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Ken, the only people who had parachutes were observation balloon crews as they were a sitting duck and the ground crew couldn't wind the balloon down fast enough when it was attacked. I'm not sure if American pilots had parachutes but the RFC were against the idea as they though it would encourage cowardice with pilots bailing out if things got a bit tricky. Probably also down to the fact that chutes were expensive hence British Paras in WW2 didn't get a reserve.
After years of research on WWI aircraft and flyers, Ive learned the following on WWI parachutes:
1) British and American forces believed parachutes were extraneous to their needs, and indeed, early-on the British mentioned parachutes might cause "early departures" from cockpits, but there were other reasons too-- WWI cockpits were small, so there was little room for a pilot in heavy flight gear and a parachute. Parachutes were largely considered experimental at the time, having origins in circus and stunt performances. And the first parachutes were derived from silk-- which was a short commodity in WWI.
2) German and Austro-Hungarian forces had no problem with parachutes, and in the later stages of the war, German pilots often flew with parachutes-- due to shortages of skilled pilots in the Central Powers, unlike the Allied forces.
3) Observation Balloon crews were not considered aviators,but trained artillery observers and hard to replace, so they were provided parachutes as incentives. If you went up in a balloon, you were likely to get shot down in it, and the resulting fireball was considered an "inhumane" way to die by both sides.
4) Zeppelin and Allied dirigible crews were not routinely provided parachutes for the same reason as #1 above.
5) Other combatants, i.e.; Russians, Italians, Belgians, Brazil, Portugal, Turkey, etc., largely left the decision of parachutes up to individual aircrews for the most part, but did not furnish parachutes to aircrews-- and parachutes were not nearly as common or cheap as they would later become. The French looked at the "practicality" of parachutes and determined they were of limited use --the French Nieuport 17 barely had enough room for a pilot let alone a pilot in a parachute, demonstrating the philosophy of most aircraft designs of the period.
All of this is open to conjecture, because there were exceptions, but I've gleaned information from several sources on WWI aviation history: Aeroplanes and Air Battles of WWI; The Great Air War; They Fought for the Sky; Courage of the Early Morning; Eagles of the Black Cross; Heroes of the Sunlit Sky; Medal of Honor Aviators of WWI; America's First Air War; Numerous issues of Over the Front/Windsock International. There are two others that I consider "marginal" resources: "Aces High" and "Knights of the Air". I've been building a WWI aviation library for several years now, an area sorely neglected in historical information.
VR, Russ
