USAAS aircraft returned to the States

[The Dark]

This is somewhat tangential to the war in the air, but I figured this was the best place to start asking.

My current curiosity is what aircraft the United States Army shipped back to the States after the Armistice. There's probably some well-compiled source somewhere, but if so, I've been completely unable to locate it. The things I think I know are:

Approximately 2,000 aircraft were shipped from Europe back to the United States.

Among these were around 600 DH.4, 435 SPAD S.XIII, 88 Nieuport 28, at least 142 Fokker D.VII, and at least 56 S.E.5a.

I've also seen mention of "a few" Pfalz D.XII, Avro 504K, and Roland D.VIb with no firm numbers mentioned. At least some Breguet 14 were brought back, because they remained in service for around a decade after the Great War, but again, I haven't seen any numbers.

Joe Baugher's collection of US aircraft serial numbers implies that there were at least 3 Roland C.V, 2 Albatros D.V, and 1 each of the DFW C.V, Halberstadt C.V, Fokker D.VI, Albatros D.III, and Siemens-Schukert D.III brought back for evaluation. There's also a Nieuport 27 and a SPAD S.VIIC.1, but those may have been evaluation models shipped mid-war.

 

So, right now I've got around 1,300 aircraft that were brought back, plus however many of the Pfalz D.XIII, Avro 504K, Roland D.VIb, and Bre.14 came back. That's around 700 airframes short, although that could shift around a bit since all of these are rough numbers. Does anyone know of a place or places where firm numbers of returned aircraft are listed?

[nils d]

Amazing to see that they sent back more Fokker DVIIs than they did Nieuport 28s.

If there were at least 142 Fokkers shipped stateside then how many were transferred to the British and the French? You'd expect there to be hundreds of Fokkers to be sitting about in Besseanoux hangars.

[The Dark]

13 hours ago, nils d said:

Amazing to see that they sent back more Fokker DVIIs than they did Nieuport 28s.

If there were at least 142 Fokkers shipped stateside then how many were transferred to the British and the French? You'd expect there to be hundreds of Fokkers to be sitting about in Besseanoux hangars.

 

According to a commenter on another forum, the book "Een eeuw Fokker" states that the United States, Britain, and France each received 156, Belgium received 57, and Canada and Australia each received 22. I'm not sure what happened to the 14 "missing" American Fokker D.VIIs between the 156 allocated to the USA and the 142 said to have returned to the States.

Out of the 142 shipped back to the United States, 6 were immediately taken by the Navy for use as Marine Corps training aircraft. They remained in use until 1924. In 1920, the Navy requested 12 more from the Army for experimental work. A few were used for testing American engines (Packard, Hall-Scott, and Liberty Six are ones I've seen listed as installed in a D.VII).

As far as the Nieuports go, by the Armistice only one American squadron was equipped with them. Every other Pursuit squadron flew the SPAD.

 

Some other sources I found while searching the internet tonight:

Robert J. Neal's "Liberty Engine: A Technical and Operational History" has a few more clues in his attempts to reconcile inventory lists between 1919 and 1921. His numbers suggest there were only around 9 Avro 504K, 3 of an LVG type (probably C.VI, since that was easily their most-produced type), at least 10 Rumpler C.IV, and at least 27 Sopwith 1a2 (the French-built two-seat recon version of the 1+1/2 Strutter). He mentions them mostly in relation to how their sales affected engine inventories, and I haven't (yet) found copies of the inventory lists he's referencing. The numbers are a bit rough because he's consolidating four lists into one table, and since they don't all use the same name for an aircraft there's some guesswork involved that he mentions but only shows his results, not the methods he used.

Another indirect source is a Rand report on "United States Air Force Aircraft Fleet Retention Trends." It was looking at how long aircraft remained in service by using reported aircraft used by each squadron in USAF Active Flying, Space, and Missile Squadrons as of 1 October 1995. That source doesn't say whether aircraft were brought over during the war, license-built, or shipped back after the war, or how many were in service, but it does give additional aircraft that saw at least some use. For Great War and immediate post-war aircraft, this includes the license-built Caproni aircraft and O/400 (both of which remained in service until 1928), as an example. Other aircraft it mentions as being in Army Air Corps or Army Air Service use that I haven't mentioned before:
RAF F.E.2
SPAD S.XI
Salmson 2
Sopwith F.1 (Camel)
Sopwith Scout
Nieuport 80
Halberstadt C.IV
Hannover CL.III
LVG C.VI (so my guess above was correct)
Pfalz D.III

The F.E.2 had been retired by the Armistice. At least some of the S.XI were the S.XVI variant and at least one was brought back, since Billy Mitchell's S.XVI is in the National Air and Space Museum. The Salmson was reportedly popular and while the last record of it in service is in 1919, I wouldn't be surprised if some were brought back. The Camel's last record is also 1919. I think some were brought back for naval use, which is something I haven't really looked at. The Scout left service in 1917 and the Nieuport 80 in 1918, so they likely weren't brought back - both were used as trainers, and the surplus of JNs would have made them superfluous. The German aircraft would have been trophies and/or planes for testing, but those are more types that I hadn't seen mentioned before.

Possibly of interest - the only foreign aircraft from the Rand report to remain in AAC/AAS service past 1919 were the Caproni and O/400 bombers (both 1928), the DH.4 (1932), the SPAD S.XIII (1922), the S.E.5 (1927), and the Fokker D.VII (1925). They list the Breguet as only remaining in service until 1919, which seems at odds with other sources describing them as remaining in service for a decade, but possibly they served with Naval Aviation, since the report is only looking at the history of USAF squadrons.