Early History and World War I
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1899, Maitland graduated from Riverside High School in 1917. He enlisted as an aviation cadet in the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps three days after the United States entered World War I and was assigned to training at a School of Military Aeronautics on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, Texas in the fall of 1917. His flight training took place at Rich Field in Waco, Texas, after which he received a rating of Reserve Military Aviator and was commissioned on May 25, 1918 as a 2nd lieutenant in the Air Service, National Army at the age of nineteen. After a stint as a flying instructor, he was sent to gunnery school at Taliaferro Field, Texas, but the war ended before he could be sent overseas.
Read more about this topic: Lester J. Maitland
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