2nd Lt. Frank Luke, Jr.,
USAS
Victories:
15.83 (18)
Squadrons:
27th Aero (Eagle)
Born:
19 May 1897 Phoenix, Arizona
Died: 29 September 1918 Killed In Action near
Murvaux, France
Awards:
Medal of Honor (posthumously)
Notes
Posthumously
awarded the Medal of Honor , the "Arizona Balloon
Buster" was the leading ace in the United States Air Service
at the time of his death. After aerial combat training at
Issoudun, France, Luke was assigned to the 27th Pursuit Squadron
under Harold Hartney on 25 July 1918. Often flying alone or with
his friend Joseph Wehner , Luke shot down 18 enemy balloons and
planes in 17 days before he was killed in action. After flaming
three German balloons on 29 September 1918, his SPAD S.XIII was
shot down by ground fire. Resisting capture, he shot it out with
approaching German soldiers and was killed near the crash site.
After the war, Luke's remains were reinterred at the Romagne
Military Cemetery. Luke Air Force Base was named in his honor.
Medal of
Honor
"After having
previously destroyed a number of enemy aircraft within 17 days he
voluntarily started on a patrol after German observation
balloons. Though pursued by 8 German planes which were protecting
the enemy balloon line, he unhesitatingly attacked and shot down
in flames 3 German balloons, being himself under heavy fire from
ground batteries and the hostile planes. Severely wounded, he
descended to within 50 meters of the ground, and flying at this
low altitude near the town of Murvaux opened fire upon enemy
troops, killing 6 and wounding as many more. Forced to make a
landing and surrounded on all sides by the enemy, who called upon
him to surrender, he drew his automatic pistol and defended
himself gallantly until he fell dead from a wound in the
chest." Medal of Honor citation
Quotes
"Man, how that
kid could fly! No one, mind you, no one, had the sheer
contemptuous courage that boy possessed. I know he's been
criticized for being such a lone-hander, but, good Lord, he won
us priceless victories by those very tactics. He was an excellent
pilot and probably the best flying marksman on the Western Front.
We had any number of expert pilots and there was no shortage of
good shots, but the perfect combination, like the perfect
specimen of anything in the world, was scarce. Frank Luke was the
perfect combination." Harold Hartney , Commanding Officer,
27th Pursuit Squadron
(c) 1995
The Aerodrome
Frank Luke,
nicknamed The Arizona Balloon Buster, was born in Phoenix, Ariz.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army in Sep. 1917, learned to fly, and
arrived on the Front in France in July 1918 where he was assigned
to the 27th Aero Sq. His exceptional bravery earned for him a
reputation for being "wild and reckless" but his fellow
pilots soon realized that he possessed that certain element which
distinguished a great fighter pilot from the others----- complete
fearlessness.
In Sep. 1918, Luke
began a personal campaign against German observation balloons and
airplanes. During a seven-day period, Sep. 12-18, two days of
which he did not fly, he scored 13 confirmed victories, including
an amazing five victories (two balloons and three airplanes) on
the last day.
At sunset on Sep
29, 1918, Luke took off from an advance aerodrome at Verdun to
attack balloons in the area of Dun-sur-Meuse. He never returned.
Following the
Armistice, U.S. troops found Luke's grave in the cemetary of the
small village of Murvaux. According to the local French
residents, Luke had been shot in the chest by ground fire while
circling Murvaux at low altitude, had landed his SPAD and crawled
from it in the gathering dusk, and had died while firing his
service automatic at German soldiers who were searching for him
along a creek bank. His remains were removed to the U.S. Military
Cemetary at Romagne, France for permanent burial.
For his last flight
on Sep 29, Luke was awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down
three enemy balloons while under heavy fire both from the ground
and from eight pursuing enemy airplanes, and for strafing enemy
troops, killing six of them.
At the time of his
death, Luke was the leading ace of the U.S. Air Service with 18
confirmed victories, (14 balloons and 4 airplanes).
(c) USAF
Museum, Dayton OH
Air Force Magazine
January 1987, Vol.
70, No. 1
The Valor Series
By John L. Frisbee,
Contributing Editor
A Man for His Time
The pilot for whom Luke AFB
was named is a unique figure in the history of air warfare.
