ABSTRACT
Rear Admiral. He became the USN’s first ace at age nineteen. While attached to a British fighter squadron and flying a Sopwith Camel, the most successful fighter aircraft in WW1, he shot down five German planes and one German observation balloon within little more than a month. During the war he flew sixty-three combat missions. Ingalls was a member of the First Yale Unit, a group of volunteer college students that is recognized as having begun the US Naval Air Reserve. After WW1 he earned a law degree from Harvard in 1923, served in the Ohio legislature, 1926-29, and was Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Aviation, 1929-32. He returned to active duty during WW2 and led the development of the Naval Air Transport Service. He retired from active duty in 1945 as a Rear Admiral. Following his WW2 service he was a senior executive of Pan American Airlines, where he promoted aviation safety. He also was publisher of the Cindnnati Times-Star and vice-chairman of the Taft Broadcasting Company.
