9/29/1918 - Twenty-one forever. Sadly, six miles behind enemy lines, the legendary aerial combat career of the "Arizona Balloon Buster" (he is also known as the "Sausage Buster"), 2nd Lt. Frank Luke Jr. of Phoenix, Arizona, comes to a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor conclusion near Murvaux, France (Luke will be the very first Army airman to win America's highest award for valor) when the fighter pilot blasts his way through ten Fokker D-VIIs (knocking two out of the air) to successfully attack three German observation balloons, then though wounded in the shoulder, falls upon a group of Hun troops marching nearby, killing six and wounding at least a dozen more soldiers, before crash landing his French made SPAD fighter in a muddy pasture, where refusing to surrender to a German patrol, he pulls his Colt Model 1911 revolver and gets into a final gun battle in which he kills seven more enemy infantrymen before taking a killing round to the chest.
Balloon Buster
The Balloon Buster's story begins when Luke's father, as an infant, is brought to America from his place of birth near Dahlhausan, Prussia in 1874 (sometime after the move, the family will change "Luecke" to "Luke"), and then after a brief stop in New York City, moves to the Arizona Territory with the rest of his family. Surviving the myriad dangers of growing up in a territory not yet familiar with the gun slinging antics of Henry McCarty, aka Billy the Kid, Luke Senior settles in the Salt River Valley near the new town that will one day become the state's capital, Phoenix. Marrying Tillie Liebenow, the Lukes establish a family of nine siblings, while Luke Senior successfully engages in mining and merchandizing enterprises near Prescott, before becoming involved in forty year in state politics as a Phoenix city assessor, a member of the Maricopa county board of supervisors, and the Maricopa county appraiser for the federal land bank and tax commissioner (upon his Grand Canyon death in 1939 at the age of 80, Luke Senior's body will lie in state for a day in the rotunda of the capital building). The fifth child out of nine, Frank Junior is preceded into the family by Eva (1886), Anna Marie (1888), Edwin Lawrence (1889), Charles J. (1891), and followed by Ottilia (1899), Reginia Josephine (1902), John Allen (1905), and William Joseph (1908) ... Luke Junior is born in Phoenix on May 19, 1897.
High School Football
Junior In Front Of Parent's Home
A loving well-to-do family living the American dream on the edge of civilization (there are roughly 5,500 souls living in the Salt River Valley, Luke grows up in early Phoenix surrounded by ranchers, sheep men, prospectors, gunslingers, gamblers, outlaws, and friendly and hostile Indians, and at a very early age begins adventuring on his own (or with a couple of close friends) among the region's deserts, monsoon weather and high heat, sun baked mountains, and wind worn buttes where he develops a personality of individualism and independence, and a love for the outdoors (as a youth, Luke becomes a compulsive collector, gathering sets of birds' eggs, bugs, and other items, and much to his father's chagrin, tin cans full of tarantula spiders). An expert rider and a crack shot, by the time he is 12, Luke is out in the Arizona wilderness as often as he can, sometimes ranging 200 miles to the north into the White Mountains, or south to where the state's border meets the country of Mexico, or making forays 30 miles to the east searching for the Lost Dutchman Mine of Jacob Waltz among the rocky crags of the state's Superstition Mountains. Displaying his attributes and weaknesses, on one adventure south to the famous cavalry post of Fort Apache, though warned by Apaches that the melting snows of the Mongollon Rim have made the White River to swollen to cross, Luke and his friend, Bill Elder try to cross anyway and lose their pack mule with most of their supplies, and almost lose Elder too when he is swept off his horse and into the river's surging current ... where he is rescued by Luke jumping into the churning wet, grabbing his friend by the hair, and pulling him to a nearby eddy where the pair make their way out of the river they should never have been trying to ford. Luke's penchant for adventure and mischief and abject toughness also goes on full display when the youth begins attending Phoenix Union High School. Just a fair student due to his boredom with the teaching, the 5' 10" and 155 pound muscled youth comes alive as a "Coyote" playing sports for the school, showing an athlete's aptitude for basketball, tennis, boxing, baseball (right field), and track (running the hurdles, but for missing practice, he is kicked off the team), along with becoming the star running back and captain of the football team he leads to a playoff berth by the time he is a senior, where he also flashes his toughness, refusing to be benched for the second half of a playoff game in which he has fractured a collar bone (his coach, Francis Geary, will describe the teenager as "... nerviest and coolest-headed football player I've ever seen."). Additionally, he finds time to become a member in good standing of the school's agriculture club and acts in several of the drama department's productions (his high school yearbook will state of Luke, "Too happy-go-lucky to know his own talents."). And his youthful wildness is put on display too when in front of masses of students, he has to be coaxed off the roof of a three-story building by his high school principle, where Luke has gone to jump to the ground using a standard bad weather umbrella for his parachute, he leads a group of seniors in cutting off the hair of a group of new male students. and as a junior, by shooting down the flag of the senior class in the middle of the night using a pistol and a shotgun (the pennant for a few years will have a prized place on the wall of Luke's bedroom).
