James R. (James Rogers) McConnell

Born in Illinois in 1887, James Rogers McConnell studied at the University of Virginia and later became one of the best-known American volunteers serving with France in World War I. Before joining the air service, he worked with the American Ambulance in France, then transferred to aviation and flew with the Lafayette Escadrille, the famous unit of American pilots flying for France before the U.S. entered the war.

McConnell is remembered not only as a pilot but also as a writer. His book Flying for France drew on his own wartime experience and helped introduce readers to the danger, camaraderie, and idealism that surrounded those early volunteer aviators.

His life was short: he was shot down and killed over the Somme in March 1917. Even so, his memoir and his place in the story of the Lafayette Escadrille have kept his name alive as both a witness to the war and one of its early American voices.