Frank was born in Arizona, one of Frank, Sr. and Otillia Luke's nine children. He grew up in the
Salt River Valley outside of Phoenix lettering on his high school baseball and football teams and winning bare-knuckle prizefights.
When America joined the Great War in the spring of 1917, Luke went through flight training and arrived on the Western Front
in July of the following year.
The reception by his squadron mates was
cold after he boasted of shooting down a German fighter - with no witnesses - in one of his first combats. His commanding
officer disliked his cavalier attitude and one of his few real friends, Lt. Joe Wehner, was killed in combat on September
18th.
Depressed after Wehner's death, Frank
returned early from an abbreviated leave in Paris. He wrote home often but carefully avoided telling his mother that he was
now serving in the middle of a combat zone. By the 29th of September, 1918, Frank had raised his score to 15 and though
still unpopular among his squadron mates, nobody doubted him anymore.
That same evening, just hours after a bitter argument with his commander, he disappeared toward German lines.
Legend says Luke took off without permission after being placed under arrest
by the squadron ranking officer. He then shot down three German balloons, fought it out with a flight of enemy aircraft
and strafed a troop column before he was forced down behind German lines. The legend continues by claiming
that Frank fought it out with his pistol against hopeless odds before being gunned down. For this alleged act he was
awarded America's highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor.
But later versions of the story
claim that Luke never took out any balloons at all... he was simply shot out of the sky and died moments after a horrible
crash without performing any of the feats for which the Medal of Honor was bestowed. Still other rumors claim that he
ran out of fuel over German lines only to be shot while resisting capture by enemy troops, or that he went AWOL and took
off without permission.
Stories have abounded for almost ninety years about what
truly happened when Frank Luke disappeared over Verdun on that cold, gray Sunday evening.
With the publication of THE STAND: The Final Flight of Lt. Frank Luke,
Jr., the truth is finally known.
