This piece originally ran in the February 2025 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
Leonard M. Reno was one of the few Americans who entered World War I before his country. In 1917, Reno joined the Lafayette Flying Corps and was a member of the Lafayette Escadrille. Pictured here are Reno’s French and Italian pilot certificates, as well as the telegram alerting his father that he was awarded a French military decoration, the Croix de Guerre. The unusual inclusion of a dog in one of Reno’s identification pictures is probably Fram, Lt. Col. Georges Thenault’s dog and one of the unofficial mascots of the Lafayette Escadrille. Reno had a celebrated career, shooting down 11 German airplanes and narrowly escaping being shot down himself on the Belgian front. He enjoyed brief celebrity status after the war as he toured the country speaking of his adventures.