Superstition Mountains
Phoenix Union Vs. Phoenix Indian - 1914
From 1915 to 1917, Luke spends the summers with his older brother Charlie, and Charlie's wife, in the nearby town of Ajo, Arizona, where he works a number of jobs ... stocking and clerking at the Palace Hardware Store of his brother and at a rival's shop, Thayer's Hardware Store, doing odd jobs within the New Corleia copper mine (where he knocks out a bigger, older man named James Joseph "Irishman" Breen that has decided to pick on the teenager, explaining himself later, the victorious pugilist will state simply, "He asked for it: and I gave it to him."), and with a friend, opening up a dance hall for miners in which Luke puts on female attire and gives the miners dancing instructions. Out of high school and still trying to decide what to do with the rest of his life, Luke and Bill Elder, return from another of their hunting trips into the wild, and entering a Globe, Arizona festooned with flags and balloons, and lots of happily screaming citizens, discover that America is at war with Germany. Redirecting themselves, the two youths ride to Tucson to enlist in the army (Luke is signed up, but the service passes on taking his smaller pal), where seeking a new adventure, service as a fighter pilot calls him to his destiny. Somehow managing to be assigned to the newly established School of Military Aeronautics being run by the U.S. Army Signal Corps on the Austin campus of the University of Texas (at the time they are only taking on men with some college schooling or an actual degree). Completing the eight-week course (the youngster sets a record for the time it takes him to field strip a machine gun and reassemble it while blindfolded), Luke takes a brief leave to visit his family in Phoenix (where the clan is now living at a grand estate of five acres that includes lawns, pastures, a menagerie of chickens, hogs, sheep, and cows, and a nine-bedroom Victorian mansion only a short distance from where the state capital complex will one day rise). Leave over, Luke takes a train west for more seasoning in the Army's Air Service, where the 20-year-old first learns how to fly aboard a Curtis Jenny biplane. A natural flyer, Luke is the first pilot of his class to solo in a Jenny, but in San Diego at Rockwell Field, he first runs into problems toeing the line for the U.S. Army ... told that the old Jenny's are not to be used to do "tricks" in the air, Luke is disciplined for the first time when he does a loop in his plane and is confined to quarters and grounded for three days. In San Diego, Luke somehow also finds time to fall in love with a beautiful 18-year-old brunette high school senior named Marie Rapson (they meet when a friend takes Luke to Christmas Eve service at San Diego's All Saints Episcopal Church where Marie is playing the organ). Commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Service on January 23, 1918, after a brief stop at the family abode in Phoenix, Luke is ordered off to New York City where he boards the SS Leviathon for the two-week journey across the Atlantic to Great Britain, and then on to the Third Air Instructional Center of the American Expeditionary Forces at Issoudin, France for final flight training before being assigned to one of nine pursuit squadron's flying fighter planes.
Luke Family Home In Phoenix
Jenny
With Fiancée Marie Rapson
At Issoudun, Luke receives instruction on combat techniques using non-flying simulators, how to fly a Nieuport fighter, advanced acrobatics, formation flying, cross-country flying and navigation, gunnery skills, and dogfighting techniques. At the training school, Luke also displays personality traits that will soon make him a fighter ace and a pariah to other pilots (combined with the fact that he is only one generation removed from being a German himself) ... there is a lot of loud bragging about what he is going to do to the enemy once he is unleashed, a lack of patience at not being sent to the front immediately, several near collisions with other pilots while conducting mock dogfights, a willingness to ignore orders he doesn't believe are right, he rides about the airfield on a motorcycle shooting at targets with pistols using both his hands, and several near dances with death as he experiments with what his fighter can do in combat (on the plus side, each Sunday he commends his poker winnings into the collection dish of local Catholic church). Training completed, Luke's first assignment is as a ferry pilot, flying new and repaired planes from Orly Air Field in Paris to various bases on the Western Front, then flying damaged planes back to Orly, a job he finds boring. Finally, after a disastrous day in July for the 27th Aero Squadron ("The Eagle Squadron") in which two pilots are killed, another becomes a prisoner, and another plane becomes salvage material it is holed so many times, Luke is assigned to the hard hit unit operating out of Coincy, France.
