Victor Chapman


		VICTOR CHAPMAN


	Victor Emmanuel Chapman, a founding member of the Escadrille Americaine, was born in New York City on 17 April 1890, the son of John Jay Chapman, lawyer and litterateur, and Minna (Timmins) Chapman. Victor's mother, Minna, was the oldest child of wealthy Bostonian George Henry Timmins. Victor's father, John Jay Chapman, the great-great-grandson of John Jay, the first U.S. Chief Justice, was the son of the powerful and wealthy Henry Grafton Chapman, broker and president of the New York Stock Exchange.
	Victor's mother, Minna, was the oldest child of wealthy Bostonian George Henry Timmins. Minna was devoutly Catholic, a part of her Italian heritage, and sought sanctuary "in prayer, religious books, observance and meditations." John Chapman, a devout member of the Episcopal Church of England, would later come to regard Minna's Catholic faith as "dangerous." The Protestant religion young "Jack" Chapman confronted when he enrolled at St. Paul's School was austere and uncompromising. And he so passionately embraced its tenants that by the time he was thirteen both his masters and fellow students began to regard him as "queer." Ultimately young Chapman suffered a nervous disturbance, the first of several which would occur periodically throughout his life. His health collapsed. When he fell ill with pneumonia. Jack's parents had been forced to remove him from school and place him under private tutors to prepare his entry into Harvard. While at Harvard, John Jay Chapman would not rank high scholastically but did at times demonstrate an unquestioned brilliance. He was popular with his fellow classmates and became a rebel of sorts. It was at Harvard that the faith of his youth completely collapsed, with Chapman even refusing to attend chapel. He had his degree withheld because of this.
				Ultimately, his B.A. was granted in 1884, and his M.A. in 1885. Following a year of travel in Europe, he returned to Boston to attend Harvard Law School. While in Boston to begin his course of study, J Chapman had met and had fallen in love with the beautiful, fiery Minna Timmins. He pursued her with great vigor and determination, the beginning of a passionate courtship which would tragically witness Chapman's withdrawal from Law School in January of 1887.
One evening John Jay Chapman had escorted Minna to a social function at the Walter Cabot home in Brookline. He momentarily left Minna unattended and when he had returned to her side he had witnessed one Percival Lowell, a Boston bachelor, hovering over her and had misinterpreted the fellow's actions as being injurious to Minna. In a jealous rage, Chapman had immediately attacked Lowell with his walking stick and had severely bloodied him. Chapman soon learned that Lowell was a member of Minna's dramatic club and had only spoken to her out of courtesy. Upon the realization of his error. Jack was horrified at his actions and was overwhelmed with remorse. Next morning, following a night of brooding, he had stoked the coal fire in his Cambridge apartment until it was burning brightly and as an act of expiation he had thrust his offending left hand "deep in the blaze" until the knuckles and finger bones were exposed and charred. Then he took a horsecar to the Massachusetts General Hospital where he was immediately anesthetized and his left hand was amputated. John Jay Chapman was not granted a Harvard law degree. Through diligent study he was admitted to the New York bar in 1888. Then on 2 July 1889, following a stormy courtship. Chapman and Minna Timmins were married. Nine months later Victor was born. From the moment of Victor's birth, mother and child became inseparable, as Victor grew to become both "idol and slave" to Minna and took from her for life her "old world Catholicism." His father would later write of Victor: "Victor, while he had not the intellect of his mother and was an inchoate nature, there was from his infancy to his death something about him of silence, mystery, godhead. " He continued to the end of his life to make the sign of the cross in saying the same prayers that she had taught him—which ended with the phrase— "and make me a big soldier of Jesus Christ who is the Lord and Light of the world." He folded his hands like a crusader as he said them. He was a part of the middle ages in this piety. His tiny trench-bible, which was full of pressed flowers and kodaks of his friends, was so much a miniature copy of his mother's bible that the little book seemed like the baby of the big one." A second son, John Jay, was born to the Chapmans two years after Victor's birth. Five years later the birth of Conrad in New York tragically resulted in Minna's death in childbirth on 25 January 1897. Following his acceptance to the Massachusetts bar in 1888, Chapman had practiced law for ten years and had involved himself in politics, writing two expositions on the dangers of the alliance between politics and business in the United States. He became a leader in the "good-government" movement and railed against the private