360. Pensacola WWI Pilot Killed 1918

In April 1917, America was thrusts into the death and chaos of World War I when Germany refused to respect our neutrality. Numerous ships and American lives were lost due to their unrestricted submarine warfare, thus our entry into the war. All of our previous wars were fought by our soldiers on land and our sailors upon the high seas. But this one was different with the advent of the newly invented airplane. But airplanes needed pilots and we needed them quickly. Europe was already far ahead of us in the sophistication of their aircraft and the experience of their pilots.

Answering the call was a young 21-year old Pensacolian by the name of Marcus Gatewood Milligan. He was the son of William Gatewood Milligan (1858-1936) and Mary Lou Pinson (1863-1943), born in Heflin, Alabama on March 18, 1896. He was a graduate of Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Auburn) where he was a star athlete. But Milligan was not an ordinary young man. His family had relocated to Pensacola in 1916 where his father became president of the Milligan Wholesale Grocery Company at 308 South Tarragona Street. They obtained a house at 510 North 17th Avenue and Marcus became his father's secretary. That same year Marcus was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates and he was sent to Portsmouth to the Virginia League for experience as a pitcher. He was brought back on June 3, 1917 to pitch for the Pirates before being sent again to Scranton with the New York League. His next stop was the Birmingham Barons with the Southern League, his last successful stop to the major leagues! Everywhere he went, he won!

But then, the war came to America in 1917 and Marcus gave up a promising baseball career to answer his nation's call to arms. He enlisted in the Army Air Corp on December 14, 1917. He was sent to Camp Sheridan, Illinois for basic training in March 1918. His next stop was flight training at Camp Taliaferro in Ft. Worth, Tarrant County, Texas in September 1917. But the Air Corps had never trained such a large number of pilots, especially in the art of aerial combat. So everything was new and based on the British and French training programs. Luckily, the operation of the aircraft was much simpler then than it would be in WWII. The program was broken down into two phases, eight weeks of ground school and then fifty hours of preliminary flying. In ground school, he spent six weeks practicing on crude wooden "flight simulators," assembling and disassembling his aerial machine gun, etc. before being sent to the "holding pool" at Camp John Dick in Dallas (converted State Fair Park), where he waited for orders to his next duty station. Orders finally sent him to Taliaferro where he began flying the Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane. The air flights were conducted with an instructor for ten hours followed by soloing for 24 hours. Upon completion, they were ready for 16 hours of cross country flying before receiving their wings. They were then shipped off to the war front where their officers would supply them with 90 hours of go-as-you-go training in combat maneuvers.

Sadly, Milligan did not make it that far! Of the more than 44 students who were killed at Taliaferro, he was one of the unlucky ones! On Tuesday, September 3, 1918, Marcus took off from Barron Field with his instructor 2Lt. Sidney Chester Greene. Not long into the flight something went wrong, and the engine stalled near the town of Everman, about twelve miles from Barron Field. Unable to regain control of the plane, they crashed killing Lt. Greene instantly and critically injuring Milligan. His right femur, tibia, and fibula were fractured as well as rupture of the internal organs. He was rushed to the base hospital where the doctors felt he would recover. His father in Pensacola was notified that his son was alive but no further information was sent. Then came the telegram they dreaded the most, their son Cadet Milligan had died the next day at 2:00 PM.

His body was shipped home to be buried with full military honors in the Edgemont Cemetery in Anniston, Alabama. There, he was joined by his father in 1936, mother in 1943 and his sister Nellie Mae Leyden in 1958.

His father William Gatewood Milligan (1858-1936)

His mother Mary Lou Pinson Milligan (1863-1943)

Pensacola News Journal 3-21-1918

Pitcher Marcus G. Milligan, Pittsburgh Pirates 1916-1917

PFC Marcus Gatewood Milligan, 1896-1918, WWI

Milligan's Barron Field Pilot Barracks

Milligan's Barron Field from the air 1918

Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane

Students learning engine maintenance and operation

Learning how to keep control of the aircraft

Loading dummy bombs with white powder for visibility

A bomb dropping simulator for aiming

Learning the in's and out's of the Lewis machine gun

Flying in 1918 was a dangerous business and many stated it was more lethal than actual combat overseas. Pensacola News Journal 3-28-1918

Milligan's flight instructor, killed instantly upon impact

Typical Army Crash of 1918

Pensacola News Journal 9-4-1918

Ft. Worth Star-Telegram 9-4-1918

Once the media were told that Milligan had died, newspaper everywhere, especially those cities where he played baseball began printing the story! Here is Birmingham News of 9-4-1918

Chattanooga Daily Times 9-5-1918

Louisville, KY Courier Journal 9-5-1918

Chattanooga Daily Times 9-5-1918. The National Baseball League produced a flag with gold stars attached for all major league players who were killed in the military during WWI. Marcus Gatewood Milligan was the first Gold Star!

Pittsburgh Daily Post 9-5-1918

Scranton Tribune, 9-25-1918. Bernard Dreyfuss was the president of the Pittsburgh Pirates who "bought" Marcus G. Milligan for the team. He stated that "Milligan was the best pitching prospects I ever saw. He would have been a world beater in baseball had he lived. He could bat as well as pitch. His death put the first Gold Star in our teams service flag."