Issoudun Training
At the Coincy airfield, along with other pilots and ground personnel, Luke meets the men who will play a large part in the final months of his life ... Canadian born Major Harold Evans Hartley, commander of the squadron and then commander of its parent group, the 1st Pursuit Group consisting of the 94th ("The Hat in the Ring" squadron to which ace Eddie Rickenbacker will belong), 95th ("The Kickin' Ass" squadron that former President Theodore Roosevelt's son Quentin will fly in before losing his life on July 14, 1918 at the age of 20), 27th ("The American Eagle" squadron), and 147th aero squadrons ("The Rat Terrier" squadron), a veteran and an ace with the experience of what it is like to be shot down by Germany's ace-of-aces, The Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen (though other accounts will give the air victory to Lt. Paul Strahle); Hartley's replacement commanding the Eagle Squadron, Captain Alfred E. "Ack" Grant, the son of Scottish immigrants and a pilot from Texas, a by-the-book officer unwilling to make exceptions to the orders and rules of the U.S. Army; 22-year-old Lt. Joseph Frank Wehner, a fellow flier with family roots in Germany that many in the squadron at first believe is a spy, and Lt. Ivan Andrew "Robbie" Roberts a Massachusetts college man (he attends MIT and also spends time at the Massachusetts Agricultural College of Amherst) credited with three aerial victories. And at the air base Luke will soon come to the attention of legendary aerial pioneer, Colonel William Lendrum Mitchell, the head of the Aviation Section in France, and a former race car driver and fellow ace, a member of the 94th Squadron, Lt. Edward Vernon Rickenbacker.
Hartney
Wehner
Mitchell
Now finally at the front, Luke spends time transitioning from flying a French Nieuport 28 fighter to the latest French aircraft, the temperamental SPAD XIII (the name is short for the design team of Louis Bechereau at the Societe Pour L'Aviation et ses Derives) which Luke works on with his ground crew, tightening up the performance of the engine and adding a second machine gun that fires incendiary bullets, there is more bragging and loud talk, poker games, and for the more obnoxious of his flight peers, quiet bloody boxing lessons behind the barracks. And for awhile, a pattern exists in which Luke is often the last to take off on group patrols and the first to turn back with engine problems; perfect excuses for the solo hunting he wants to do. It also does nothing for Luke's cause when he puts a smile on his face during Hartley's welcoming speech for new pilots about the hazards the flyers are about to experience and when Luke starts spending time learning French and picking the mind of Captain Charles Eugene Jules Marie Nungesser, France's #3 ace with 43 aerial victories, at the flier's nearby base. On August 16, 1918, Luke goes into combat for the first time ... but no one except Major Hartney, Lt. Roberts, and Lt. Wehner. Part of a sixteen plane afternoon escort mission led by Hartney, the major is almost shot out of the sky returning to base, but has the German pilot suddenly break off the fight. Missing again when the pilots return to base, Luke finally shows up and when he lands, instantly starts shouting about "getting a Hun," a victory no one can confirm. Not happy the triumph is denied for lack of hard evidence, for the rest of his brief career, Luke will fly with confirmation papers in his plane, ready for signature by ground troops or other fliers. It is just one more attribute that separates Luke from the other fighter pilots at Coincy (for straying over enemy lines without orders and unescorted, and putting in his combat report, Luke is grounded for three days).
