Meet The Author

Cy Corbett

As described in The Drums of War, Cy Corbett considered himself a lucky man, and strongly believed that “Lady Luck”—or perhaps his guardian angel--was watching over him. He endured dangerous training in rickety biplanes, and survived. He had seen many comrades seriously injured or killed. He had endured sixteen forced landings and only one bad crash. And, in perhaps the luckiest turn of events of all—the war suddenly ended while he was on his way overseas to fight and perhaps die for his country.

My father was born in 1895 and experienced the end of the Victorian era, growing up in Chicago’s South Side neighborhood of Woodlawn, in an Irish-Catholic family. Along with his younger sister and brother, Cy was raised by his widowed mother and her sister. A serious student from an early age, he attended the rigorous St. Ignatius for both high school and college. He studied English and classic Latin and Greek and wrote poetry in all three. By 1912 he had taught himself Morse code and surreptitiously communicated with ships on the Great Lakes.

In the early 1920’s he attempted to write about his Army experiences, but he hadn’t seen the horrors of War first hand, as had Hemingway and the other famous authors. He had merely undergone training, and survived. So, feeling that his experience was minuscule compared with those who actually endured battle, he abandoned that effort and knuckled down to write ads and promotions at the Tribune, the “World’s Greatest Newspaper.” But the urge to tell his story emerged fifty years later, and, as seen in the Preface, he took up the task of describing his early flight experiences. He died at age 80 without completing the task. I knew he wanted his story told, so I took up the slack. Hopefully, I have completed it to his satisfaction. As Cy often wrote, “A man should not be inarticulate just because he is dead.”

A Serialized Autobiography About

Life

“A man should not be inarticulate just because he is dead.” —TCC journal, Dec 7, 1951

Love

I thInk of the countless nIghts I have wandered the darkened streets of Woodlawn, after studying late, trying to get rid of the old longing that is an ache. I have watched the leviathans of steam and iron halting for a moment at the 63rd Street station on the Illinois Central before their long rush thru the night to St. Louis. I dreamt of the day I would be on one to see Sis Walsh again.

War

November 11, 1968 Fifty years ago today, I was a singularly innocent and unperceptive very young lieutenant in the Air Corps with my wings and roughly 300 hours in the air. I had no idea of what lay ahead of me, firmly believing it would all be good and glamorous. I had no idea I would be alive in fifty years, and little did I realize that those days would be the highlight of my life. By then, unknown to me at the time, something had already broken the back of my daring and initiative, and confidence in life.

Cy Corbett

Summary of Service during WWI

I served for fifteen months in the United States Air Service.

I applied for acceptance to the Air Service in September 1917. November 24, 1917, I was sent to the University of Illinois Ground School from which I was honorably graduated February 4, 1918.

I was stationed at the Air Service Concentration Camp, Camp Dick, Dallas, Texas, from February 6th to March 1st, 1918. From March 1st to August 14th I received training as a flying cadet at Love Field, Dallas, Texas. August 14th, 1918, I was commissioned as a second lieutenant pilot in the Regular Army.

From August 14th to November 4th, 1918, I completed my advanced training as a war pilot, specializing in aerial gunnery, acrobatics and combat work. Other courses included: Navigation (aerial); theory and practice of Engines; army paperwork and Tactics; construction and operation of all types of machine guns; Aero Dynamics and the theory of flight, practical study of the construction and assembling of the airplane; Aerial Photography; Artillery Reconnaissance and Infantry Liaison.

November 4th my training was deemed complete and I was ordered overseas with the 56th Handley Page Aero Squadron to Mitchell Field, Long Island. We then assembled at Roosevelt Field, Mineola, Long Island, where I was assigned to the 149th Squadron, 1st Provisional Wing. But before the Squadron embarked, the Armistice was signed and overseas orders were countermanded. I served at Roosevelt Field until Feb. 4, 1919, on which date I was honorably discharged as “a loyal and efficient officer.”

While in the army, after the date of my commission and prior to my being ordered overseas, I edited an eight-page camp newspaper, The Love Field Loops, at the behest of Major G.S. O’Connell, acting adjutant. This work was done in addition to and without diminution of my work of flying and taking eight academic subjects necessary to complete mastery of the art of flying.

I carried on this work conscientiously until one day while in the air I fell into a spin three times, narrowly missing death in the last one. When I came down, I was ordered to the hospital and examined. The doctor said that I was “out of condition and developing a fast heart” due to the strain of excessive overwork. He ordered me to the hospital for a rest.

After I was there a week my overseas orders came through and I succeeded in persuading him to let me go.

Meet the Editor

Bill Corbett

William Arnold Corbett (1947-  ) is the youngest of Cy Corbett’s three sons. Born in Chicago, from age two he lived at his parents’ summer resort in southwestern Michigan.

In 1969 he graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in journalism, working in that field ten years as both a newspaper reporter and freelance writer and photographer. In 1980 he switched careers to become a financial advisor, but his interest in writing continued. His nonfiction book on ethical money management, Financial Guide for Catholics, was published in 1989.

When his father was on his deathbed, he promised to look after the journals. After his mother died in 1981, Bill began a forty-year process of transcribing the handwritten volumes, organizing them into logical order and creating very readable works that describe the modern world from the point of view of someone born in 1895.

Book Reviews

What People Are Saying
Stephan Julius
longtime family friend

I knew Cy Corbett most of my life and into his later years as his health declined. He was a complex, intellectual man, somewhat irascible and hard to please, but always eager to engage in lively conversation. Qualities that belie his adventuresome youth. The editor, William Corbett, Cy’s youngest son, has done an admirable job, using his father’s own writings to describe Cy’s interesting life as well as to provide a vivid description of early military aviation.

Bob Hall
project manager, “Lest We Forget” Book of Heroes, Volume 5

An intimate first-person account of a young man’s early years as a pilot during World War I, and his journey to normalcy upon completion of his military service. A poignant read, and well written, providing a rare insight into life in the nascent days of military aviation and life in the early 1900s.

David Holden, PhD.
retired professor of military history, US Army Command and General Staff College

Thomas C. Corbett provides a vivid glimpse into the life and mind of America’s first military aviators. Thrust into the military by the vagaries of war, you experience the thrill of first flight and, ultimately, the transient nature of our existence. Through Corbett’s pen, you feel the intimate pain of love lost and dreams unrealized, but out of these losses, he—and you—will come to a deeper understanding of yourself and the human experience.