By George P. Edmonston Jr.

Stories abound in old issues of The OAC Alumnus (now the Oregon Stater) during the 1920s of the important roles Oregon State men and women played during World War I.

Ed Allworth, photo from the 1916 Orange.

Over a thousand students and faculty left their jobs or interrupted their degree programs to serve in the armed services of the country. One alumnus, Ed Allworth of the class of 1916, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in combat, but many Beavers never returned. For those who did, they brought back stories to last a lifetime and this was certainly true of an associate professor in OAC’s department of entomology named W. J. “Joe” Chamberlin. (For more on OSU and the Great War, see Carry Me Back: Chapter 30, “Amazing Beavers”—Part 2 of 5, February 15, 2002).

Before the war, Professor Chamberlin had fashioned for himself a comfortable place among the classrooms and laboratories of Strand Agricultural Hall’s third floor, where he introduced his students to the world of insects that infect forests. He had received his B.S. degree from OAC in 1915 and then came the Great War and it was off to Europe for OAC’s young bug man, not to serve in the trenches of the French countryside but to swoop across the sky in a bi-plane as a fighter pilot. As a member of the 91st Aero Squadron of the American Expeditionary Force, the War Department officially credited Chamberlin with three German kills during the 13 months he served at the front.

Many of his flying assignments had to do with long distance recognizance with the First Army Recognizance Group, most of the time taking pictures from the air 20 to 30 miles behind enemy lines.

At times, there were also attacks from German warplanes to deal with, and this is where Chamberlin recorded his “kills.” The first plane he brought down was at Mars Le Tour, where he was in a group of three attacked by seven of the enemy. Then on Oct. 9, Chamberlin was returning from a mission when he was attacked. One of his flying mates was downed, and the professor downed an enemy plane.

His most exciting day, however, came a few weeks earlier, on Friday, Sept. 13. Ignoring, as he later recalled, “the threat of ill luck,” he and others started out on what was then the longest recognizance flight ever undertaken by an American squadron. Here’s how the Alumnus reported the story:

'Joe' Chamberlin, photo from the October 1927 OAC Alumnus.

“It was a dirty day, of the kind France knows in the fall, when rain beats down as it does in the worst Oregon weather. A shell exploded and burst through the tail of the professor’s plane and otherwise damaged it. Then the driving rain became worse and darkness gathered. The plane wandered far across the German line.

For two hours and 30 minutes, with the rain continuing and the plane damaged, the flight continued. At 8:20 p.m., in complete darkness, German machine gunners on the ground trained their guns on the plane and put three bullets through the radiator. The plane fell. It looked like certain death in the rainy and inky darkness.

Crash, bang and so forth.

By a veritable miracle, the professor and his observer crawled out of the plane pratically unscathed. The plane had fallen into a hole in a wood. A few yards in any direction would have meant certain death. And the plane was a mess of wreckage. It had literally fallen apart. They found themselves 16 kilometers from the Swiss border.”

Chamberlin’s story ends here, and it is assumed he walked to safety. He certainly returned to his teaching duties in Corvallis and resumed right where he had left off…teaching students about insect pests…and flying when he wasn’t in the classroom.

For two years, the intrepid professor took to the skies for the forest air patrol, first as an observer, then as a pilot, always on the lookout for forest fires and serving as the “eyes” of the firefighters. His territory included Southern Washington, Northern California and all of Oregon. He would later serve as a pilot instructor to OAC students wishing to learn to fly.

George P. Edmonston Jr. is editor of the Oregon Stater and Eclips.