citizen who supported the successors of William Tweed and New York's Tammany Hall. He formed the People's Municipal League in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the Tammany candidate in the New York mayoralty race. Chapman had never been a success at the practice of law. During his ten years at law he received no money, taking all cases without a fee. Chapman abandoned the legal profession shortly after the death of Minna. And upon the critical acceptance of his first book, Emerson and Other Essays, he worked toward building his growing reputation as one of the finest writers in the English language in the United States. John Jay Chapman remained a widower approximately fifteen months before marrying Elizabeth Chanler on 23 April 1898. Chanler Astor Chapman, Victor's half-brother, was born of this union on 27 April 1901. Elizabeth Chanler had been the daughter of lawyer and congressman John Winthrop Chanler and Margaret Astor Ward Chanler. This great-granddaughter of John Jacob Astor had become one of the famous "Astor orphans" upon the death of her parents at a young age, and had inherited one million dollars. A political crusade Chapman had been waging in New York culminated in a severe dispute with Theodore Roosevelt. As in the past, the strain proved too much for Chapman's highly-wrought temperament and in May of 1901, one month after the birth of Chanler, he suffered a complete mental breakdown. For two years Elizabeth Chapman nursed Jack at "Rokeby," the Chanler country estate at Barrytown, on the Hudson. When Chapman recovered his health and left his seclusion some two years later, he was transformed both physically and spiritually. Now wearing a beard, with the visage of a "fiery sage." he eschewed his earlier life of politics for a pursuit of spiritual truth. Victor's loss of Minna at such a young age would produce in him the same "early maturity" it had brought to Minna with the sudden loss of her father. At the same time it created in him a friend to the suffering. For the short few years that Victor had known his mother, she would always remain a profound influence upon him. And for some time following her death, he would immerse himself in a brooding sorrow. Victor soon developed a melancholy nature and a "fathomless humility." His father also noted that "There was a reminiscence of his mother's nature in Victor's friendship. He was always the leader, both leaning on and sweeping forward some subordinate nature who adored and followed." Victor was at first resentful of his stepmother "Alee," but he eventually saw in her a kind and generous woman, and a sincere warmth developed between the two. However, Elizabeth Chapman could never fill the void in Victor's heart at the loss of Minna. But with Victor so much his mother's child, a tension would always exist between himself and his father. John Jay Chapman later summed up their relationship in one sentence: "Victor always regarded me with piety; but as for being nourished and fed by my ministrations, it was out of the question." At times a simmering hatred that Victor held for his father would unexpectedly manifest itself. When it did, the senior Chapman felt "as if I and the whole universe I lived in were intolerable to his soul." Following the death of his mother, Minna, Victor turned his true affections toward his younger brother, Jay. A powerful bond developed between the two which ended tragically near Gratz in Austria when Victor was twelve and Jay was ten. The two had been playing together in the woods, Victor's favorite haunt, when Victor had momentarily left his brother beside a swollen river. He returned only in time to witness Jay's fall into the torrent where he soon drowned with Victor helpless to assist him. Victor took the blame for his brother's death upon his young shoulders. In school he was dull and uninspired and only seemed to come alive in natural settings among woods and streams. Only danger, or the threat of it, brought him completely to life, and he constantly put himself in harm's way. Unable to act to save his younger brother, Victor seemed to atone for this failure by participating in a series of life-saving episodes, a pattern he would follow unto death. Following the death of Jay, Victor focused his attention on his youngest brother Conrad who worshipped his oldest brother. Of Victor, he would later write: "Although I was seven years younger, I was very close to him, with his fine figure and gallant easy walk. He seemed not to know fear, and tried to teach others to overcome theirs. Once in Maine, when I was afraid of the icy-cold sea water, he got me out of bed early, pulled off my pajamas, and dropped me into the sea. Then hastily he pulled me out and rushed me to our kitchen, to give me a cup of hot milk." Young Victor began his formal education at the Fay School, Southboro, Massachusetts. He spent two years there before enrolling in St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire in September, 1903. He left that institution in 1907 to finish his schooling in