Men Of The 27th
Nungesser
Luke's Spad
Throughout Luke's combat adventures, his weapon of choice is the fighter plane being flown by his squadron, the French SPAD XIII. A recent "upgrade" for the squadron (the plane's detractors hate it because it has not been "debugged" before being released to the pilots of the front line, seems to constantly experience engine problems, and can literally shake itself to pieces in the air if not kept perfectly maintained by ground personnel), the Spad biplane is designed to take on the latest Germany fighter planes (chiefly from Anthony Fokker). More rugged than the Nieuport, but not as nimble in the air, the fighter can take more damage than its predecessor, can out-dive most of its opponents and has an impressive rate of climb provided by its 235-horsepower, liquid-cooled Hispano-Suiza eight cylinder engine (it takes four days to break down the engine, fix it, and then reassemble the unit). It achieves its firepower through two cockpit front mounted British Vickers .303-caliber machine guns synchronized to fire through its rotating propeller. Canvas, wood, glue, and some metal, when ready for combat the SPAD has a length of 20 feet and 6 inches, a height of 8 feet and 6 inches, weighs about 1,250 pounds, has a wingspan of 27 feet and 1 inch, flies at a maximum speed of 131 miles-per-hour, can stay aloft for two hours, and has a service ceiling of 22,300 feet (a very cold place to be in an open cockpit). There will be 8,472 built during WWI. In the early fall of 1918, the Spad fliers of the Western Front receive orders to support an Allied offensive to beat back a German salient near the French town of St. Mihiel, with special emphasis on knocking down German aerial observation balloons.
Luke And His Spad
The most dangerous aerial combat of the time, the hydrogen filled balloons of rubberized silk are known as "Drachen" (dragons) to the Germans and "sausages" to the Allies, and come with a price tag of $100,000. Behind enemy lines, each balloon an individual unit called a "nest" with a ground crew responsible for the lift and the descent of each drachen (5,000 feet in the sky is considered the optimal height for observing the enemy) and its maintenance, with protection provided by an array of anti-aircraft canons capable of knocking a fighter out of the sky from 14,000 feet below (firing at a rate of ten shells per minute), machine guns (firing upwards of 400 rounds per minute), ground troops armed with German Mauser rifles (along with the gondola observer hanging below the balloon that sometimes also includes a machine gun) and swarming enemy fighter planes. And if all that isn't enough, attacks from below are impaired by steel cables, the lower elevations bring the fighters closer to the balloon's defenders, making them easier to hit, while attacks from above can lead to the fighter being blown out of the sky when the balloons explode. Considered almost suicide missions by most pilots, hearing about the difficulty in attacking the drachen (the #1 balloon buster of the war will be Belgium ace Willy Coppens, who loses his left leg removing 35 from the war's chess board) and then seeing them off in the distance as August becomes September, Luke finds the challenge he has been looking for and decides to make eliminating the priority targets his personal project, even developing new combat tactics for their removal which include having a wingman deal with enemy fighters, attacking at around twilight when air patrols are pulled back because of darkness and ground personnel can't see very well and are often sent off for dinner, and switching out one of his standard machine guns for one that also spits out incendiary bullets.
Drachen
A Dangerous Job
Coppens Attacks
Unaware that Luke has already resolved to shoot down the first sausage he sees, on September 12, 1918, when the Arizonian arrives late for a briefing on the day's morning patrol, he discovers that to put him in his place and expose him as the braggart and coward most believe him to be, the rookie pilot has been given the assignment of going after any balloons spotted while the rest of the squadron flies cover (an assignment originally given to Lt. Jack Hoover). Taking off in a drizzle of rain, Luke chases three German planes into the clouds before finally spotting a German balloon near the French town of Marienville. Attacking from above, in a straight approach at the balloon, Luke peppers the drachen with machine gun fire, but the balloon refuses to explode, causing the lieutenant to put his plane into a loop and then half roll to make an even closer second pass at his target as the Germans frantically try to lower it to ground. Finding his guns jammed, Luke clears one for firing by banging on the weapon with a hammer he pulls out from under his seat, banks upward and around flying in a chandelle through anti-aircraft fire for a third time, and finally has the satisfaction of seeing the balloon explode (also dying in the balloon's funeral pyre is Lt. Willi Klemm who is hit in the chest by one of Luke's errant rounds before being burnt to a crisp). Lesson learned from his first unconfirmed aerial victory, Luke then flies off in search of ground personnel that might have witnessed his triumph, and finds plenty of witnesses among the member of the American 5th Balloon Company at the nearby site of an Allied observation balloon. Landing successfully near the balloon, Luke gets Lt. Joseph Fox and Lt. Maurice Smith to sign documents about Luke's kill, then the pilot takes off for his air base at Rembercort, but almost turns back to the pasture he has just left when his SPAD begins to fail. Second landing also a success, with night finally falling on the front, Luke gets a blanket and spends a cold and wet night sleeping under the wing of his damaged fighter, before being driven back to base the next day in a two-seat motorcycle (upon receiving the Spad for repair, one mechanic upon seeing all the tears and bullet holes in the plane will state to its pilot, "I've seen lots of planes come in, but when they come in this way, the pilot that flies 'em doesn't climb out of the cockpit." To which Luke replies, sticking his fingers through a bullet hole six inches from his seat, "You take care of the aircraft, chief. I'll take care of myself. If I was going to get killed, this would have been it. They can't get me.").
