jinx

[Dave Wilton]

> Dave  Wilton writes:
> >> "Horse Marines" in the early 1900s would
> >> be as unlikely as "airborne cavalry" nowadays.
> >
> >The point is well taken and I'm sure that "Horse Marines"
> was intended to be
> >silly, but there is in fact "air cavalry" in the US Army
> nowadays. They use
> >helicopters instead of horses.
> ~~~~~~~
> I thought I remembered hearing that the old WWI Balloon Corps
> was part of
> the cavalry, but when I mentioned  that to someone recently
> was told I must
> be mistaken.  Now I'm wondering again.
> A. Murie

No, you weren't mistaken. The earliest citation of "air cavalry" in the OED
is in fact a 1917 reference to WWI aviation. Like the tank corps, early air
forces also borrowed from the traditions of the horse cavalry. The term
"squadron," for example was a horse cavalry term.