"old hoodoo" wrote in message ...
I was reading where a US pilot shot down an Austrian fighter flying an Italian m.5 seaplane fighter. Was this our first navy kill?

Earliest I can find was on March 19, 1918. Ensign Stephan Potter,
flying with a Canadian, Flight Lieutenant Norman Magor on a
reconnaissance flight off the coast of Holland, engaged what was
probably a Friedrichshafen and shot it down. Potter was flying in a
Felixstowe F2A flying boat. He was credited as the first US Naval
Aviator to shoot down an enemy plane. On April 25, Potter was shot
down and killed.

Regards,

Rich