Born in Wayne, Pennsylvania in 1906, Lewin B. Barringer learned to fly in
1929 and began flying gliders in 1930 as operator of the Wings Gliding School
near Philadelphia. His first soaring flights took place at Elmira, New
York during the 1934 contest. In 1935 he went to Iran as pilot for the
Harvard Archaeological Expedition and served in that capacity through
1936. While flying in that then primitive country, Barringer had to make
his own charts, still a marvel of cartographic skill.
Following his return to the United States, Barringer became almost
immediately active in the affairs of the SSA which had been established
officially some four years before. He was persuaded by his friend, Richard
C. DuPont, then president of the SSA, to assume the title of General Manager of
the SSA and to edit a new magazine, Soaring. In both capacities he
performed with distinction.
As a flier he was by all accounts superb. This stood him in good
stead as he led SSA soaring expeditions to various parts of the country to
demonstrate that it was possible to fly great distances over flat country
(Expedition to Wichita Falls, Texas 1938) and to great altitudes in the
mountains using a strange form of lift we now know as mountain wave
(Expedition to Mount Washington, New Hampshire 1938 and later Sun Valley),
thus vastly opening up exciting opportunities for a sport that had for too
long been limited to a very few places like Elmira, New York, Frankfort,
Michigan, and Torrey Pines, California.
In 1940 Barringer published Flight Without Power, still a most
useful and interesting book on motorless flight and which served to inform
thousands about the sport and its intricacies.
With the outbreak of war and the great success of the German glider
attacks in Crete and Belgium, the American military became anxious to
develop the capacity to mount a glider invasion of its own. Barringer,
a Reserve Officer in the army, was called to the colors by General H. H.
(Hap) Arnold, Commanding General, United States Army Air Forces and told to
create from scratch an American glider force capable of delivering thousands
of troops on a pre-specified target.
It was in his capacity as head of the glider branch of the United States
Army Air Force that in January, 1943 Lewin Barringer lost his life in a
plane crash in the Caribbean. Mammoth production and training problems
had caused tremendous difficulties in creating the glider force, but prior
to his death Barringer had worked doggedly on these problems and developed
the resources that eventually allowed entire divisions to be transported by
glider into combat.