Rembercort
Pop Goes The Weasel!
Balloon Busting
Having seen another balloon near where the afternoon fight has taken place, Luke is on the ground for only a few minutes before he starts looking for another Spad he can take up, but Grant is having none of it and orders Luke to stand down, which pushes a livid Luke to go over his commander's head to Hartney ... who for the sake of some semblance of a command structure backs Grant. Mollified for the moment, Luke returns to his bunk where he and Werner discuss the day's activities, their partnership, and tactic tweaks that might be effective in the future. The next day, September 15, both men are to be part of an attack on the balloon Grant had vetoed Luke going after the previous day, and three other drachen near this time as part of a eight plane combat patrol led by Lt. Clapp who only 24-hours before wanted the Arizonian out of the squadron but now is a total proponent of the sausage killer. Troubles though plague the patrol and one by one planes return to base with issues and Luke finds himself with only Lt. Hoover. The men make one attack on the balloon, but by the time they turn for another pass, the drachen has been lowered into its nest, and with six Fokkers approaching, the pair decides they had better return to base themselves. Meanwhile, the late Werner, his plane issues solved for the moment, arrives where he believes his friend will be and finds himself alone in the air. Thinking he is once more protecting his buddy when he sees a Spad in the distance being attacked by six Fokkers, Wehner breaks up the Germans, diving into their midst and shooting down two before peeling off for Rembercort. Balloons still up, an afternoon flight is next put together to blind the Germans' sky eyes. Again, Wehner takes off late after experiencing engine issues, and this time trying to find the rest of the patrol, he finds himself near a balloon over the village of Spincourt. Just as bold as his buddy, Wehner goes on a solo attack and empties his gun into the gasbag and is rewarded with his own explosive victory. Finding himself the target of five Fokkers and without any ammo left, Wehner dives away and doesn't celebrate his triumph until he is back Rembercort. Meanwhile in a different section of the front, Luke spots a balloon, closes on it, and has another drachen victory after firing 125 rounds into the sausage. Pulling up, he then wings towards a second balloon above the lines at Bois d'Hingry and this time he only requires fifty rounds to turn his target into a flaming mushroom cloud, then its back to base for more fuel and ammo, and another argument over going back up when Lt. Fred Ordway, the 27th's salvage officer deems Luke's plane too badly damaged to do any more flying that day.
