The Aviator :  McConnell Artifacts

These artifacts were presented to the University of Virginia Library in 1940 by Lewis D. Crenshaw, director of the University's European Bureau in Paris.

McConnell's uniform cap.

Cigarette case, gold and silver, given to McConnell by Paul Ayres Rockwell, December 4, 1916.

A strip of the aluminum-paint-covered canvas taken from the fuselage of McConnell's plane. The strip of cloth was taken from the plane a few days after McConnell's death by Louis Chevrillon, a French soldier.

Chevrillon included a letter certifying that the cloth was taken from McConnell's plane by him when he presented the cloth to Crenshaw.

Metal plate, taken from an American ambulance dedicated to the memory of James R. McConnell

Shrapnel from the shell that downed McConnell's plane, and a button from his uniform