Hamilton Coolidge

Hamilton "Ham" Coolidge (September 1, 1895 – October 27, 1918), was an American pursuit pilot, flying ace in World War I, and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross.

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 Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, stationed in Miami, Florida when the United States entered the war, Coolidge was sent to the School of Military Aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on June 5, 1917.

After serving as a test pilot at Issoudun, he was assigned to the 94th Aero Squadron, commanded by Eddie Rickenbacker, on June 16, 1918.

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.