Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    “Quite Young Limbs that Bled”: Accidents, Apathy, and the Failure of American Aviation During the First World War
    (2024) Getka, Dana; Giovacchini, Saverio; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The advent of the First World War saw America’s first concerted attempt at building a world-class air service. Desperate to join the ranks of Britain, Germany, and France, it pushed poorly-built planes out of factories and poorly-trained cadets out of flying schools at an alarming rate. In this thesis, I argue that in blind pursuit of its goals, the United States air service ultimately doomed those whose efforts would bring the organization its prestige: the pilots. Aviators, especially non-combatants in roles such as training, testing, and ferrying, faced unavoidable death or harm every time they stepped into a plane, be it physically, emotionally, or psychologically. Despite their role as non-combatants, these pilots well understood that destruction would characterize their world, provoking emotional responses expected of those engaged in fighting on active fronts. Indeed, flying was a world of combat unto itself, and by war’s end, the Army Air Service had earned the dubious distinction of being the only arm of the United States military in which more men were violently killed in non-combat than in combat roles.