Howell County World War One Aviation Hero Stephen W. Thompson

In September 1917, West Plains’ Stephen W. Thompson and his outfit, the United States 1st Aero Squadron, arrived for training in Amanty, France. He would spend the next five months learning to be an aerial observer in open-air two-seat bombers. The job included protecting his aircraft with a machine gun while directing artillery. Thompson's commander, Major Ralph Royce, encouraged his men to get flying experience by going along with a French day bombing squadron operating nearby at Neufchâteau Aerodrome. 

 

On February 5th, 1918, Thompson and another squadron member were visiting with pilots from a French squadron, getting ready to embark on a bombing run over Saarbrücken, Germany. The French flyers invited Stephen and his friend a ride in their Breget 14 B2 bombers in the observer-gunner position. Both men immediately accepted and jumped into a plane. All was routine. The bombs were successfully dropped, and the French squadron was returning to France when attacked by German Albatros D.11 fighters.

 

In the melee, Stephen shot one of the German fighters from the sky, though this was his first time firing a machine gun in the air. He was later quoted in local newspapers as saying, "I never had fired in the air before, so I just cut loose with it like it was a hose I was using." The article went on to say of Thompson's efforts, "During the fight, he removed his gloves in order to manage the gun better, and as a result, his hands were so badly frozen that all the flesh (skin) dropped from them and he was in the hospital many weeks undergoing special treatment." Thompson was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm for his efforts, a French award for bravery or heroism in combat.

 

Stephen Thompson was born in West Plains in 1894 and grew up on the southeast corner of Broadway Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. His draft registration card described him as tall and slender, with light hair and grey eyes. His father, Norton Thompson, was an agent for the Fraternal Insurance Company, and his mother, Agatha, was born in England. Stephen was the eldest of his siblings, with another brother and two sisters in the household.

 

When the United States entered the war in April 1917, Thompson was a senior at the University of Missouri, Columbia, majoring in electrical engineering. His college yearbook described him as "so modest a current wouldn't shock him!" To entice their students into immediate service, the college offered seniors early graduation, and Thompson enlisted in the Army at twenty-three years of age. He took his basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas. Thompson was then sent to Fort Monroe, Virginia, for training in the Coast Artillery Corps. On the way, he saw his first airplane in the sky. 

 

Thompson was hooked and, in his off-time, went to the Curtiss Flying School at Newport News, Virginia, and begged for a ride. He finally was taken up in a Curtiss Jenny, and the veteran pilot gave him quite a ride, including five loop-the-loops in a row! Remember, this was an open-air plane, and Thompson said the only thing that kept him in the plane on the last loop was his lap belt. He then applied for duty in the new United States Army Air Service and was accepted.

 

The French plane Thompson was in was primarily made of wood and canvas, and it had no protection from the ground fire his plane was receiving or the fire from attacking aircraft. The twin .303 caliber machine guns Thompson manned for the first time had only a primitive round sight. Thompson had no idea he was the first American soldier to shoot down a German combat aircraft. 

 

In May 1918, Lieutenant Thompson was assigned to the new 12th Aero Squadron at Ourches Airdrome. In late July, while doing aerial artillery spotting during a battle near Château-Thierry, France, his French Salmson aircraft was attacked by four German Fokker D.VII fighters of the famous Richthofen Flying Circus, then under the command of the notorious Hermann Göring.  

 

Thompson promptly shot down the first two fighters that attacked him. A bullet from the third attacking plane struck his machine gun and disabled it, and another bullet hit Stephen in the leg. Thompson's companion pilot, Lieutenant John C. Miller, was shot in the stomach but managed to crash-land the plane. Thompson pulled Miller out of the plane just before it exploded, but Miller died soon after. Alone and injured with no prospect for immediate first aid, Thompson dug the bullet out of his leg with his pocket knife.  

 

Friendly ground troops later rescued him. That bullet, a high sock with a bullet hole, along with the uniform he was wearing during his first German kill, is today on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

 

A worthy opponent downed Thompson's plane, the German pilot Erich Löwenhardt, who was at the time only second to Baron von Richthofen, who had been recently killed.

 

Stephen Thompson returned to West Plains at war's end (1918) a local hero.  

 

Sometime after 1920, he moved to Dayton, Ohio, and married Dorothy M. Wright in 1922. Stephen worked as an engineer at McCook Field for several years, later becoming Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Next, Stephen became a high school mathematics teacher, and during World War II, he taught preflight training and meteorology to military pilots. In 1940, Thompson received a U.S. Patent for a tailless flying wing he designed. 

 

The Thompsons lived in Dayton for another 48 years. They raised four children, two of whom became doctors. His wife died in 1970. Stephen Thompson died in Dayton in 1977 at the age of 83. Throughout his life, Stephen Thompson maintained his connection with his roots and friends in Howell County, frequently returning home.

 

Thompson knew the first plane he shot down had not resulted in the death of the pilot. He tracked the man down in Germany much later in life, and they corresponded for years. Eventually, Stephen returned to Germany and visited the brother-in-arms who had made him famous.