New Haven SE, WWI aviator Lt. Gilbert Jerome exhibit

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Lt. Gilbert Nelson Jerome, former  New Haven Scout Executive, A.S.,U.S.A. Escadrille Spad 90, Eighth French Army

 

Lt. Jerome was Scout Executive for New Haven, CT from Aug, 1915 to June, 1917 when he enlisted to attend ground school at M.I.T. then to France for flight school and assignment in an escadrille. He was killed in action July 11,1918. while patrolling the French lines near  Verdenal.

On Thursday, June 14, at 5:00 p.m., the New Haven Museum will open "Gilbert Jerome: New Haven's WWI Aviator," an unusual and intimate exhibit capturing Jerome's brief, enthusiastic embrace of life during World War One (WWI), using excerpts from the Yale graduate's diary, the charming letters, sketches, and tiny watercolors he sent home from "in the field," and memorabilia on loan from the Connecticut Yankee Council, Boy Scouts of America.

...

Sweeping over the French countryside at 120 mph in an aeroplane crafted of wood, wire and canvas, New Haven native and Boy Scout Executive Lt. Gilbert Jerome had the time of his life. Fewer than 20 years after Kitty Hawk, the world was captivated by the glamor and danger of early flight. Aviators were the pampered aristocrats of war, soaring high above the horrors of the trenches. Well-fed, and with plenty of down time, they spent much of their time behind the lines in camps geared to keeping the cadets in top shape. Heading to France for flight training, Jerome naively quipped in a letter, "I cannot get over the feeling that we are off on a sort of grand pleasure tour in which Uncle Sam pays the bills and conducts the tour..."

According to Guest Curator Deborah G. Rossi, pilots were treated well because they typically lasted one to three weeks in combat before being shot down-and there were no parachutes. "They didn't want to encourage pilots to bail out and crash the planes," Rossi explains. "Till they finally realized it was more expensive to train new pilots than to make new planes."

Artifacts in the exhibit include Jerome's dog tags, the altimeter and a wooden strut from his SPAD XIII aeroplane, and the wooden marker from his original gravesite in France, all on loan by the Connecticut Yankee Council, Boy Scouts of America, in New Haven.

...Source link:

http://www.courant.com/community/hc-ugc-article-gilbert-jerome-new-havens-wwi-aviator-opens-2018-06-04-story.html

New England Aviators 1914-1918: Their Portraits and Their Records, Volume 1

https://books.google.com/books?id=Y9sDAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA212&ots=ecl10W4myu&dq=Boy Scout Executive Lt. Gilbert Jerome&pg=PA212#v=onepage&q=Boy Scout Executive Lt. Gilbert Jerome&f=false