Fred Zinn

Friedrich Wilhelm "Fred" Zinn of Battle Creek, Michigan, was one of the volunteer American aviators who flew with the French Aéronautique Militaire in World War I. He is one of the early pioneers of using aerial photography for reconaissance in wartime

Zinn was visiting France in August, 1914 and joined the French Foreign Legion shortly after the outbreak of World War I. He served on the Western Front from August 24, 1914 to February 1, 1916, when he was wounded for the second time.

Zinn transferred to the French Aéronautique Militaire on February 14, 1916. He served as gunner and bombardier with Escadrille F-14 from December 12, 1916, until October 21, 1917. He was decorated by the French government after the war for bravery, for flying low over enemy lines to photograph troop concentrations.

Although he was not assigned to the American Lafayette Escadrille, he regularly made contact both with other American fliers and with his former Foreign Legion comrades.

After the United States entered the war in 1917 Zinn entered the US Air Service as a Captain and was attached to American GHQ at Chaumont until the Armistice in November, 1918. He was one of a small number of Legionnaires who entered the war in August of 1914 to survive over four years of active service and over three full years in combat units. Some French Foreign Legion units had close to 100% casualties in the intense trench warfare.

Zinn returned to the United States after the war and continued flying, including a trip to San Francisco where his biplane was required to fly only over the waters of San Francisco Bay due to a perceived danger to citizens if it traveled over land.

References

• Walt Brown, Jr., An American for Lafayette: The Diaries of E.C.C. Genet, Lafayette Escadrille. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981)

• Edwin W. Morse, America in the War: The Vanguard of American Volunteers in the Fighting Lines and in Humanitarian Service, August, 1914 --April, 1917. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1919