Remembering a Veteran: Listen to an Interview with the Cowboy Ace, Capt. Fred Libby, RFC, US Air Service

Fred Libby—Cowboy and Aviator

Frederick Libby was born in the early 1890s in Sterling, Colorado. He worked as an itinerant cowboy during his youth and joined the Canadian Army shortly after the outbreak of World War I. Deployed to France in 1915, Libby initially served with a motor transport unit, then volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps. He served as an observer with No. 23 Squadron and No. 11 Squadron, then as a pilot with No. 43 Squadron and No. 25 Squadron. Scoring 10 confirmed aerial victories as an observer-machine gunner on a Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2b (Farman Experimental) during his RFC career, he became the first American fighter ace. Libby transferred to the United States Army Air Service in 1917 and was medically discharged soon after for spondylitis. As a civilian, he went on to embark on a number of business ventures, including founding the Eastern Oil Company and Western Air Express. Libby passed away in 1970. 

How an F.E.2b Observer Dealt with a Rear Attack

This March 1962 interview was part of an oral history series conducted by the American Fighter Aces Association at the Museum of Flight in Washington State. It covers his first days of air combat in the Great War over the Somme battlefield.  The interviewer was Commander Eugene A. Valencia, Jr., USN, an ace himself in World War II. To access the recording (and transcript) of the interview click HERE.

Thanks to our Assistant Editor Kimball Worcester for discovering this interview.