Special Projects

OK, so you want to know what else we do besides put out a great magazine? Well...

We're counting on a long and prosperous future and we're investing our resources to make it happen! The League of World War One Aviation Historians sponsors two regular honors. The Mike Carr Award, named for the League benefactor whose generosity made it possible is an annual award open to undergraduate and graduate students in colleges and universities. Qualifying is simple. All you have to do is submit a research paper on a WWI aviation topic. If our panel of judges considers it among the year's best, you'll receive a cash award and possibly have your paper published in Over the Front. Click here for more details and mention the program to your history professor.

The Thornton D. Hooper Award for Excellence in Aviation Historyis our version of the Oscar. Named for pioneer military aviator and squadron commander, Thornton D. Hooper, it's a handsome pewter trophy given for work that appears in Over the Front. The award is made annually in several categories: 'Best Aircraft Article,' 'Best Biography or Personal Reminisence,' 'Best Original Research,' 'Best Overall Account,' 'Best Squadron History,' Best Artwork,' 'and Best Issue'.

We've also published a full-length book, The First Team: Thornton D. Hooper and America's First Bombers, which provided one of the only chronicles devoted to WWI aerial bombing. Other publishing projects are also in the works. In the future these expanded efforts are likely to be done on computer diskette or perhaps even right here on this site, so make www.overthefront.com one of your regular hits on the 'net and you'll be sure to see more.

 And, of course, there's The Seminar...

  • 1988 League members from all over the world got together for a two-day conference featuring top-quality presentations by the leading professional and amateur historians in the field. Not only that, but each of our seminars has been held at or near one of the world's great aviation museums. Our first gathering was held at the History of Aviation Collection at the University of Texas at Dallas. This first meeting provided a great opportunity for new friendships and contacts to be formed (members and speakers have regularly travelled from Europe and other places outside the U.S. to attend league seminars; one member from New Zealand has been present at every seminar to date), Our weekend in Dallas also featured the last known get together of WWI flying aces, as the final three surviving American fighter aces from the war, George Vaughn, Douglas Campbell, and Arthur Raymond Brooks were the League's very special guests.
  • 1990 - The League met at the United States Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, in Ohio.
  • 1992 - The League's third seminar held at the San Diego Aerospace Museum.
  • 1994 - A first for the League, it left the U.S. for a joint meeting with the Canadian Aviation Historical Society, at Ottawa, where we visited the Canadian National Aviation Museum.
  • 1996 - our seminar was held near the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. We were also able to visit the restoration and storage facilities and see many of the treasures stored away there or being restored to former glory.
  • 1998 - The Champlin Fighter Museum in Mesa, Arizona hosted this year's seminar. Also the home of the American Fighter Aces Association, there was lots to see and do. Participants were able to go beyond the ropes to take a closer look into cockpits, under wings, and other places you normally can't see at most museums.
  • 2000 - The League met in Pensacola, Florida, where we visited the National Naval Aviation Museum.
  • 2003 - The League met in Fairborn, Ohio, to celebrate the centennial of flight at the Air Force Museum. As well as a very successful mid-week seminar at the Museum itself, the following weekend was a real treat with a WWI aircraft fly-in at the Museum.
  • 2005 - The League met in Seattle, Washington.
  • 2007 - The League met in in Washington D.C. for its 10th ('Double Ace') Seminar. The high point of the Seminar was the meeting between the daughter of 95th Aero Squadron pilot Walter Avery and the son of jasta 72 Ace Carl Menckhoff and presenting his family with the "M" Avery cut from Menckhoff's plane nearly 90 years ago.
  • 2009 – San Antonio, TX (Return to the Cradle Seminar) October 16-17. This seminar had a focus on those WWI training fields in Texas and another great lineup of speakers. Kingsbury Aerodrome and its collection of WWI aircraft and engines was visited as part of the seminar
  • 2011 - The League met in Monterey, CA, with a field trip to Javier Arango's Antique Aero in Paso Robles.
  • 2013 - Orlando, FL, March 15-16. Kermit Weeks’ Fantasy of Flight Museum was an exciting feature with its large collection of WWI aircraft. Kermit entertained the attendees as he flew his P-51C doing a few acrobatics and buzzing the airfield. A “generic“ Aviation PowerPoint Presentation CD’s to was distributed to all attendees to assist with outreach efforts.
  • 2014 - The League met at the National Museum of the U. S. Air Force in commemoration of the centennial of the start of World War I. We were joined, on the weekend, by the Dawn Patrol Fly-in.
  • 2016 - The League returned to the National Museum of the U. S. Air Force, where we hosted several descendents of the Lafayette Escadrille. Again, the weekend featured the NMUSAF's biennial Dawn Patrol.
  • 2018 - Once again, the League met at Wright-Patterson AFB and the National Museum of the US Air Force, where we dedicated a monument to the American aviators and ground crew who served in WW I.

Volume 38 No. 4 is Out

The issue opens with author Michael O’Neal’s study of post-war casualties at the 3rd Air Instruction Center. Steve Ruffin visits France to view the memorials to fallen American airmen, and Thomas Wildenberg examines Spenser Grey’s role in the origins of strategic bombing. Finally, Robin D. Smith views Manfred von Richthofen’s connection to Ostrowo, Poland and a possible romantic relationship there. We conclude with Charles Walthall’s Tangible Links and Peter Kilduff’s Between the Bookends.

2024 Memberships

We regret that rising costs for everything, but especially for mailing expenses, mean we have had to raise our dues for 2024 and beyond. This is the first rate increase we have had since 2016; US rates will increase by $10/year ($2.50 an issue) for both Media Mail and First Class subscriptions. We can no longer offer "Fourth Class" rates to Canada (USPS hasn't offered that option for a long time; we've been unwittingly eating the cost); Canadians now need to use the First Class US/Canada option. Rates for all other countries will increase by $15/year ($3.75 an issue). You will still get the same 512 pages of our usual content over the course of a year, in the same high-quality journal you have been receiving.

If you've received any issue from Vol. 38, you have renewed for 2023. If the last issue you received was for a prior year, your subscription has lapsed. You can renew at the new rates for 2024, and get Volume 38 (2023) from the Shop.

 

Polaroid of pilot

  • Volume 38 No. 3 Is Here

    Editor Michael O’Neal opens with author Michael O’Neal’s third article on American training casualties at Issoudun, covering the period from August 1918 to the war’s end. Tom Callen uses inscriptions in a German edition of a French philosophical book to look at the return from captivity of Heinz von Beaulieu-Marconnay and Gustav Bähren. Dr. Peter Fedders examines the battle of the Somme and the role air power (on both sides) played during the six months of the campaign. And finally Mike...

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  • Price Reduced on Vol. 21-30

    Volumes 21 through 30 are now being sold at a mere $40/volume, or $15/issue for the single issues. So now is the time to fill in some of the gaps in your collection. Some issues are sold out; there's a line through the cover illustration on those and the we are not offering the volume they would be in. Volumes 31-34 are $60 each, with individual issues $20 a copy. Where they are available, Volumes before Volume 21 are $20 each. Single issues are still $15 for issues in those volumes.

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  • An Over the Front Table of Contents

    As President Dan Polglaze said in Between the Lines in Volume 35 No. 3, we (mostly he) have been delving through our back issues to create the first-ever complete Table of Contents for every issue of OTF published to date. In it you'll find titles, authors, volume, issue and page references, and major topics for each article. It's all in the form of an Excel spreadsheet so you can download your own copy and sort, search and modify it as much as you want. Can't wait to get started? Download a...

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