flyingambulance

You know this is 1st Lieut. Paul A. Smith standing alongside this JN-4H Army Ambulance conversion, only because he is photographed in a much closer view shown on page 3 of this album, basically in the same position, but one step to the left with hand on the cable wire, just above the small red cross below the cockpit. The section behind the rear cockpit lifted off to permit insertion of a patient on a stretcher. These conversions were assigned to WWI training bases.

Another DH-4, this one modified for ambulance work. Stig

This is a US Army Air Service Curtiss Eagle III (Air Service serial no. A.S. 64243) configured as a flying ambulance. This aircraft would crash on May 28, 1921 (little more than two weeks after this photo was taken, on May 5, 1921), killing all seven aboard, including Medal of Honor recipient Lieut. Col. Archie Miller (US Army Air Service). See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_Eagle

On 28 May 1921, in one of the first major crashes in aviation history, Army Air Service Curtiss Eagle Serial Number 64243, the air ambulance, of the 1st Provisional Air Brigade, crashed during a severe thunderstorm attempting to land at Morgantown, Maryland while returning to Bolling Field, District of Columbia, from Langley Field, Virginia. The pilot, 1st Lt. Stanley M. Ames, and six passengers were killed. Four of the six were Air Service officers and an enlisted man. Two United States congressmen had chosen not to make the flight because of airsickness on the flight from Washington to Langley. The Army's Inspector General conducted an investigation of the crash and theorized that the aircraft stalled when it encountered an updraft at low altitude while trying to clear trees near the unfamiliar field and fell vertically, nose first, into the ground.

See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Miller_(Medal_of_Honor)