Commissions to Col Leslie MacDill, USAAC

Group of commissions and appointments to Colonel Leslie MacDill, for whom MacDill Air Force Base is named: commission as a first lieutenant, Coast Artillery Corps, dated August 1916, signed by President Woodrow Wilson (insect damage to the surname); appointment as a captain, Air Service, dated July 1920; appointment as a lieutenant colonel, Air Service, dated November 1918; appointment as a temporary lieutenant colonel, Air Corps, dated August 1936; appointment as a temporary colonel, Air Corps, dated January 1937; appointment as a lieutenant colonel, Air Corps, dated August 1935; appointment as a major, Air Service, dated March 1921. All have been rolled and show creases; several show insect damage (the first has been repaired with tape, but insects have destroyed the “on” of “Wilson”. An historic group of documents to a pioneer aviator.

MacDill was born in Monmouth, Illinois on 18 February 1889. After college, he was commissioned into the Coast Artillery Corps. In 1915, he completed flight training and was rated a junior military aviator. In World War I, he commanded the Air Service’s aerial gunnery school in France. He was killed in a flying accident in Washington, DC, on 9 November 1938.