Leland Barrett

Lieutenant Leland Kelly Wilson ('Kelly') Barrett was an American officer of the Royal Air Force who died during the First World War.
He was born on 1 March 1894, in Rusk, Texas, the son of Robert A. and Lela Willson Barrett, of Canada and Texas, respectively. Barrett attended Chestnut Hill Academy, Philadelphia, before entering Vanderbilt University in September 1913. He enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps in July 1917, in Canada,The Kappa Alpha Journal, Volume 37, Issue 1, p. 11-3. and obtained a commissioned as a second lieutenant in December.
Barrett served on the Western Front with the S.E.5-equipped 82nd Squadron. On the morning of 24 April 1918, the squadron was tasked with repulsing a German raid on Villers-Bretonneux. According to his commanding officer, Barrett was the second aircraft to take off and was almost immediately engulfed by a fog. His aircraft came down on the northern edge of Buigny-l'Abbé, striking a tree and bursting into flames when some of the bombs detonated on impact. Barrett's observer, Lieutenant C.A. Proctor, was also killed. A brother, Robert, served with the American Expeditionary Force as a first lieutenant in the Trench Mortar Battery, 1st Division.
He is buried in Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension.
==Notes==
==References==
*Barrett, Leland Kelly Wilson, cwgc.org. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
Category:1894 births
Category:1918 deaths
Category:American military personnel
Category:Royal Air Force
Category:Buried in France
Category:Lieutenants