Background
He was born William Carpenter Lambert in Ironton, Ohio. He was the son of Mary and William G. Lambert.
He was born William Carpenter Lambert in Ironton, Ohio. He was the son of Mary and William G. Lambert.
Lambert had his first airplane flight in a Wright biplane on 4 July 1910. In 1914, Lambert quit his job as a chemist in Buffalo, New York, to go enlist in the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery. Finding no openings, he took a chemist"s job with Canadian Explosives Limited until 1916.
He joined the Royal Flying Corps in early 1917, and sailed for England after completion of his training, on 19 November 1917.
He joined Number. 24 Squadron Reconstruction Finance Corporation on 20 March 1918 flying the Royal Aircraft Factory Southeast.5a, and, between April and August, scored 18 victories–one observation balloon and 11 aircraft destroyed (with two victories shared), and six driven down out of control (one of which was a shared victory). He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Suffering from combat fatigue brought on by a bombing attack on his airfield, he was rotated back to England for medical leave on 20 August 1918 but the war ended before he recovered. One of his prized memorabilia was a piece of red canvas from von Richthofen"s Fokker DR-1 triplane.
After the war, Lambert did some barnstorming in the Ironton, Ohio area and worked as an engineer
He also was the inventor of a rather unusual "pipe rest" which allowed a smoking pipe to be rested upon the smoker"s chin. Lambert joined the United States. Air Service and served with the Army Air Forces in World World War World War II He retired in 1954 as a lieutenant colonel in the United States. Air Force. After World War, he was a frequent attendee at the Royal Air Force contingent"s Battle of Britain celebration at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
Lambert"s wartime experiences were related in his 1973 memoir Combat Report.
He died in 1982 aged 87.