Remington de B. Vernam
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| Remington de Bremont Vernam | |
|---|---|
| March 24, 1896 – December 1, 1918 (aged 22) | |
 Remington D. B. Vernam |
|
| Place of death | Longwey, France |
| Allegiance | France United States of America |
| Service/branch | United States Army |
| Rank | First Lieutenant |
| Unit | 22 Sqn AEF |
| Awards | Distinguished Service Cross |
First Lieutenant Remington de Bremont Vernam (March 24, 1896 - December 1, 1918) was an American pilot during World War I. He had six aerial victories, including three balloons, before being shot down on October 30, 1918. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and education
Most records show Vernam’s name as Remington de B. Vernam. Lt. Vernam’s father was Gaston de Bremont Vernam, hence the 'de B'. Gaston was the son of Count Emile Leon de Bremont, Viscount d’Aubigy, Baron de Mailieux, and the Countess de Bremont, a young woman from Cincinnati. When their marriage ended, Gaston remained with his father. The Count married Florence Derrent in 1882. She became a widow in 1882 and later married Remington Vernam.) Vernam adopted Gaston. (Ana Comptess de Bremont, Gaston's mother, chose a childless society life. She died in Paris in 1922, according to the New York Times, "penniless and friendless".)
Gaston married Adah Price in 1895. Remington de B. Vernam was born in 1896 and his sister, Katherine Adah, in 1898.
Gaston and Adah later divorced. At the time of the 1910 census, Adah Price Vernam, Katherine and Remmie, lived with Adah's parents, George and Kate Price, in their Manhattan boardinghouse. (Gaston turned up in 1913, arrested in New York City for impersonating a federal agent to avoid paying his bar and rooming house bills. His claim to a count was ridiculed by both the police and The New York Times in its report of the arrest, "Gaston Bremont, who asserts that he is a Count and heir to much property on the banks of the North and East Rivers, was taken before United States Commissioner Shields yesterday [December 8, 1913] on the charge of having impersonated a government detective so as to defraud saloon and bording-house keepers.") With this in the newspaper, Remington was a junior at the exclusive Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School where, in his senior year, he was captain of the basketball team.
In 1915 Remington graduated from high school and Adah married Philip Ross. While he was in the service Vernam's home of record was 66 Broadway, New York City, the Manhattan Life Insurance Building where Ross was counsel and a director.
[edit] Military career
Vernam completed pilot training in France and shot down an enemy balloon while in the French service. He later transferred to the United States Army Air Service and went on to five more aerial victories, including two balloons.
Vernam was shot down behind German lines on October 30, 1918. After the Armistice he was found by American forces in a hospital in Longwey, France, with another wounded aviator, Lt. Arthur C. Dineen.
[edit] Death and afterward
Vernam died of his wounds on December 1. He is buried in the American cemetery at Saint-Mihiel in Thiaucourt, France.
He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. In reporting the award, the New York Times quoted the citation: “For extraordinary heroism in action near Buzancy, on Oct. 10. Successively attacking two enemy balloons, which were moored to their nests, he displayed the highest degree of daring. He executed his task despite the fact that several enemy planes were above him, descending to an altitude of less than ten meters when five miles within enemy lines. His well-directed fire caused both balloons to burst into flames.”
Vernam Field, a World War II lend-lease air base in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, was named in honor of Lt. Vernam. The base was built to house a bomber squadron and had three runways: a 6000-foot concrete runway and two shorter asphalt runways. The base was redesignated Vernam Air Force Base on March 26, 1948, by Department of the Air Force General Order Number 10. Vernam AFB closed in 1949. An automobile racetrack known as Vernamfield occupies the Vernam AFB site today.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
References: 1880 United States Federal Census about Gaston De Bremon (Remingotn’s father); 1910 United States Federal Census about Adah Price (Remingotn’s mother): both located at www.ancestry.com, August 2007;
wedding license, 1871, Leon Bremon and Florence Derrent, accessed at New York City Hall of Records, August 2007;
"Funeral of Count de Bremont", New York Times, May 24, 1882;
"Arrest Count for Fraud: He Posed as Secret Service Man and Borrowed Money", New York Times, December 9, 1913;
“Columbia Grammar Defeated”, New York Times. March 1, 1914; wedding notice, Ross-Vernam, New York Times, June 11, 1915;
“Two Aviators Liberated”, New York Times, November 21, 1918;
“Pershing Honors New York Aviators”, New York Times, February 6, 1919;
"Countess De Bremont Dies in Poverty: Authoress from Cincinnati Lost her Wealth in a Crash of Her Mining Stocks", New York Times, October 19, 1922;
Hendricks, Charles, "Building the Atlantic Air Bases" (n.d., n.p.), http://www.usace.army.mil/publications/eng-pamphlets/ep870-1-42/c-1-3.pdf, accessed August 2007.
Neita, Hartley, Vernamfield yesterday and tomorrow, Jamaica Gleaner, June 3, 2006, http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060603/cleisure/cleisure2.html, accessed August 2007.
