamers of fabric torn by bullets trailed from the biplane . Somehow , the crew was uninjured . Hartney would not score again until 20 October . He then took leave before returning to the fray as ' A ' Flight Commander . On 2 February , flying his ninth assigned aircraft in eight months duty , Hartney destroyed a Halberstadt D . II over Lille . Twelve days later , Hartney was tasked with a photographic reconnaissance mission near Passchendaele . With observer W . T . Jourdan aboard , and escorted by another FE . 2 , Hartney found himself under attack by seven German Albatros D . III fighter planes . Then , as Hartney later wrote , " . . . the right rear enemy ship . . . took a swoop at us . His tracer bullets were playing about us for fully two seconds before Jourdan finally let him have both guns right in the face . The poor brave kid just kept on going , for all the world like a mortally wounded bird plummeting to his death near a river bend below us . " This victory was Hartney ' s fifth , making him an ace . The FE . 2 escort ' s observer also downed an Albatros , while Jourdan accounted for another ; one German fell aflame , the other fell in a slow spinning dive . The escort then broke up under fire from a single Albatros ; the British observer was killed in action , and the pilot wounded . Hartney attempted to battle the attacker , only to discover that his own FE . 2 suffered from a snapped - off propeller blade and broken flying wires and was incapable of fighting . The Canadian ace had to shut down the engine and dead - stick to a crashlanding in a Belgian field picketed with hop poles . After impact , he found himself lying under the 775 pounds of the FE . 2 ' s engine . Australian troops trying to lift it free dropped it back on him . Hartney eventually was hospitalized beside his observer . By one source they were victims of Paul Strähle of Jasta 18 , who had scored the first of his 14 victories . Another source credits Baron Manfred von Richthofen with the shoot - down . After recuperation , during which time Hartney became a U . S . citizen in October 1917 , he transferred to the U . S . Air Service . He scored his last win for them on 25 June 1918 , while in the 27th Pursuit Squadron , although he went on to an unconfirmed triumph over a Gotha while with the 185th Aero Squadron . Hartney commanded both the 27th Pursuit Squadron and its parent organization , the 1st Pursuit Group . Harold Hartney ended the war as an American Lieutenant colonel , leading to some confusion as to his nationality . Postwar . Hartney was awarded the American Distinguished Service Cross in 1919 ; ironically , the award citation did not mention his aerial victories . Instead , he was cited for a photo reconnaissance mission on 13 August 1918 .