Moving even closer this time, he opened fire to rake a line of holes across the Drachen's side. With his mechanics, he would work on his Spad, honing the engine and tightening turnbuckles to try and increase its maneuverability. American infantrymen rose from their positions, running in the direction of his battered plane. Had he not expected his victory to earn him a new niche in the Squadron, the negative reaction would not have affected him so deeply. Everybody needs someone, and Frank Luke found his only human solace among these French pilots who seemed to welcome his company. On September 29, he was patrolling observation . We are located just one hour east of Houston, Texas in Anahuac, Texas. As they neared Buzy, Frank banked his wings towards Joe, and then the two men broke away from formation to do their thing. In Frank's own mind, though he might be the greatest curse on enemy aircraft along the Western Front, he was a jinx to any Allied pilot who flew with him. They all love spending time with family and being outdoors, going for horseback rides and being in the arena practicing. He first dropped a message to a nearby United States balloon company, alerting them to observe his imminent attacks. Frank Luke : biography May 19, 1897 - September 29, 1918 On September 30 the Germans buried Luke in the Murvaux cemetery, from where his body was retrieved two months later by American forces. During his tenure at Kansas State Agricultural College, Grant had served in the campus military cadet corps. Three balloons in three days. Luke was born May 19, 1897 in Phoenix, Arizona after his family emigrated from Germany to America in 1873 and settled in Arizona. Knowing well the young man would be fighting the weight of emotion brought on by the loss of his friend, Hartney asked the stable and reliable Eddie Rickenbacker to join him. In the initial attack, Lieutenant Charles Sands went down in a fatal divedead his first week on the front. "Wehner's nature, on the other hand, was quite different. Shortly after takeoff he sighted a balloon near Montsec and fired 100 rounds into it. Breaking through the cloud of flaming hydrogen, the shadows were still there--and continuing to pour a steady stream of bullets into the side of his Spad. "He seemed to be saying, 'Don't kid me. Banking his Spad, he hurled himself with abandon at the three Fokkers, both guns filling the heavens with deadly missiles of death. Not only was the experiment approved, but it was also publicized and even closely watched by the commander of all the aerial forces, Colonel Billy Mitchell himself. asked one of the first to arrive. he shouted. Luke fretted the time away, waiting for Spad No. Ignoring the one victory his squadron had scored that day, he threw a gauntlet before the swaggering blonde pilot that gave him so many headaches. I was just telling Jerry here, there are three drachens near Verdun. It's easy to see why; Luke was a huge war hero, and that wasn't the half of it. After the war, Hartney would describe Luke as: "Bashful, self-conscious, and decidedly not a mixerhis reticence was interpreted as conceit. That night the entire 1st Pursuit Group held a dinner in honor of Frank Luke, now a reluctant hero. (It is noteworthy that Luke's time on the front was comparatively quite short, and 17 of Luke's 18 victories were officially recorded as destroyed, versus only 11 of Rickenbacker's 26.) "In a way, I resented his attitude," Hartney later said. After serving with the Royal Air Force, the Canadian-born aviator had assumed command of the 27th Aero Squadron in September 1917 when it was sent to Toronto to train for war. Archie continued to break all around and the skies were full of flaming onions and flashing, ground-fired machine-gun tracers. He didn't even know he had an ally behind him, single-handedly taking on four enemy planes, as Hartney banked and headed safely home to land at Coincy. Luke and Wehner had become a legendary team among both friend and foe. Nothing incriminating was found, but the suspicion continued to hang over Joe Wehner for the rest of his military career. On these trips Wehner acted as an escort or guard, despite Luke's objections. "Any man who gets a balloon has my respect," Lieutenant Vasconcells said as the officers chatted in the mess hall on the evening September 11. Showing Editorial results for frank luke. I thought he was diving right into the fabric. The Eagle Squadron pilots claimed six victories that day, three of them by Lieutenant Donald Huston who now had raised his total to 4 victories and was close to becoming the only ace in the Squadron. They called him The Arizona Boaster because of his brash, matter-of-fact talk of what he would do when at last he saw combat. As he came out of the door, he pointed out the two German observation balloons to the east of our field, both of which could be plainly seen with the naked eye. Advertisement. Asking the 21-year old kid from Arizona to become a part of this fraternity was akin to trying to mix oil and water. He's gone, the poor kid, but he went in a blaze of glory. Where Luke was concerned, mechanical problems became an excuse for those who disliked him for his boisterous talk, to label him independent, rebellious against authority, and