Another One Bites The Dust
Luke
Scratch Another Balloon
The day after the successful demonstration, Luke and Wehner are given the day off (which Luke uses to work on his damaged plane), which Grant uses to begin creating the paperwork to make the Arizonian a first lieutenant and promote him out of the 27th and into his own flight command. chaffing at the bit to set more drachen aflame, the partners wake on September 18th to a partly cloudy day with low fog and drizzle that turns to rain ... but by the afternoon the inclement weather has burnt away and the pair fly into action again at about 4:00 pm. Shooter and protector, both expecting nothing but more success, the pair head for two balloons that have been spotted near the town of Labeuville. Dropping out of a cloud they have used for camouflage, the men bring both sausages down, but then they have to face the wrath of a flight of six Fokkers from the Royal Prussian Jagdstaffel 15 coming in from the west. Climbing to assist his partner after the second balloon bursts into flames, Luke shoots down a Jasta 15 fighter with a head on attack, then takes out the second with a slight slip turn and more bullets (a third fighter runs for home) ... his antagonists taken out in a brief ten lifetime-long seconds. Meanwhile, higher up and still a distance away, Wehner fights with three other fighters until German Lt. Georg von Hantlemann, an ace from Prussia who will end the war with 25 confirmed victories (and five possibles), finally sends a burst of slugs into the wingman's Spad and sends it spiraling down into the ground (as the attack begins, Wehner dies almost instantly from bullet that hits him in the back of the head, then with the crash, has almost every bone in his body shattered with his head nearly broken off at the neck). Climbing again, Luke finds the sky where Wehner had been now clear, and both men use to the other vanishing in the pursuit of enemies, he makes his turn back to Rembercort ... and over the village of St. Hilaire finds a new target (a two-seat German Halberstadt CL.II observation plane), new enemies (another six Fokker patrol, and new friends (a patrol of French Spads). Leaving the Spads to deal with the Germans, Luke engages the observation plane flown by Lt. Ernst Hohne (his observer is Lt. Ernst Schultz) and coming in on its tail, sends the plane into a field near a French infantry unit. Luke then lands, and has his picture taken with the wreckage of the observation plane, phones the airfield to tell them he is okay and will be returning soon, asks after Wehner and is told he is missing (the dead pilot will finish the war an ace with one fighter and five balloons to his credit, victories that result in the German-American be awarded a Distinguished Service Cross and a Distinguished Service Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster), but instead of returning to base, puts his distressed plane down near a unit of American artillery and spends another night sleeping with his Spad ... a pariah of his squadron at the beginning of September, in taking out five German aircraft in ten minutes of combat, the already ace flier from Arizona has become a hero to his unit, a double ace, and passed Eddie Rickenbacker for the #1 American fighter pilot of the European theater.
Fokker D.VII
Hantlemann
Luke With One Of His Five Victories
Rickenbacker
Back at Rembercort by September 25th, Luke is assigned a new wingman for his balloon killing efforts, a 22-year-old veteran of the air war with three confirmed victories and one probable kill, Lt. Ivan Andrew "Robbie" Evans, and given an assignment, get use to flying with Evans on a mission in which the pair will fly over their own lines dropping candy and cigarettes to the soldiers in trenches below. The next day it is back to the war for the pair. In the morning, Luke grabs a Spad and goes out on patrol by himself looking for balloons, but finds none. In the afternoon, Luke is joined by Evans and the new team leaves on a balloon hunting expedition over the Meuse River at about 5:45 in the late afternoon. Finding a sausage suitable for slaughtering, the men are about to attack when they break off and instead, throw themselves at five German D.VIII Fokkers coming down from overhead. In the aerial melee that follows, Luke shoots a fighter out of the sky (the victory will be unconfirmed), but then finds two more German planes on his tail and dives away from the action while once more trying to unjam the Spad's temperamental Vickers machine guns. One gun finally made functional once more, Luke watches as off in the distance, Evans battles a number of Fokkers until he spirals down to the ground after being hit by a D.VIII sporting a blue fuselage and tail, a green nose, and just behind the cockpit, a green and white checkerboard pattern, and near the Fokker's tail, the detailed head of a werewolf in gold paint ... the plane of 20-year-old Lt. Franz Buchner, an ace who will end the war with 40 confirmed victories and . Down, Evans is never seen again and his final resting place remains unknown.
