AS. Sig C.

[JulianB]

Please could somebody tell me what this American 1st War unit was ?

I'm researching an officer (Capt Burr Watkins Leyson possibly Watkins Burr Leyson) whom I thought was in the airforce but he's given this as his unit ?!

thanks

[CSMMo]

There was no US Air Force until 1947, so, as the air arm was a part of the Army until then, it could have been Air Service Signal Company. That is only a wild guess, as the air arm was known as the Army Air Corps by the time of the second world war, but could have been known as the Air Service in the first. Hopefully, somone more knowledgeable will come along, but, if not, try locating American Orders of Battle for WWI that include air services to see how they are referred to.

I hope this helps.

Mike Morrison

[nhclark]

Can't help directly, but his name was certainly Burr Watkins Leyson. Born 1898.

If you put those words into Google you'll see that he was something of an author. I would have thought that if you could access one or more of his books at a library there might be a short biography of him as the author, a biography that might chart his army/air force career?

At a guess (and only a guess), looking at what I can see on Google, perhaps "AS" stands for "Air Service"...

Noel

[JulianB]

OK apologies, I didn't know that I'd mistakenly posted this twice.

Thank you all.

Yes, I got the same results from Google - only slight further details from the NYT (great archive site, easy to join up)

Yes I found the Air Section US Signal Corps with a history etc of it in (I hate to admit) Wikipedia.

I'll go to my other query in war in the air (only one there I hope !)

Julian