Please read the hyperlink at “The final post:”, It is the least we can do for him!
I strongly commend this excellent YouTube video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47NW7nu9BnU
It combines the West Point Glee Club of the USMA - singing “Mansions of the Lord” mixed with Ronan Tynan singing his own composition. Excellent sound and very moving photos.
hank you for my freedom Major Olmstead.
For a moment I thought it was LT Robert S Olmstead of the Army Air Corps being referenced:
The story of HIA starts in 1917 with the United States Army Signal Corps adding an airfield to the Middletown Facility. The Signal Corp actually had been on the site since 1898. Next to supply depot, a grass field was put in place. By 1918, the first aircraft were landing and taking off at Middletown Airfield. Curtis JN1s or Jennys filled the field. The Middletown facility became a strategic supply depot supporting the U.S. efforts in World War I. Machine shops for engines and woodshops for fuselages. Fabric for wings. A nest for the fledgling air service. The base continued its work post war.
In 1922, the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was formed and one of its most important bases was the Middletown Air Depot. During the thirties, it continued to grow and add more warehouses and storage facilities. Eventually the Middletown Airfield became the Olmstead Army Airfield.
Olmstead AAF was named after 1st Lieutenant Robert Stanford Olmstead who was killed in the line of duty. Olmstead was an accomplished aeronaut, and the U.S. Army entered the Army Balloon S6 into the prestigious 1923 Gordon Bennett Cup. The Bennett Cup was, at the time, equivalent to F1 or NASCAR Racing. The 23 race was a nightmare due to the weather. Olmstead and his partner, 1st Lieutenant John Shoptaw, launched and were immediately thrown by wind into another unlaunched Belgian Balloon the Ville de Bruxelles. The Belgians netting was cut by the S6s gondola and couldnt take off. The S6 seemed to be ok, and Shoptaw and Olmstead climbed into darkened thunderclouds on September 23, 1923. After surviving the harrowing takeoff, the S6 and its crew were struck by lightning three hours later. The Balloon and gondola caught fire and crashed near the town of Loosbroek in the Netherlands. Neither Olmstead nor Shoptaw survived the crash.
RIP, Major.
Lesson Learned: Never ask the enemy to surrender, make him or kill him if he won’t.