Buchner's Werewolf Fokker
Given no flight assignment for 9/27 as he had gone up the day before in the last mission of the 27th's day, enraging Grant again, Luke takes a Spad and goes off to talk downing balloons with the French ace Charles Nungesser (he has six balloon kills at the time himself) at a nearby airfield. In the afternoon, he leaves the Frenchman behind and goes looking for balloons to shoot down, but finding none, decides to spend the evening at an advanced 27th airfield where Vasconcells flight is located. The next day, thick fog and rain make operations impossible until the afternoon. Arriving at the forward base, Grant and Hartney have yet another meeting about what to do with Luke, but as they are deciding his mission for the day, the decision is taken out of their hands when the Arizonian, without permission or filing a flight plan, roars away from the field on another solo hunt, unwilling to put any other pilots at risk protecting his rear. Finding prey near the town of Bantheville, Luke finds a drachen sitting in its nest and blows it up with one pass of his incendiary bullets. No other targets in sight, Luke decides to avoid more of Grant's wrath for the day by spending the night with his French friends in the Cigognes squadron. On the morning of the 29th, Luke returns to Rembercort and reports to Grant for his orders for the day ... and the two go at it again over a myriad of issues, with Luke being told he is not to leave the field to go hunting until exactly 5:56 that evening. Considering it extreme foolishness to go on the attack at an exact time when everyone knows the balloons must come down as soon as possible, and wearying of arguing with his commander, instead of waiting, Luke leaves the headquarters building, makes his way over to his fighter, and takes off for the group's advanced field. There, he meets with Vasconcells and Hartney about going after three balloons near the village of Murvaux. Furious he has been disobeyed again, Grant tracks down the flier and over the phone, orders Vasconcells to arrest America's leading fighter pilot (seething, Grant tells his clerk that he is going to recommend Luke for the Distinguished Service Cross, and then have him court-martialed). Told now by Hartney (the commander is unaware Grant has asked for Luke to be arrested he is not to fly until 5:56 pm) he is not to fly until the mission time of 5:56, it is now the major's turn to become riled when he notices Luke go out to his plane and fire up its engine ahead of time, and he tells Vasconcells to go over and pull the pilot out of his plane. Told now by Hartney (the commander is unaware Grant has asked for Luke to be arrested he is not to fly until 5:56 pm), it is now the major's turn to become riled and he shakes his fist at the lieutenant as he gets in his plane and flies back to Rembercort. Seconds after he is out of sight, Luke lifts off on his last combat patrol of the war. Flying over the headquarters of an American observation balloon unit near the village of Souilly, the fighter pilot drops a message in a metallic container with a white streamer attached to the men below, "WATCH THE THREE HUN BALLOONS ON THE MEUSE. LT. LUKE." Doing as they were told to, minutes later the men see explosions flashes as Luke downs three more balloons. Advised that the lieutenant has once more done what he said he'd do, Rembercort sets off flares to guide the pilot back home, but Luke never returns (back in Arizona, seeing that the flowers Luke planted at his parents' home before leaving for Europe have bloomed early, lillies in the shape of a white cross, Tillie Luke tells Frank's youngest brother Bill that something is wrong with his older brother.) and is listed as missing in action on the 30th.
Busting Again
Story revealed after the war when witnesses come forward, including seventeen residents of the village of Murvaux that sign an affidavit as to what they witnessed in the early evening of 9/29/1918 (the document is forwarded to the American military by the mayor of Murvaux). After dropping his note, Luke proceeds up the Meuse to where the balloons are located, taking out the first one before being set upon by ten Fokkers protecting the area. Wildly throwing his Spad about the air, Luke takes out two German fighters (the kills will go as unconfirmed), but the other enemy planes pepper the Arizonian and his plane begins a slow spiral towards the ground (sometime during this ten minute melee, Luke is severely wounded in the shoulder by either fire from the Fokkers, or from gunners on the ground trying to protect the balloons). Registering the Spad as done, avoiding the hail of metal coming from their own ground positions, the German planes break off the encounter and in the gathering darkness, head for home. Only 164 feet from becoming a splat on the French countryside though, Luke manages to pull his shredded fighter out of its dive and goose the Spad into a second balloon attack. Stitching the balloon over the Briere Farm with incendiary bullets from both of his machine guns, the pilot flies through the flaming hydrogen gas explosion his bullets cause, banks, and goes after the balloon near Milly that it's crew is frantically trying to land. Aim true again, the balloon's death lights up the night sky ... attacking with no help whatsoever, Luke has shot down three drachen in roughly 15 minutes of combat flying. Spad coming apart rapidly, the lieutenant points his fighter towards home, but realizing he won't make it, begins looking for a place he can set down and heads for a muddy pasture near a forest line outside of the village of Murvaux that he can use to escape towards his own lines, strafing a line of marching German infantry on the way there (at least six will never fight again). Successfully putting his Spad down in the field, Luke pulls himself out of the fighter's cockpit and is in the process of heading for a nearby stream where he can clean his shoulder wound and slake his thirst. He never makes it. Confronted by a German patrol, instead of surrendering (Luke has boasted for months that he will never be taken alive), the Arizonian whips out his standard issue M1911 .45 caliber pistol and begins taking out more Germans he is only one generation removed from, until he is finally killed by a bullet he takes in the chest. A major pest to their military efforts removed, the Germans then strip the body of everything but a wrist watch, cart the naked corpse away in a manure cart, and then throw the body, now in a burlap sack into a shallow, unmarked grave behind the Murvaux church (discovered in January of 1919, the body will receive a military funeral and at his parents' request, is buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, located east of the village of Romagne-sous-Montfaucon ... he is at Space 1232, Section 56 of the cemetery) .
