In the years before World War I, two pioneers of aviation, Kenneth Jaquith from Chicago and Beryl Kendrick from Atlantic City, had thrilled thousands over the beaches of the Jersey Shore. Whether it was setting records, taking tourists up for the first time or hunting sharks or ducks from their Curtiss hydroplanes, their names regularly appeared in the nation’s newspapers. With U.S. entry into the conflict, they became part of the war effort.

The Buffalo Evening News of April 18, 1917, explained, “Aerial coast patrol unit number three, made up of 12 men,…