Identifier: NewEnglandaviatVol2Tick (find matches)
Title: New England aviators 1914-1918; their portraits and their records
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Ticknor, Caroline, 1866-1937, ed
Subjects: Biography Aeronautics World War, 1914-1918
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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JOSEPH BROWN BOWEN
Second Lieutenant, A.S., U.S.A.
Thirty-Second Squadron, R.A.F., B.E.F.
Killed in action, Sept. 7, 1918
Son of Edward Steere, and Elma Sophia (Brown) Bowen; was born at Providence, R.I., April 15, 1891. He was educated in the public schools of Pawtucket, R.I., graduated from Brown University in 1915, and in June, 1917, received from Yale the degree of Master of Forestry. On July 21, 1917, he volunteered for the Air Service and trained at Princeton, and with the Royal Air Force at Fort Worth, Tex. He was commissioned 2d Lieut., Feb. 19, 1918, and went overseas with the 148th Aero Squadron, A.E.F. On reaching England he was detached for special instruction in scout fighting, a tribute to his skill, since only the most promising aviators were chosen to fly combat planes. This training completed, the Royal Flying Corps wished to retain him as a permanent staff officer, but permission was refused and he was assigned to active duty with the 32d Aero Squadron, Royal Air Force, being one of the few American officers attached to British squadrons. During late July, and through Aug., 1918, he was in the heavy fighting in the vicinity of Cambrai, Chateau-Thierry, Fismes, and Douai. His letters related violent encounters with Richthofen's "circus," from one of which he returned with twenty-two bullet holes in his plane. Of another fight he wrote: "I think I got a Hun in the scrap, but was too busy to see what happened to him." On Sept. 7, 1918, volunteers were asked for a special patrol and Lieut. Bowen offered to go, and, as his flight-book shows, it was not the first time that he had chosen to do more than duty required. That evening he was posted as missing. Later, it was ascertained that he had been killed in the air, while engaged on the Allied side of the lines, in single combat with a Fokker scout. He was buried near the village of Pronville, west of Bourlon Wood and Cambrai. Above his grave his Squadron placed a cross made from the broken propeller of his plane, inscribed to his memory. Lieut. Bowen was of Puritan descent; from Dr. Richard Bowen who landed in Weymouth in 1639, through six generations of doctors, (p. 84)
Text Appearing After Image:
including Col. Joseph Bowen of Revolutionary fame. His mothers ancestry returns to Roger Williams. Lieut. Bowen was passionately fond of outdoor life and of the trees, which he meant to make his profession; his enthusiasm for the freedom of the outdoor world made him more prompt to respond to the call of Liberty and his attitude toward his work in aviation is set forth in his own words written to his family: "It is true that the aviators job is dangerous, but death has never held any dread for me. In fact, I think I have a philosophers point of view, and I can look upon it as an interesting experience that will come sooner or later. I am not married and therefore should go at once, but even if I had a wife and children, I should consider it my duty to go if the war lasts much longer, for it is a plain case of doing the fighting abroad while the loved ones at home are in safety. It does not matter when a man dies, but how".
Brother in Service —
Harold Clovis Bowen, A.S., U.S.A., 810th Aero Squadron. (p. 86)

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