319
U.S. Naval Aviation Birthplace
The Porto Corsini boys, first America’s Top Guns
T
By Marco Sciarretta
he U.S. Navy’s interest in heavier-than air flying machines emerged as early as the end of XIX Century, after the first successful experiment of Professor Samuel P. Langley, who in 1896 built and flown the first airplane (actually, an unmanned vehicle) possessing inherent stability. The ‘’Winged Goat’’ insignia of Porto Corsini NAS Since 1908, following the public demonstration of Wright Flyer, several naval observers attended official tests and air meets, in the States and abroad, appreciating the potential value of the airplane in naval warfare. In 1910 the Navy endeavored the first successful experiment of take-off and landing aboard a ship (U.S.S. Birmingham) and, in 1914, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels went so far to announce that had been reached the point “…where aircraft must form a large part of our naval forces for offensive and defensive operations”1. Anyway, when the call came for the U.S. Navy in April 1917, after three years of war in Europe, the Air service was limited to operate a single Naval Air Station (Pensacola) and only 54 aircraft, none of them available for the purposes of war. At the outbreak of hostilities it suddenly became necessary to obtain a mass of skilled pilots, observers and ground personnel. The effort to create and train the amazing number of specialized personnel required was in itself an impressive task, as demonstrated by the sheer numbers: 38 Officers and 163 Aviation ratings on the 6 of April 1917; 6.710 Officers (1.650 Naval aviators, 288 student Naval aviators, 891 ground Officers, in addition to other 3.881 under training), and 30.693 men (21.951 Aviation and 8.742 General ratings) on the 11 of November 19182. 1 Adrian O. Van Wyen (Deputy CNO – Air), Naval Aviation in World War I. Washington, D.C., Chief of naval Operations, 1969. Geoffrey Rossano, Thomas Wildenberg, Striking the Hornets’ Nest: Naval Aviation and the Origins of Strategic Bombing in World War I, Naval Institute Press, 2015. 2 V. H. Sitz, (Capt., U.S.M.C.), A History of U.S. Naval Aviation (Technical Note No 18, Series of 1930). Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1930.
