Col. Raynal Cawthorne Bolling

Colonel Raynal Cawthorne Bolling

• Raynal Bolling's Wikipedia page
• Find A Grave Memorial ID # 55822380
• Did You Know? Aviation Pioneer Flew From Greenwich

Bolling was the first high-ranking officer of the United States Army to be killed in combat in World War I. A corporate lawyer by vocation, he became an early Army aviator and the organizer of both of the first units in what ultimately became the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve Command.

Sent to France to lay a foundation for the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force as head of what became known as the "Bolling Mission," he remained in France instead of returning to the United States, served briefly in a number of staff positions and was selected for a future combat command. He was touring his future area of operations to learn the nature of the work he would be expected to perform when he was killed in action by German troops during the opening days of the 1918 spring offensive. He was the namesake of Bolling Air Force Base.
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The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pride in presenting the Army Distinguished Service Medal (Posthumously) to Colonel (Air Service) Raynal Cawthorne Bolling, United States Army Air Service, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services to the Government of the United States, in a duty of great responsibility during World War I. Colonel Bolling's service to the United States Aviation was distinguished for an accurate and comprehensive grasp of aviation matters; for a sound and far-sighted conception of the measures needed to establish an efficient American Air Service in Europe; for initiative and resourcefulness in attacking the problems of a young Air Service; for brilliant capacity in arranging affairs with foreign governments, for boldness and vigor in executing determined policies. In all these, Colonel Bolling has rendered service of great value to the Government.

General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 50 (1919)
Action Date: World War I
Service: Army Air Service
Rank: Colonel

Bolling is honored at the Memorial Church of Harvard University and by "Bolling Grove," a redwood grove on the Avenue of the Giants, paralleling Highway 101 along the south Fork of the Eel River in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California.

Del Norte Triplicate, Volume X, Number 3, 12 August 1921

Eureka—To dedicate the new public playground of the State, the eighty-acre grove of redwoods donated by Dr. John C. Phillips of Boston as a memorial of his brother-in-law, Colonel Raynal C. Bolling, first of the high ranking officers in the U.S. Army to lose his life in the World War, a notable gathering of Humboldt county residents, state officials, directors of Save the Redwoods League, the State Forestry Board and the National Chamber of Commerce committee on forestry came together at Bolling Memorial Grove, sixty miles from Eureka yesterday. Bolling Grove is a beautiful tract covered with towering redwoods. It was in a natural theater under these giant trees that the exercises were conducted. A granite bowlder, bearing a bronze tablet, niarks the impressive dedicatory site.