Raynal Cawthorne Bolling

Raynal Cawthorne Bolling (September 1, 1877 – March 26, 1918) was the first high-ranking officer of the United States Army to be killed in combat in World War I. A corporate lawyer by vocation, he became an early Army aviator and the organizer of both of the first units in what ultimately became the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve Command. Sent to France to lay a foundation for the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force as head of what became known as the "Bolling Mission," he remained in France instead of returning to the United States, served briefly in a number of staff positions and was selected for a future combat command. He was touring his future area of operations to learn the nature of the work he would be expected to perform when he was killed in action by German troops during the opening days of the 1918 spring offensive. He was the namesake of Bolling Air Force Base. Biography Bolling was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and was a resident of Greenwich, Connecticut, from 1911 until 1915. In 1912, he commissioned Carrère and Hastings, the architects of the New York Public Library, to build an estate for him at 137 Doubling Road in Greenwich that he later named Greyledge. Greyledge was constructed between 1912 and 1914. Greyledge was an English-style manor situated on an estate that sprawls from 137 Doubling Road to Boulder Brook. In addition to a sitting room, family room, library and thirteen fireplaces, the estate was also home to a shooting gallery. Upon completion in 1914 Colonel Raynal Bolling and Anna Tucker Phillips Bolling moved in to Greyledge with their family of four daughters and one son. However, Bolling spent virtually no time enjoying his family and new home. In November 1915, Bolling, then a First Lieutenant in the Air Force, was appointed to the New York National Guard. The estate was later razed, in 2007, by its current owner despite a public outcry. He attended the Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, graduating in 1896. He graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1900 and from the Harvard Law School in 1902. Bolling was an attorney at Guthrie, Cravath, and Henderson. A little after a year there he began his career in the legal department of the United States Steel Corporation. By 1907 he was assistant general solicitor and married Anna Tucker Phillips, June 25, 1907, in Beverly, Massachusetts. She was the sister of William Phillips, a prominent career diplomat.