signed
1928
by Charles Lindbergh
1928. Before the U.S. got involved in World War I, Alan F. Winslow served with the legendary Lafayette Escadrille in France. In 1918, now an officer in the U.S. Army’s air service, he and Douglas Cambell shot down the first two German airplanes to fall victim to American aviators with General Pershing's expeditionary forces. On August 13, 1918, Winslow was shot down and reported killed in action over France. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. At war’s end, he was discovered in a German hospital where he had been treated after surviving the crash but losing his arm. After the war, he became assistant chief of Pan American Airways' foreign (truncated)