There he served as the land and industrial agent of the Seaboard Air Line Railway and secretary of the Carthage Board of Trade.

[2] Dissatisfied with his field of service and America's position towards the war, McConnell withdrew from the Ambulance Corps and entered the aviation training program.

Thirty-eight pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille flew Nieuport biplanes that traveled at 110 miles per hour (180 km/h) Operating from Luxeuil Field in eastern France, McConnell's group typically set off each day at dawn, clad in fur-lined outfits for two-hour patrols.

While convalescing from a back injury, suffered during a landing mishap, McConnell found time to compose Flying for France.

[citation needed] After suffering a serious back injury from a landing mishap, McConnell took time to write about his experiences in the war.

McConnell expresses the strict rules and regulations that were put in place, but also notes the large amount of freedom gained after, "save when he is flying or on guard, his time is his own.

In his book, McConnell describes his experience at the front in a manner consisting of short narrations, personal letters, as well as explanations for tests for the military brevet, trick flying and stunts.

McConnell continued to grow uncertain about his position as he couldn't make out a single plane, but one by one, the others began bobbing up above the cloud level.

The Escadrille escaped and turned north after crossing the lines into Mullhouse, where McConnell notes the keen sense of satisfaction of "their invasion of real German territory."

During this transition, Victor Chapman, a close friend of McConnell's, died over the Verdun sector and his death visibly shook up the Escadrille.

"[4] Chapman was the first to die, followed by Kiffin Rockwell, the first American pilot to shoot down a German aircraft in World War I, and Norman Prince, a leading founder of France's Lafayette Escadrille - all close friends with McConnell.

This was the era of dogfights high above the battlefields, of "aces" who shot down five enemy planes, of hot pursuit, of the last resort of individualism in the midst of mechanized warfare.

Both the plane and his body were found by the French, and he was buried at the site of his death, in a meadow at the edge of the village of Jussy, and was later reinterred at the Lafayette Escadrille memorial near Paris upon his father's wishes.

McConnell was commemorated with a plaque by the French Government and a statue by Gutzon Borglum at the University of Virginia, as well as an obelisk on the court square of his home town of Carthage, North Carolina.

The monument bears an inscription reading in part, "He fought for Humanity, Liberty and Democracy, lighted the way for his countrymen and showed all men how to dare nobly and to die gloriously.

When Armistead Dobie accepted the statue on behalf of the university during Finals in 1919, he recalled of McConnell's nature a "hatred of the humdrum, an abhorrence of the commonplace, a passion for the picturesque.