Stories from the Wall: Capt. John Neil Gilchrist

(Editor's note: the following was submitted by Kathy Emanuel in memory of her grandfather, who will be honored with a tile in the Snellville Veterans Memorial. 

For more information about the Snellville Veterans Memorial, visit their website or Facebook page. If you would like to share your story through this column, contact Crystal.Huskey@patch.com.)

A morning mist drifted over the frigid English countryside as dawn broke on the morning of February 14, 1917. The Royal Canadian Air Force squadron fired up their “crates” preparing to take off for another day over France. As they formed up and flew low over the English Channel, the sea was gray and uninviting. Going “feet dry” over the coast of France, Captain John N. Gilchrist scanned the skies for enemy planes, totally unaware that this was the day he would meet the blazing gun of the Albatross (biplane) flown by the most infamous of all the aces, the German Baron von Richthofen. As was his custom, the Red Baron attacked the squadron by flying out of the sun and caught Gilchrist “with his pants down”. (A direct quote from Gilchrist.) Gilchrist was shot down and although he walked away from the crash, he had a fractured skull that required a metal plate to be inserted in his head and ended his WWI flying career.

Born in Scotland in 1883 into a family of shipbuilders, Gilchrist immigrated to the United States in 1907 over the strenuous objections of his family. At the onset of WWI, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, ending his WWI career as a Captain officially credited with 28 enemy “kills”, although Gilchrist vocally claimed 32 enemy kills until his dying day. He was awarded the Great Britain’s Distinguished Service Order for one action when he brought down four confirmed kills in one day. He returned to the United States with a $22,000 award from the Canadian government and a knighthood and settled in Chicago, Illinois. Family legend has him doing his stint as a barnstormer before he became a real estate developer until loosing his money in The Great Depression. He also was a pilot for Wayne King, known as the “Waltz King”, and his orchestra. In 1933 he was invited to be a guest at the Chicago Worlds Fair for an exhibit of famous aviators, and was featured in a newspaper article with Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly the Atlantic solo; David Atcherley, Royal Air Force Air Vice Marshal; Dorset, a French WWI ace and Colombo, a WWI Italian Ace. 

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