Frank Luke
Frank Luke Jr was one of thousands of men who answered the call to fight the enemy in the skies in the service of the United States Air Force during the First World War. Born in 1897 in Phoenix Arizona, Luke’s family had emigrated from Germany in the 1870s.
When America entered the war in the early part of 1917, Luke joined the Aviation Section of the US Signal Corps. He trained to be a pilot and, after his commission as a Second Lieutenant in early 1918, deployed to France. In July 1918, he joined the 27th Aero Squadron, a unit which was under continual standing orders to attack and destroy German observation balloons which hovered above the front lines and watched the movement of enemy troops and artillery often very far away.
Many accounts of Luke describe him as arrogant and inclined to disobey orders. He was therefore disliked by a number of his fellow airmen and superiors. In spite of this, Luke persistently volunteered to go on missions to attack strategically significant targets which were heavily defended by anti-aircraft guns on the ground. Surviving records confirm that between September 12 and 29, 1918, Luke was responsible for the shooting down of fourteen German balloons and four planes, achieved during ten flying sorties in only eight days. No other pilot of the First World War beat this record. It seems he wasn’t known as the “The Balloon Buster” among his comrades and his superior officers for nothing.
The final flight of Luke’s life was arguably his bravest. It is certainly the one for which he has been best remembered. On September 29, 1918, the United States military was engaged in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, a key component of the Allies’ final offensive of the First World War and the largest in the history of the United States up to that point. Luke was ordered by his squadron’s commanding officer, Captain Alfred A. Grant, to remain grounded that night. Grant informed Luke, in no uncertain terms, that if he flew the next day he would be charged as being absent without leave. But Luke directly disobeyed the no-fly order and defied the threat of arrest. So eager was he to continue his spectacular run of attacks against the enemy, he took off on September 29 without authorization and flew to a forward air base at Verdun. Here, his group commander, a Major Hartney, revoked the arrest order and that evening Luke flew out to go balloon hunting again. On his sortie over the front that night, Luke flew six miles behind the German lines to the area of Dun-sur-Meuse, where he shot down three enemy balloons, one after the other. In doing so, however, he was severely wounded by a single machine gun bullet fired from a hilltop above him, a mile east of the last balloon, which passed through his body.
Luke’s plane fell out of the sky and landed in the village of Murvaux. He shot at and killed a group of German soldiers as he came down. Alone and weakened by his wound, miles behind the enemy’s lines, Luke staggered out of his plane towards the nearby stream, known as Ruisseau de Bradon, leading to the Meuse River. On being approached by German infantry soldiers, Luke fired his pistol at his attackers and then finally died.
For his bravery, the American Air Force promoted Frank posthumously to the rank of First Lieutenant.