Germany. Chapman lived in Germany, and for a time in France fill before returning to the United States to spend one year at the Stone School, Boston. In September 1909 he entered Harvard University and graduated from there with an A.B. in 1913. Victor's father, John Jay Chapman, summed up this part of Victor's life in the following way: "He had no aptitude for sports, none for books, none 'as for music; but always a deep passion for color and scenery, and a real talent for all forms of decoration, which we hoped would lead him toward painting or architecture. His water-color sketches, done in 1913—14 in Paris, showed a great advance on earlier work; but the dreamer was still in his dream, —and art is concentration. His pleasure was in scenery. If you could place him in a position of danger and let him watch scenery, he was in heaven. I do not think he was ever completely happy in his life till the day he got his flying papers." Chapman demonstrated a talent toward painting and architecture. He sailed to Paris immediately following graduation to study under M. Gromort to prepare for admission to the Beaux Arts. Now at the age of twenty-four, Victor's character had been formed. Chaste, without passion, clinging to his mother's Roman Catholic faith, he drifted aimlessly through life like a somnolent knight-errant groping for purpose and adventure. In August of 1914 the world would provide him with both. Then the slumbering young warrior rose suddenly to life. Victor was in England where his parents had gone when the French army had been mobilized to fight Germany. When Victor had presented his father with his intentions to enlist for France, the senior Chapman had vehemently disapproved. But through the intervention of his step-mother. Alee, Victor was shortly on his way to Paris and by late September 1914 had enlisted as a private in the Third Marching Regiment of the First Foreign Regiment of the Foreign Legion. Chapman involved himself heartily in this experience which he initially viewed as a "continuous picnic." And with his artist's eye, he saw his forthcoming service as "a splendid chance to view the country under all conditions." Victor reached the trenches in the third week of December 1914 as a machine-gunner and was soon wounded in the right arm by a rifle bullet. However, he still maintained a youthful enthusiasm in spite of a new reality involving filth and dysentery. In a letter to his father dated 10 February 1915, he described how he was "generally living a happy-go-lucky, hand-to-mouth existence." Then in an effort to put the senior Chapman's mind at ease, Victor went to extremes to downplay his experiences under enemy fire. "The tap, tap of Boches bullets on the face of my shelter in the evening affects me about as much as the lap, lap of little waves against the side of my sail boat. The rumble of distant artillery passes unnoticed, and but mild curiosity is aroused by the chug-chug-chug of a machine gun as of a steam-motor boat rounding a bend." In reading between the lines, the reality of his experience appeared in dark contrast. And while no attacks were launched by either side, Chapman's battalion was continually under fire and suffered numerous killed and wounded from artillery barrages and enemy sniping. For nearly three months Victor's battalion remained in the forward trench without relief. This established the record for all French units at the time. While there, he attempted to save the lives of several of his comrades lying wounded in no-mans land; and readily used his parent's wealth to provide the basic necessities for his comrades. He was soon affectionately known by them as "the American millionaire," particularly after he offered a battle surgeon 100,000 francs to save the life of a mortally wounded friend. In a letter dated 17 March 1915 to his brother, Conrad, penned in the trenches at Frise, Victor momentarily let down his guard and wrote that "one has to "take them (the horrors) lightly for otherwise the life would be an unbearable nightmare." Following a brief rest, Victor's unit was sent back to the trenches near Bas. The sector was quiet, with the enemy lines one-half mile off. On 4 July 1915 Chapman wrote to his step-mother, uncharacteristically complaining that he had served his term and had wasted ten months of his life neither helping the French nor injuring the Germans. Some months earlier, while in the trenches at Amiens, at the suggestion of his father and uncle, Victor had written an inquiry to fellow American Norman Prince when he had learned that Prince was "getting up an American Aero Corps at Pau." He later wrote Mrs. Chapman that he wished he had not done so after reading a reply from another American, Elliot Cowdin, who was then assisting Prince. "As for Aviation, I was too irresolute and inarticulate at Amiens to give vent to my feelings, and with the bunting that popular heroes are made of lying so thick, I did not like to show my true self. I have read Cowdin's letter; but it is perfectly obvious that I am not wanted and have been foisted