Erwin Russell Bleckley was born on December 30, 1894, in Wichita, Kansas. He was the son of Elmer Ellsworth Bleckley and Margaret Alice Littell Bleckley.

On June 6, 1917, Bleckley, then a bank teller with the 4th National Bank of Wichita, enlisted as a private in the Kansas National Guard, joining Battery F, 1st Field Artillery. On July 5, 1917, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery. A month later, on August 5, his unit was called into Federal service. The 1st Field Artillery was then reorganized into the 130th Field Artillery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, as part of the 35th Division, National Guard. Bleckley had expressed a desire to become a pilot, but his family objected, and he became an artilleryman. When he arrived in France in March 1918, the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force, then organizing, announced a need for artillery officers to train as aerial observers. Bleckley volunteered, graduated from the observer school at Tours, France, and was attached to the 50th Aero Squadron on August 14, 1918.

Flying observer for flight leader 1st Lt. Harold E. "Dad" Goettler, 2Lt Bleckley was killed in the rescue of the "Lost Battalion" on October 6, 1918. They crashed in Remicourt, France, and Bleckley was thrown from the plane and severely injured. Unconscious, he was rescued by French soldiers and rushed by automobile to a hospital, but died en route of internal injuries suffered.

Bleckley was commemorated by the city of Wichita in 1932 with the naming of Bleckley Drive, at the request of the American Legion. Following the war, his remains were permanently buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Departement de la Meuse, Lorraine, France. Bleckley's family donated his Medal of Honor to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The original copy of the award document is located in the Museum of the Kansas National Guard in Topeka, KS, along with other personal mementos and personal items belonging to Lt. Bleckley.

Medal of Honor citation:
2d Lt. Bleckley, with his pilot, 1st Lt. Harold E. Goettler, Air Service, left the airdrome late in the afternoon on their second trip to drop supplies to a battalion of the 77th Division, which had been cut off by the enemy in the Argonne Forest. Having been subjected on the first trip to violent fire from the enemy, they attempted on the second trip to come still lower in order to get the packages even more precisely on the designated spot. In the course of his mission the plane was brought down by enemy rifle and machinegun fire from the ground, resulting in fatal wounds to 2d Lt. Bleckley, who died before he could be taken to a hospital. In attempting and performing this mission 2d Lt. Bleckley showed the highest possible contempt of personal danger, devotion to duty, courage, and valor.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, www.abmc.gov, en.wikipedia.org