About To Blow
Final Fight About To Begin
In ten combat missions over eight days during the month of September, 1918, the 21-year-old has combat confirmation killings on 14 balloons and 4 planes, and at the time of his death is the #1 American ace of the war (Rickenbacker will eventually pass Luke and end the war as America's #1 fighter pilot with 26 confirmed aerial victories) ... a record none of the great aces of the war, including Baron von Richtofen (80 victories), Rene Fonck (75 victories), Billy Bishop (72 victories), Ernst Udet (62 victories), and Edward Mannock (61 victories), will come close to. Despite his many problems with Hartney and Grant, the men recommend Luke (now posthumously promoted to First Lieutenant) for a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor. Approved, the Arizonian will finish the war with a Medal of Honor (he is the very first airman to win the award) and two Distinguished Service Crosses (in Phoenix, Luke's father is given the medal in May of 1919 ... later, the family will donate Luke's Medal of Honor to the National Museum of the United States Air Force outside of Dayton, Ohio, where it resides in a small exhibit that includes the pilot's goggles, the gunsight from his last Spad, documents written by Luke, and an assortment of personal items ... and in the museum's Early Years Gallery, there is fully restored Spad painted exactly as Luke's had been).
Headlines
Luke's Medal Of Honor
The Luke family soldiers on without Frank, and to this day remain movers and shakers in the state of Arizona and town of Phoenix (Luke's father will live until 1939, and his mother, Tillie, will last until 1947). Luke's fiancee, Marie Rapson, marries a young naval officer on destroyer duty in the port of San Diego, Gordon MacAlister "Red" Jackson in 1919, but never forgets her first love. Though the couple have two children, they eventually break up after WWII and Marie spends time in Oklahoma raising her sons and teaching the piano to budding musicians ... and she gives up another piece of her life to the military when her jet flying son is killed in a collision with another aircraft piloted by an admiral's erratic flying son (who will be found culpable in the accident). In her 80s, Marie will visit a wax museum in Scottsdale, Arizona containing a Frak Luke Jr. display and visits his grave during an outing to Europe with friends, before marrying again. Dead from breast cancer at 91, her ashes are scattered at sea, just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge.
France
Gone, but not forgotten despite his death taking place over a century ago, the 21-year-old is remembered in countless books, magazines, and newspaper article, along with making occasional appearances in songs, movies (a major character in 2006's "Flyboys" is loosely based on Luke), and on television. And there are lasting tributes too ... among them is a Frank Luke Street near in Addison Airport in Addison, Texas, Luke is named the Class Exemplar of the United States Air Force Academy's Class of 2010, the Arizona border town of Lukeville is named after the pilot, in 1919, Phoenix hosts the first Luke Memorial Air Tournament, the very first American Legion post, Post 1, is named after the fighter pilot, from 1919 to 1932 there is a Luke Field in Hawaii, there is a memorial to Luke and fellow members of the Class of 1918 in front of the old building that use to house the Phoenix Union High School, about fifteen miles west of Phoenix is the base America builds in 1941 to train its fighter pilots to win WWII, the still operating (the elite flying unit, the Thunderbirds will be created there in 1953) largest fighter pilot training facility in the world (ironically, West German pilots will one day take their training there) is Luke Air Force Base, and in 2018, the 56th Fighter Wing of Luke Field, members of the Luke family, and citizens of Phoenix honor the airman on the 100th anniversary of his death in France. And in front of the Arizona State Capitol, on Armistice Day of 1930, a statue of Frank Luke Jr., sculpted by Roger Noble Burnham (among his other works is the Tommy Trojan statue on the campus of USC and the statue of General Douglas MacArthur in Los Angeles' MacArthur Park).
State House Memorial
Luke
Thank you for your service, Lieutenant ... and rest in peace.
Balloon Buster
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Absolutely fantastic article! This is probably the most thorough well-researched article on Frank Luke that I have ever seen. Great job!
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