a loner. If he did not attend college, he must have pulled some fancy strings to get into pilot training. Luke spent the day and that night with the men on the ground, weary infantrymen, and the crew of an American balloon. Luke was eager to test his ideas of hunting balloons in the earliest stages of advancing nightfall, and it was nearly eight o'clock when the skies lit up near Chaumont, and Frank Luke became a 6-kill Ace with three balloon victories in a single day. "Why are Wehner and Roberts shooting at me?" The legend of Frank Luke wouldn't die, even when he failed to return. His first question was, "Has Wehner come back?" That left only one airplane unaccounted for, the Spad flown by Lieutenant Frank Luke of Arizona. [6] When he returned to the 1st Pursuit Group's base at Rembercourt the next day, he was confronted by Captain Alfred A. A closer look at his face reveals not the smile of a victorious hero, but the haunting gaze of a tortured soul. Saturday the 14th would be a different matter, however, a banner day for the entire Group. Rank and Organization: Second Lieutenant, 27th Aero Squadron, 1st Pursuit Group. And then the six Fokkers were on him, supplemented by three more that had slipped in from the north to catch him in a classic crossfire. The lead Fokker had nailed him and a second was coming in right behind him. A good senior commander doesn't undercut those beneath him, and Hartney was a good senior commander. Where a well-placed machinegun might kill dozens of soldiers, a bomb perhaps even a hundred, a good balloon could account for thousands of deaths in a matter of hours. Cradling his badly wounded shoulder, he forced himself out of the cockpit and ran for the tree line, working his way to a nearby creek. From a well-placed balloon near the front lines, an observer could watch enemy troop movements and direct deadly and devastating artillery fire with pinpoint accuracy. The following day American troops of the AEF's First Division met the Germans at Montdidier, repulsed their attack, and then pushed on to capture the strategically located town of Cantigny. He is a celebrity war hero. From the arrival of Frank Luke on July 25 until his purported victory on August 16, the only victories scored by the entire 27th Aero Squadron were the six enemy planes claimed in the August 1 battle. Rickenbacker described them thus: "There was a curious friendship between Luke and Wehner. They have also lived in Cedar Park, TX and Round Rock, TX. Because of his arrogance and occasional tendencies to fly alone and disobey orders, Luke was disliked by some of his peers and superiors. On the edge of his peripheral vision, Luke noticed the movements of two airplanes shadowing him. From the small grass field hidden by a ring of trees and artificial camouflage, the 1st Pursuit Group would be launching support for the first American offensive of World War I near the town of St. Mihiel. "After the second patrol I had scarcely landed and made my way to Group headquarters when Grant, Clapp, and Dawson came galloping up, highly excited," Hartney later wrote of that day. He was a bare-knuckle boxer, excelled in sports and other activities. Reports that a day later his body was found with an empty gun and a bullet hole in his chest, with seven dead Germans in front of him were proven erroneous. He just runs over to Wehner's ship and he says they're going out to attack that balloon at Waroq. At least 13 people in the village of Murvaux, France, watched his final blaze of glory. Approached by German infantry, Luke drew his Colt Model 1911 pistol and fired a few rounds at his attackers before dying. Then he sat down amid a round of laughter, forcing a smile he really didn't feel in his heart. He arrived just in time to find Luke streaking for home, seven Fokkers on his tail. To say that Frank Luke was a loner who didn't need anybody on the night he became America's Ace of Aces would be to ignore one of military history's legendary friendships. Like Frank Luke, Joe had been a stand-out athlete in high school, captaining the 1913 Everett High School football team to an undefeated season. Denoted the Arizona Balloon Buster, Sausage Buster and, at one point, America's Ace of Aces, Luke's feats are well documented. Luke was impatient to get going. If Frank Luke swaggered a little more than usual on September 13, he had good reason. "Okay," Hartney finally said. The mechanics towed it back to Rembercourt and shook their heads in amazement. Photo by Lauren Maeve Photography. They'd fallen in the previous days, demonstrating their loyalty to the Balloon Buster. In death, Frank Luke finally earned the respect of his fellow pilots, the admiration that had eluded him in life. Frank was born on 19th May 1897 to a giant family. The other pilots nodded in ascent, adding their own small chatter to the subject of balloon hunting on the eve before the St. Mihiel Offensive was to begin. His parents, Frank and Otillia Luke were German immigrants who had settled in Phoenix in 1873. Down here you stink! Fifteen minutes later, in keeping with Major Hartney's timetable, Frank Luke was airborne and heading east. There was no third kill for Luke that afternoon. 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