on them by Uncle Willy and Papa. This is Prince's and Cowdin's show, they got it up. It is not for Americans in general. If I had been hauled out of the Legion in February I might have been a charter member of the Club, but I would not think of joining now." Several days following his letter to Mrs. Chapman, Victor was sent to Montbeliard with his battalion to be absorbed by the decimated 2d Regiment de Marche. On 1 August 1915 the news reached him as a surprise that he was to be transferred to French aviation. This had been secured through the influence and intervention of his father, John Jay Chapman, and with the assistance of Alice's two brothers then living in Paris, William Astor Chanler and Robert Chanler. Victor concluded his eleven months of service in the Legion having seen one-half of his unit either killed or seriously wounded. Chapman's courage and cheerfulness had won him the admiration of both officers and enlisted men, and he departed their company "with many adieux and five fellows helping me on with my sack." Victor reached Squadron V.B. 108 at Nancy on 8 August where he was assigned as a mitrailleur-bombardier. Americans Elliot Cowdin and Norman Prince were serving there as pilots. However, both men were in Paris at the time of Chapman's arrival lobbying their effort to form an American Escadrille. On 20 August 1915 Victor flew on his first bombing run in a Voisin. On 24 August he flew a second mission, this time across the Rhine into Dilingen, Germany where he bombed a railyard. On 9 September Norman Prince returned to the Squadron and told Victor that an American Escadrille should become a reality within a month. Meanwhile Victor made application for aviation school and was accepted for pilot training through the aid of Prince on 22 September 1915. Victor entered the School of Military Aviation at Avord on 26 September and initially trained on the Morane single-seater. At Avord he met the former American Legionnaire, Kiffin Rockwell, who would become Victor's closest friend. He received his brevet militaire on the Maurice Farman on 9 January 1916. Chapman continued his flight training at Avord, with fellow American Bert Hall serving as one of his instructors, finishing up at the R.G.A.(Reserve General Aeronautique) on 17 April 1916. With uncle William Astor Chanler becoming one of the founding members of the Franco-American Flying Corps and with his other uncle Robert Chanler using his financial and political influence with the French government to aid Norman Prince, it became a certainty that Victor would be assigned to the newly-formed Escadrille Americaine, N. 124. And so he was, at Luxeuil, on 20 April 1916. As Victor's father later noted, his entry into the American Escadrille was the consummate moment in Victor's life. He was suddenly transformed into the knight he had sought to become, completely fulfilled and happy. On 13 May all that he had hoped for reached fruition when he flew as part of the Squadron's first patrol across enemy lines. By the evening of 20 May 1916, the Squadron had completed its relocation to Behonne in the Verdun sector. A morning patrol on the 22nd initiated combat operations over German lines, part of a launched French counteroffensive. The pilots were to protect allied observation and artillery reglage machines. On the 24th Victor Chapman flew as part of a patrol consisting of Kiffin Rockwell and William Thaw, which was led by the Squadron's French commander, Capitaine Thenault. Thereupon, he began building his reputation as an intrepid fighter who attacked German aircraft whenever and wherever he found them, regardless of the circumstances. On a "scouting expedition" along the length of the Verdun Sector, near Etien, the formation ran over the top of twelve German two-seaters flying above their own lines. Thenault had hoped to avoid confrontation, feeling the enemy's numbers too great to provoke, when Chapman broke out of the formation and dived to the attack. He fired upon and struck a Fokker which was seen to fall out of control. Soon a fierce combat raged from a height of 4000 meters to near ground level. The Americans, outnumbered three-to-one, fought heroically in spite of the odds. But the outcome of the action clearly favored the superior enemy forces as first Rockwell, then Chapman, and finally Thaw were each forced out of the fight from wounds when each man's aircraft was repeatedly struck by fire and heavily damaged. Thaw's wound proved the most serious, a bullet in the left elbow which required hospitalization in Paris. For their actions that day, all three Americans were subsequently cited and decorated, with Chapman and Rockwell receiving promotion to Sergent. Missions continued at a frantic pace with Chapman and Rockwell soon back in the air. On 17 June Chapman, in the company of several other American pilots, was patrolling along the right bank of the Meuse river when he spotted a formation of German aircraft on the opposite bank. Chapman's decision to combat the enemy whenever and wherever he found them became an