Frank Luke ranks second to Eddie Rickenbacker among
American aces who flew with the Army Air Service in World War I.
He was the first airman to be awarded the Medal of Honor, but in
several respects, Luke is least typical of the 58 Air Force men
who have earned that distinction in four wars.
Luke earned his wings at
Rockwell Field, Calif., in January 1918. When he showed only
mediocre ability during operational training in France, he was
assigned the unglamorous task of ferrying planes to the Front.
For a young man motivated by a lust for personal glory earned in
combat, that was a bitter blow. He compensated by constant
bragging about his skill as a pursuit pilot and by flouting
regulations.
The final German offensive
kicked off on July 15, with American pursuit squadrons suffering
heavy losses. On July 26, Lieutenant Luke was sent as a
replacement to the 27th Aero Squadron of the 1st Pursuit Group.
He immediately alienated the old hands by bragging about his
untested ability.
On Aug. 1, during his first
patrol, led by squadron commander Maj. Harold Hartney, soon to
become group commander, Luke left the formation to go off on his
own. Turning a deaf ear to Hartney's lecture on air discipline,
Luke repeated that performance in his next two missions, once
claiming an unconfirmed victory.
None of the squadron's
flights wanted the unreliable Luke. He was an outcast with no
friend other than Lt. Joseph Wehner, a quiet young man who was
intrigued by Luke's unorthodox behavior. Luke asked Hartney to
let him fly solo patrols, and Hartney, apparently seeing some
potential in the unruly pariah, agreed.
By Sept. 11, Luke's search
for glory remained unrewarded. That evening, he heard some of the
pilots talking about the most dangerous of targets--tethered
enemy observation balloons. Each balloon site was surrounded by a
ring of antiaircraft guns and a second ring of heavy machine guns
and protected by pursuit planes stationed at nearby strips. The
pilots agreed that they would attack a balloon only if ordered to
do so. Immediately Luke knew he had found his path to fame.
He persuaded Wehner to fly
cover for him the next day when he intended to--and did explode
his first balloon. Heading for home base to post his victory
claim, Luke left Wehner without cover as the latter attacked
another balloon, a pattern that was to continue so long as the
two flew together.
Luke and Wehner soon
concluded that the best time to attack balloons was at dusk, when
the big bags were being hauled down. On Sept. 18, Luke had his
best day, shooting down two balloons, two Fokkers that attacked
Wehner and him, and one German observation plane to become the
leading Air Service ace. Wehner, with eight victories--second
only to Luke--was shot down that day and died in a German
hospital.
Luke's arrogance mounted
with his victories. Several times he landed at French fields to
spend the night. On Sept. 29, after still another AWOL episode,
his new squadron commander, Capt. Al Grant, grounded his
15-victory pilot. Luke's response was to fly to an advance field
where he planned to refuel and attack three balloons reported
near Murvaux.
Grant phoned the field
commander, ordering that Luke be placed under arrest. By
coincidence, Group Commander Hartney landed moments after Luke
and, not knowing the circumstances, approved Luke's request to
hit the balloons.
While Hartney watched, there
were three explosions in the gathering dusk, just as Luke had
predicted. Grant is reported to have said that when Luke
returned, he would court-martial him, then recommend him for the
Medal of Honor.
Luke never returned.
The details of Luke's death
were not known until after the war. His Spad had been damaged on
one pass at a balloon, and perhaps Luke had been wounded. He may
have shot down two of the Fokkers that pursued him in the
twilight. Certainly he machine-gunned German troops near Murvaux,
then landed in a field and was surrounded by enemy soldiers. Luke
drew his pistol and killed three Germans before he was fatally
shot in the chest.
Rickenbacker called Luke
"the greatest fighter who ever went into the air." He
was a fighter to the end. Arrogant, self-centered, and
undisciplined, Luke probably would have been a failure in later
wars, but in the freewheeling days of the baptism of air combat,
he earned a niche for himself in the history of military aviation
with 18 confirmed victories in as many days.
He was, indeed, a man for
his time.
Published
January 1987. For presentation on this web site, some Valor
articles have been amended for accuracy.
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