Dowd, Meredith Loveland

Born July 23, 1895, in Orange, New Jersey. Son of Heman and Mary Loveland Dowd. Educated Asheville School, North Carolina, and Princeton University, Class of 1918. Plattsburg Camp, 1916. Joined American Field Service, November 11, 1916; attached Section One to May 3, 1917. Enlisted French Aviation, May 14th. Trained Avord and Pau. Attached French Escadrille guarding Paris, Sergent. Spad Escadrilles 152 and 162 to February 17, 1918. Transferred U. S. Aviation. Commissioned Second Lieutenant, April, 1918; attached 147th Aero Squadron. Killed in combat, October 26, 1918, near Dannevoux, north of Verdun. D. S. C. Buried Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Meuse.

MEREDITH LOVELAND DOWD was of the type of natural-born fighter to whom action and excitement are as necessary as the air he breathes. Fear he may have known in common with all brave men, but it never mastered him nor even deterred him for an instant from the career of daring that was his by choice. As a boy at Asheville School, he showed his adventurous, never-say-die temperament on the football field and as a member of the baseball and track teams. The school paper said of him, "While at Asheville he displayed the qualities which led him to give his life for his country --- courage, manliness, determination, honesty . . . . . . He was a student of good ability and a boy of strength and fineness." At Princeton he played on the Freshman and Varsity baseball teams, the Freshman football team, and was on the Varsity football squad. He was also a member of the Elm Club.

The voice of adventure called him to France in November, 1916 in the American Field Service, for no man with his instincts could sit and study in a classroom while a war was going on. He went out to Section One near Verdun and plunged into the work with enthusiasm and vigor. A comrade tells of his service on the famous and dangerous Esnes-Montzéville run. It was on this work that Meredith showed us his energy, his untiring and unselfish desire to work until it seemed to us that there was no limit to his endurance."

In May, 1917, when his term of engagement with the American Field Service expired, it was quite natural for him to enlist in the Lafayette Escadrille, for flying was sure to appeal to his venturesome spirit. He completed his training at the various French schools but was eventually commissioned in the American Air Service. As a member of the escadrille guarding the city of Paris, he had an accident while "contour chasing," that dangerous and difficult training in accuracy in which the pilot attempts to keep as close as he can to the surface of the ground. "Had dipped my wheels in the Oise River and jumped telephone wires and bridges," he wrote, "and then decided to see how close I could skim along a field of wheat." Before he realized it his wheels had touched the wheat and were pulling him in with the result that he suddenly found himself upside down, but fortunately unhurt and undismayed. The French soldiers who came running to the scene found him smilingly but ruefully regarding the wreck of his machine. Soon after this he went to the front assigned to the 147th Aero Squadron. On October 26th, he and three others were ordered to patrol the lines, but he was delayed on account of engine trouble and his companions got off without him. He decided to follow and continued alone to the adventure that was to be his last. His commanding officer, Captain James A. Meissner, filed the following official report which was later used as a basis for the award of the Distinguished Service Cross:

"Lieutenant Meredith L. Dowd, A. S., U. S. A. went on patrol over the lines on the afternoon of October 26, 1918, at about two o'clock. Over the Bois de Dannevoux he observed four German planes. According to the statement of Private M. M. Buckland, 305th Trench Mortar Battery, 80th Division, who saw the combat, Lieutenant Dowd first showed his markings to the planes as if they were Allied planes. As they did not answer his signal be attacked them immediately. The second time he attacked, one plane left the formation and headed for Germany. Lieutenant Dowd attacked the remaining planes three times, but the last time he drove on the formation, the plane which he had first driven off returned above him and shot him down. He fell in a steep dive and was dead when found by the French."

• Tribute from Memorial Volume of the American Field Service, 1921