ungovernable passion. Without hesitation, he disobeyed Capitaine Thenault's explicit orders not to cross the Meuse and dove to the attack, dragging the rest of the patrol into the maelstrom. Engagements were fought without decision with Chapman's colleagues withdrawing singly from the fight. All returned to Behonne save Victor who refueled at Vadelaincourt, then returned to the lines to attack two Aviatiks under the protection of three indetected Fokker fighters. Chapman sent one of the enemy aircraft earthward in flames before the other pilot realized the attack was being pressed by a single Nieuport. Initially stunned by the boldness of the American's solo attack, the Germans quickly regrouped then swooped in on Chapman from all directions, raking his fuselage with intense fire. Refusing to disengage from the fray, Chapman tipped back his Lewis machine gun to remove the empty drum and was fitting a full magazine onto the weapon when his Nieuport was again struck by enemy fire. One bullet severed his right aileron control rod then recoched into the cockpit where it sliced through Victor's helmet, deeply creasing his skull. Bloodied, dazed, his machine gun empty. Chapman decided he had had enough combat that day. Feigning death, he allowed his Nieuport to spin earthward. Apparently the ruse worked, for the Germans abandoned him. Once out of harm's way, he gathered up the severed ends of the control rod in his powerful fists and reestablished control of his fighter by manipulating the joystick between his knees. Soon the Froidos airfield of Escadrille 67 appeared beneath him. He settled down for equipment repairs and to bandage his bleeding skull. Following lunch, he returned to Behonne, much to his friends' relief. Kiffin Rockwell, who had begun the patrol with Chapman, wrote a letter that same day to his brother, Paul, describing Victor's recklessness. "Chapman has been a little too courageous and got me into one of the mess-ups because I couldn't stand back and see him get it alone. He was attacking all the time, without paying much attention. He did the same thing this morning and wouldn't come home when the rest of us did. The result was that he attacked one German, when a Fokker which we think was Boeike (the papers say he was killed but we don't believe it), got full on Chapman's back, shot his machine to pieces and wounded Chapman in the head." Capitaine Thenault and Victor's American Squadron mates pled with him to go to hospital and seek treatment for his wound. When he refused, and insisted he remain active on the roster, they next suggested he take a short rest leave to Paris. When he rejected both suggestions, Capitaine Thenault bribed him by promising him a new and better machine, suggesting that he should at least rest until it arrived. Victor reluctantly acquiesced and for the next few days he hung around the aerodrome seeing to the readiness of his new fighter. On 18 June 1916 N. 124 pilot Horace Clyde Balsley became the first American to be seriously wounded in aerial combat when he fell under attack from four enemy fighters while battling a German two-seater east of Verdun. The bullet that smashed his right pelvic bone also perforated his intestines, and upon his rescue he was taken to the Vadelaincourt evacuation hospital. Because of the severity of his intestinal wounds, Balsley's doctors restricted his liquid intake to only what he could suck from a wet bandage. He soon became dehydrated from a burning fever brought on by infection. His thirst grew unbearable. As he lay in bed, racked with fever, Victor Chapman's owerful figure loomed at his bedside. And somehow he knew that his friend "whom every one in our squad loved deeply" had come to his aid. Chapman, upon learning that Balsley could not drink water, suggested to Balsley's doctor that he be allowed to suck the juice of oranges. The doctor agreed, but said none could be provided in the village. Undaunted, Chapman promised to return with oranges if he had to fly to Paris to fetch them. What was thought impossible Chapman quickly accomplished, returning shortly to his suffering friend with a bag of oranges. While at the Front with the Legion he had accomplished a similar miracle when he had provided a cow in a few short hours for a machine-gunner in dire need of milk for his ulcerated stomach. For successive days Chapman appeared at Balsley's side with a fresh bag of oranges. But on 23 June Victor failed to appear. Elliot Cowdin had come in his place and had told Balsley Chapman's plane had broken down. In reality, Victor had been in the air preparing to fly two bags of oranges to Balsley when he had seen Norman Prince, Raoul Lufbery, and Capitaine Thenault depart on patrol. Unable to avoid any opportunity which might provide an engagement with the enemy, Chapman had decided to join the patrol despite the fact he was not a participant, intending to visit Balsley upon its completion. Northeast of Douaumont in the Verdun Sector the regular patrol had run into five German aircraft. Following a brief combat, they retreated