Editing Merian C. Cooper (section)

==Early military service==
===Georgia National Guard===
In 1916, Cooper joined the Georgia [[United States National Guard|National Guard]] to help chase [[Pancho Villa]] in Mexico.<ref name="hoover">{{cite web|title=Memoirs of King Kong Director and War Hero at Hoover|url=http://www.hoover.org/news/memoirs-king-kong-director-and-war-hero-hoover|website=Hoover Institution|publisher=Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University|date=4 March 2014|access-date=11 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150427054908/http://www.hoover.org/news/memoirs-king-kong-director-and-war-hero-hoover|archive-date=2015-04-27|url-status=dead}}</ref> He was called home in March 1917. He worked for the ''El Paso Herald'' on a 30-day leave of absence. After returning to his service, Cooper was appointed lieutenant; however, he refused the appointment hoping to participate in combat. Instead, he went to the Military Aeronautics School in [[Atlanta]] to learn to fly. Cooper graduated at the top of his class.<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|24–25}}

===World War I===
[[File:Cooper AEF death.jpg|thumb|Death statement from when Cooper was presumed dead in 1918]]
[[File:Merian Cooper.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Merian C. Cooper in [[Polish Air Force]] uniform]]
In October 1917, six months after the [[American entry into World War I]], Cooper went to [[Western Front (World War I)|France]] with the 201st Squadron. He attended flying school in [[Issoudun]]. While flying with his friend, Cooper hit his head and was knocked out during a 200-foot plunge. After the incident, Cooper suffered from shock and had to relearn how to fly. Cooper requested to go to [[Clermont-Ferrand]] to be trained as a bomber pilot. He became a pilot with the [[20th Aero Squadron]] (which later became the [[1st Day Bombardment Group]]).<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|26–27}}

Cooper served as a [[Airco DH.4|DH-4 bomber]] pilot with the [[United States Army Air Service]] during [[World War I]].<ref name="trueadventure">{{cite book |last=West |first=James E. |author-link=James E. West (Scouting) |title=The Boy Scouts Book of True Adventure |year=1931 |publisher=Putnam  |location=New York |oclc=8484128}}</ref> On September 26, 1918, his plane was shot down. The plane caught fire, and Cooper spun the plane to suck the flames out. Cooper survived, although he suffered burns, injured his hands, and was presumed dead. German soldiers saw his plane landing and took him to a prisoner reserve hospital.<ref name="living dangerously" />{{rp|8,38–41}} The death certificate on this page was sent to Cooper's family.  The Army had believed him killed but he was captured by the Germans and taken as a Prisoner of war (POW). Cooper's father received a letter from Merian around the time the death certificate arrived. Merian C. Cooper sent the copy back to the Army with the notation on top "In the language of Mark Twain Your death has been greatly exaggerated."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7787194 | title=National Archives NextGen Catalog }}</ref>

Captain Cooper remained in the Air Service after the war; he helped with [[Herbert Hoover]]'s [[United States Food Administration|U.S. Food Administration]] that provided aid to Poland. He later became the chief of the Poland division.<ref name="american polish">{{cite web|title=Merian C. Cooper – Forgotten hero of two nations|url=http://www.americanpolishcooperationsociety.com/2016/01/merian-c-cooper-forgotten-hero-of-two-nations/|website=American Polish Cooperation Society|access-date=11 July 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160812231834/http://www.americanpolishcooperationsociety.com/2016/01/merian-c-cooper-forgotten-hero-of-two-nations/|archive-date=August 12, 2016|df=mdy-all}}</ref> In the early spring of 1919, while supplying the besieged Poles in [[Lviv]] during the [[Polish–Ukrainian War]], he claimed to have first discussed US air support for the Polish eastern flank with General [[Tadeusz Rozwadowski]] who commanded the city's defence.<ref name="MP">{{citation |last=Patelski |first=Mariusz |title=Ochotnicy amerykańscy w wojnie polsko-bolszewickiej. Z działalności dyplomatycznej gen. Tadeusza Jordan Rozwadowskiego |journal=Zeszyty Historyczne |volume=132 |year=2000 |url=https://static.kulturaparyska.com/attachments/ca/20/77cbc141fc6025c952b1542002dc5d0b33c46231.pdf#page=217}}</ref>{{rp|218}}

===Kościuszko Squadron===
The contract for the formation of a volunteer American flight squadron was signed by Rozwadowski, Cooper and Major [[Cedric Fauntleroy]] at the Wagram Hotel in Paris on August 26, 1919.<ref name="MP" />{{rp|218}} On his arrival in Poland, Cooper met with cold reception from the [[Chief of State (Poland)|Chief of State]] [[Józef Piłsudski]], who considered the Americans "paid mercenaries". They were nonetheless dispatched to Lviv in October 1919 and drafted into the Polish military as the [[Kościuszko Squadron]] in December.<ref name="MP" />{{rp|219–20}} Cooper then provided air combat support for the [[Polish Army]] in the [[Polish–Soviet War]].<ref name="hoover" /> On July 13, 1920, his plane was shot down, and he spent nearly nine months in a Soviet [[prisoner of war camp]]<ref name="american polish" /> where the writer [[Isaac Babel]] interviewed him.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/babel.htm |title=Isaac Babel |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140308090843/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/babel.htm |archive-date=March 8, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He escaped just before the war was over and made it to [[Latvia]]. For his valor he was decorated by Polish [[commander-in-chief]] [[Józef Piłsudski]] with the highest Polish military decoration, the [[Virtuti Militari]].<ref name="american polish" />
[[File:CooperAtLatvianBorder.jpg|thumb|right|Cooper at the Latvian border after escaping the Soviet POW camp]]

During his time as a POW, Cooper wrote an autobiography: ''Things Men Die For''.<ref name="hoover" /> The manuscript was published by [[G. P. Putnam's Sons]] in New York (the Knickerbocker Press) in 1927. However, in 1928, Cooper regretted releasing certain details about "Nina" (probably Marjorie Crosby-Słomczyńska) with whom he had relations outside of wedlock. Cooper asked Dagmar Matson, who had the manuscript, to buy all the copies of the book possible. Matson found almost all 5,000 copies that had been printed. The books were destroyed, while Cooper and Matson each kept a copy.<ref name="hoover" /><ref name="open library">{{cite book|title=Things Men Die For: About the Book|ol=6703214M}}</ref>

An [[interbellum]] Polish film directed by [[Leonard Buczkowski]], ''[[Gwiaździsta eskadra]]'' (The Starry Squadron), was inspired by Cooper's experiences as a Polish Air Force officer. The film was made with the cooperation of the Polish army and was the most expensive Polish film prior to [[World War II]]. After World War II, all copies of the film found in Poland were destroyed by the Soviets.<ref name="naszemiasto">{{cite web|last1=Snusz|first1=Zbyszek|title="Gwiaździsta eskadra" – film kręcony z gigantycznym rozmachem w 1930 roku|url=http://poznan.naszemiasto.pl/artykul/gwiazdzista-eskadra-film-krecony-z-gigantycznym-rozmachem-w,1550277,art,t,id,tm.html|website=Naszemiasto|date=September 25, 2012|access-date=8 July 2016}}</ref>