I made a cool discovery, my uncle was a WWI Ace.

[John Baker]

I was surfing the net and stumbled on a web page that caught my interest. I did some more hunting and discovered Lovel Dickens Baker was my fathers oldest brother. They were both born in San Francisco and are the sons of John Ridley Baker, who was my grandfather.

My father ran away from home at the age of thirteen, he fought in the trenches and his company was gassed. My aunt told me my father was the only survivor due to his age. He fabricated his name and his age when he enlisted. Anyway, he died in 1945 and left behind my mother, older brother and sister. We knew very little about his family. Every now and then one of us will find another piece to the puzzle.

This piece is a major score, now I would like to find a picture of him, and of course, learn more.

What is really cool is that he was an Ace, with six kills to his credit. He also participated in at least one other kill.

Anyway, this is one of the sites that lists him.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/baker2.php

John

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

That is a major find John.
I'm not sure why his age helped him be the only one to survive the gassing, can you explain?

 

[John Baker]

My father was only thirteen. According to my aunt his entire company was wiped out in the gas attack. This must have been at the very beginning before gas masks were standard issue, or he just got his on sooner. She told me he had to take pills every day for the rest of his life to keep the liquids out of his lungs. He was about twenty years older than my mother when he married her. It's beginning to look like dirty old men and pilots run in my family. She also told me that he was enlisted in the Canadian Army, not the US, as I had thought. My aunt passed away a month ago at the age of 92.

John