Kiffin Rockwell

Kiffin Yates Rockwell
Kiffin Rockwell in 1916
Nickname(s)	"Aristocrat of the Air"
Born	(1892-09-20)September 20, 1892 Newport, Tennessee
Died	September 23, 1916(1916-09-23) (aged 24) Verdun, France
Service/branch	French Air Service
Awards	Médaille militaire Croix de guerre

Kiffin Yates Rockwell (1892–1916) was an early aviator and the first American pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft in World War I. On May 18, 1916, Rockwell attacked and shot down a German plane over the Alsace battlefield. For this action he was awarded the Médaille militaire and the Croix de guerre.

Rockwell was born in Newport, Tennessee on September 20, 1892, the son of Baptist minister James Chester Rockwell and his wife Loula Ayres. After James Rockwell's death from typhoid fever at the age of twenty-six, the family moved several times, eventually settling in Asheville, North Carolina. Kiffin's paternal and maternal grandfathers fought in the American Civil War, and he grew up listening to stories about battles and marches. They also taught the young boy fishing, hunting and horse riding.

From 1906 to 1908, Rockwell attended the Asheville High School, and in the fall of 1908 enrolled in Virginia Military Institute. In the fall of 1909, Rockwell left for the United States Naval Academy, but after taking preliminary courses decided to join his brother Paul at Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, where currently there is a plaque in Lee Chapel in Kiffin Rockwell's memory.

In 1912, Rockwell took a break from his studies deciding to see the world. He traveled first to the Pacific Coast and Western Canada, and then stayed in San Francisco, where he opened an advertising agency, which at one time, according to his brother Paul, employed twenty people (Kiffin was nineteen at that time). In 1913, Rockwell returned to Asheville before joining Paul Rockwell in Atlanta, finding employment with Massengale Advertising Agency.

At the outbreak of World War I, on August 3, 1914, Kiffin Rockwell offered his services to France by letter, which he wrote with his brother Paul, to the French Consul-General in New Orleans.James Norman Hall, the author of the "History of the Lafayette Flying Corps", suggested that Kiffin Yates Rockwell was the first American who saw military service with France during the beginning of World War I. Without waiting for a reply, the Rockwell brothers boarded SS St Paul, American Line in New York City and on August 7, 1914 departed for Europe, where they enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.