Second Lieutenant Frank Luke, Jr.: Arizona’s Balloon Buster

Written by James Lide, History Associates Incorporated

America’s second highest scoring World War I fighter ace took off from Verdun to launch an attack on German observation balloons, but never returned.

Daring and undisciplined, Frank Luke, Jr., the son of German immigrants, seized the opportunity to join in America’s World War I air war against Germany.  The fighter pilot enlisted in the Signal Corps Aviation Section in 1917 and arrived in France the following year, where he took on the dangerous task of targeting German Drachen observation balloons.  This was not for the faint-of-heart: to survive these missions, pilots skirted anti-aircraft and machine gun fire before hitting the top of the balloon precisely, while avoiding the resulting blast.  Luke’s first hit came on September 12, 1918, when his bullets ripped a hole through a Drachen and caused a hydrogen explosion.  His remarkable accuracy soon earned him the nickname of “Arizona’s Balloon Buster.”

Continued success throughout the month only made Luke more brazen.  On September 29, despite serious injuries and two Fokker aircraft in pursuit, Luke destroyed his eighth, ninth, and tenth balloons before German machine gun nests and planes forced him to crash land over France.  According to witnesses from the village of Murvaux, the fearless pilot refused to surrender.  Instead, he drew his pistol and continued to fight the approaching German troops until he received mortal wounds.

For three months, the Americans knew nothing of Luke’s fate.  Upon finally learning of his heroism, the Army Air Service posthumously awarded Luke the branch’s first Medal of Honor. Fellow ace Eddie Rickenbacker later called Luke “the greatest fighting pilot in the war,” and Luke’s commanding officer asserted that “no one had the sheer contemptuous courage that boy possessed.”  Luke is buried at the U.S. Military Cemetery at Romagne, France.