Hamilton Coolidge

Hamilton "Ham" Coolidge (September 1, 1895 – October 27, 1918), was an American pursuit

Coolidge was the great-great-great grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and the best friend of Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son of President Theodore Roosevelt. Ham Coolidge and Quentin Roosevelt attended Groton School together, attended Harvard together, joined the United States Army Air Service and served together with the 1st Pursuit Group in France. They were killed in action within a few months of each other in 1918.

Coolidge dropped out of Harvard College during his sophomore^[1] year to join the U.S. Army Air Service. He was one of ten Harvard undergraduates accepted from a field of forty applicants for training at the Curtiss Flying School in Buffalo, New York in July 1916.

A private with the

On October 27, 1918, he was killed in action, his SPAD S.XIII taking a direct hit from a German anti-aircraft shell near Grandpré, Ardennes. He had eight confirmed "kills" when he was shot down. Like Quentin Roosevelt, he was posthumously awarded an A.B. (War Degree), Harvard Class of 1919.

Hamilton Coolidge was the great-great-great grandson of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. His father, Joseph Randolph Coolidge III, was descended from Martha Jefferson Randolph (daughter of the president, who married into the Randolph family of Virginia).

See also

• List of World War I flying aces from the United States

References

Bibliography

• A brief biography with citations
• Letters of An American Airman: The War Record of Captain Hamilton Coolidge (Boston, 1919)

External links

• Hamilton Coolidge World War I Collection at The Museum of Flight Digital Collections