Frank Luke Draws His Sidearm

Frank Luke was America’s second highest scoring ace in World War One. Over the course of twelve furious days, he shot down 17 enemy aircraft, many of them observation balloons, by far the most important, the most difficult and the most heavily defended targets of the war. He had been a fullback on his undefeated state champion high school football team in Phoenix, Arizona, before taking a job in the copper mines. An altercation with a professional fighter got him into the bare-knuckle boxing circuit, and when he tired of this he opened a dance hall and, wearing a dress, taught tough and lonely miners how to dance. He learned aerobatics while showing off over his fiancée’s house, and on his first combat training flight he thoroughly thrashed his veteran instructor. Desperate to fit in, he became known as a loud-mouthed braggart, and later a coward, but once he partnered with another outcast from his squadron he set a record string of amazing victories never equaled in that war. Those that saw him fly said he was the best pilot they had ever seen, one who would have easily defeated Manfred Von Richthofen, the infamous Red Baron. His actions on the ground after being shot down on his final mission made him the first aviator ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices