Sebastian County ArArchives Biographies.....Robertson, Wendell Archibald 
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Robert Sanchez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00027.html#0006574 July 14, 2009, 11:57 pm

Author: S. J. Clarke (Publisher, 1922)

WENDELL ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON.
    Wendell Archibald Robertson, a well-known figure in insurance circles at
Fort Smith, also deserves prominent mention through the fact that he became an
aviation ace during the World war. He participated in many combats and made a
brilliant military record as a member of the One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Aero
Squadron. A native of Oklahoma, he was born in Guthrie in 1894, and is a son of
R. Scott and Elizabeth Jane (Wendell) Robertson. He represents one of the
prominent old southern families of Scotch extraction. The Robertsons settled in
Tennessee prior to the Revolutionary war and afterward representatives of the
name lived in Mississippi, Alabama and Texas. Captain James Robertson, the
great-grandfather of W. A. Robertson, was the founder of Nashville, Tennessee.
James A. Robertson, a descendant, became the father of R. Scott Robertson, who
is now president of the Reynolds-Davis Grocery Company of Fort Smith, Arkansas.
He was born in Galveston, Texas, but came to Fort Smith twenty-five years ago
and here entered the wholesale grocery business, in which he engaged for a time.
Later he went to New York city, where he was active in the brokerage business,
and still later returned to Fort Smith and organized the Reynolds-Davis Grocery
Company, of which he is now the president, thus occupying a most prominent
position in the commercial circles of the city.

    Wendell A. Robertson was largely educated in the schools of Fort Smith,
passing through consecutive grades to the high school, after which he attended
the Holbrook Preparatory School at Briarcliff, N Y., and then entered Yale
University, from which he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts with
the class of 1915. Returning to Fort Smith, he became associated with his father
in the wholesale grocery business, and later was connected with the Clear Creek
Oil & Gas Company. When America entered the World war he joined the Officers'
Training Camp at Fort Logan H. Root, near Little Rock, and from there was sent
to the school of military aeronautics at Austin, Texas. His next transferral
took him to Rantoul, Illinois, where he was recommended for a commission and
sent to Garden City, Long Island. He was made a first lieutenant of the aviation
section of the Signal Corps and went abroad with the One Hundred and Eighth Aero
Squadron, proceeding first to St. Maxient, while later he was assigned to the
One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Aero Squadron. He saw service at many points on the
fighting front and participated in many combats. On one occasion he was flying
with Dave Putnam, a noted air man, when they were attacked by fifteen German
planes. Putnam was brought down, but Lieutenant Robertson managed to return to
the lines in safety. So splendid was his military record that he was decorated
as an American ace, but with the characteristic modesty of the American air man,
he says little of his experiences in foreign lands, but history proves the
splendid record which he made. Mr. Robertson has six official confirmations to
his credit.

    When the war was over Mr. Robertson returned to Fort Smith, where he is now
engaged in the insurance business, and with the same thoroughness and
determination which characterized his pursuit of German planes in the air
service on the western front, he is pushing toward his objective in the business
world, basing his advancement upon thoroughness, diligence and a resolution
which enables him to overcome all difficulties and obstacles in his path.


Additional Comments:
Citation:
Centennial History of Arkansas
Volume II
Chicago-Little Rock: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1922


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