to French lines. Unknown to his Squadron mates, at the onset of the combat Chapman had joined in, apparently feeling his friends were in jeopardy. When they had withdrawn without ever having seen Victor, Chapman, never willing to retreat, had stayed on to carry the fight to the enemy. His fate had not been learned until some hours later when a French crew flying a Maurice Farman artillery regulating machine had returned to their Squadron late in the afternoon and had telephoned Thenault to report having witnessed from a distance a lone Nieuport attacking an enemy fighter. The brave pilot had been jumped by three other fighters but would not withdraw in spite of the odds until his plane was severely damaged and out of control. As the Nieuport streaked earthward, it passed close to the French crew who could see Victor's hunched body, his head slumped over the side of the cockpit. Soon the Nieuport fell apart in the air then crashed to earth six kilometers inside enemy lines. Back at Behonne, pilots and mechanics stood on the tarmac in disbelief still awaiting the return of their beloved Victor. They all remembered Bert Hall having said that Victor was always the last to return from patrols, usually "with his machine all shot to hell struts and wires and braces cut off." But the settling darkness dashed their hope and pierced their hearts with fear. One by one each pilot left the tarmac until only Kiffin Rockwell remained. Then he too turned to go. He later would write of that time: "As I left the field, I caught sight of Victor's mechanic leaning against the end of our hangar. He was looking northward into the sky where his patron had vanished, and his face was very sad." Although his body was not recovered, a funeral service for Sergent Victor Chapman was held in the American Church at Paris on 4 July 1916 as a part of the American Independence Day service. He was twenty-seven years old at the time of his death, the first American aviator to be killed in World War One. That same day Aristides Briand, France's Prime Minister, referred to Victor as "the living symbol of American idealism." While the death of Victor dealt a crushing blow to all the members of the Squadron, most keenly, it tore at Kiffin Rockwell's heart, Victor's closest friend from their flight-school days and throughout their tenure with the Escadrille. The day after Victor's death, Kiffin wrote the following tribute to Victor in a letter to a friend in Paris. "Victor had about the strongest character of any boy I have ever known. He was very frank, honest and never had let anything kill his ideals and had always lived a very clean life, never doing any harm, or believing wrong of anyone and giving out a lot of good to the people around him. We used to kid him a lot and tell him that a lot of his ideals were very foolish and all, yet it didn't affect him and he still believed these old ideals and died a glorious death. As we all have to die sometime, it isn't so bad, yet by living he could have accomplished a great deal in his life. Last night I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep thinking about him, especially as his bed was right beside mine." Kiffin penned this tribute to Victor in a 23 June 1916 letter to his brother, Paul: "There is no question but that Victor had more courage than all the rest of us put together. We were all afraid that he would be killed, and I, rooming with him, had begged him every night to be more prudent. He would fight every Boche he saw, no matter where or what odds, and I am sure that he had wounded if not killed several. I have seen him twice right on top of a German, shooting hell out of him, but it was always in their lines and there being so much fighting here it is impossible to tell always when you bring down a machine. His head wound was not healed, yet he insisted on flying anyway, and wouldn't take a rest. The first time he was ever in an aeroplane he went as a passenger clear to Dillingham and dropped a bomb on the station there." Following the war what was initially believed to be Victor Chapman's remains were exhumed near where he had fallen. However, the dental chart of the skull proved otherwise. Still, the remains were reinterred in the American Cemetery at Suresness under Chapman's name. Consequently, the remains in that grave at Suresness were not later removed to the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial near Paris. The crypt bearing his name today remains empty. For his war service, Chapman was decorated with France's Medaille Militaire and Croix de Guerre, with two Palms. "Victor Chapman was killed day before yesterday. . . . He was always running in and out and I used to tell him it did me good just to look at him. He was so big and strong, and gave out to everyone he met. These are sad days."
					—Alice Weeks. Paris, 25 June 1916.
			All rights reserved « The Lafayette Flying Corps »: The American Volunteers in the French Air Service in World War One Written by Dennis GORDON A SCHIFFER MILITARY HISTORY BOOK - (Schifferbk@aol.com)