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World War I Aviator Pin

Note: This item is currently in storage.

Front design is a wreath with bow at bottom and a triptych crown at top. Centered within the wreath opening is a scene of an aircraft flying over mountains, fields and buildings in Europe.

Back is engraved:

HANS EHL
SHOT DOWN
JULY 1 1917
BY LE ROY PRINZ

At the outbreak of World War I, LeRoy J. Prinz went to France to train as a pilot. Initially, he served in the French Aviation Corps, then with Eddie Rickenbacker’s 94th Aero Squadron (November 1917-June 1918) and the 27th Aero Squadron (June 1918-November 1918).

After the war, Prinz returned to the United States and graduated from Northwestern. He then moved to France where he worked as a choreographer in various music halls in Paris. In the 1920s, Prinz returned to the United States, and worked as a choreographer, director and producer in dozens of motion pictures for Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers (1929-1958). Some of the films he was involved in are Show Boat (1936), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), The Ten Commandments (1956) and South Pacific (1958).

Donated by the Order of the Daedalians, Flight 7, Los Angeles AFB.

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