Incipient Mutiny

Dwight R. Messimer has written a dozen books on military and naval history, including Find and Destroy: Antisubmarine Warfare in World War I and The Baltimore Sabotage Cell: German Agents, American Traitors, and the U-boat Deutschland during World War I.

“In an intensely human story of ambitions and bureaucratic infighting, Dwight Messimer has made an outstanding contribution to aviation history through his extensive research and detailed use of primary sources, army documents, and personal letters and accounts. It concludes with a masterful, edge-of-your-seat courtroom account rivaling The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell.”-Cdr. Alan D. Zimm, U.S. Navy (Ret.), author of Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions    “Drawing on long-neglected primary sources, Dwight Messimer tells the story of bureaucratic rivalry, personality clashes, and rival military theories that led to mutiny and scandal among the United States’ earliest U.S. Army aviators. A riveting story in itself, An Incipient Mutiny is a valuable addition to our understanding of why the United States, the world’s leader in aeronautics in 1903, fell so far behind the rest of the world in military aviation by World War I.”-Jonathan Roth, author of Roman Warfare and director of the Charles Burdick Military History Project“In this straightforward, well-researched, and engaging work, Dwight Messimer highlights early U.S. military aviation challenges. . . . Focusing on a highly publicized court martial that facilitated Army Aviation’s much-needed reorganization, the author adroitly weaves the interplay of aircraft technology and aviation administration-both in their infancy-within the context of legal precision and the full spectrum of human behaviors.”-Forrest L. Marion, historian for the Air Force Historical Research Agency and author of Flight Risk: The Coalition’s Air Advisory Mission in Afghanistan, 2005–2015

• List of IllustrationsIntroductionChapter 1. The Army's Balloons, 1892-1908Chapter 2. Benjamin D. Foulois, 1909-1911Chapter 3. Paul Ward Beck, 1911-1912Chapter 4. The Benjamin Foulois-Paul Beck Feud, 1911-1913Chapter 5. The Flying Club, 1911-1912Chapter 6. The First Signs of Trouble, 1912Chapter 7. Upheavals, 1913Chapter 8. An Incipient Mutiny, March 1913Chapter 9. Beck Makes His Move, 1913-1915Chapter 10. Cowen's Flight Pay, 1913-1915Chapter 11. The Seeds of Rebellion, 1911-1914Chapter 12. William Lay Patterson, 1914-1915Chapter 13. The Rift, 1914-1915Chapter 14. Rebellion, 1915Chapter 15. The Reaction, 1915Chapter 16. The Turn-Around, May-August 1915Chapter 17. Court Martial, 1915Chapter 18. The Garlington Board and The Kennedy Committee, 1916Chapter 19. Separation Achieved, 1917-1918EpilogueEnd NotesBibliography