Terror of the Autumn Skies

Frank Luke, Jr., was an unlikely pilot. In the Great War, when fliers were still "knights of the air," Luke was an ungallant loner, a kid from Arizona who collected tarantulas, shot buzzards, and boxed miners. But during two torrid weeks in September 1918, he was the deadliest man on the Western Front. In only ten missions, he destroyed fourteen heavily-defended German balloons and four airplanes, a rampage unequaled even by the dreaded von Richtofen, and the second highest American tally of the entire war. Cocksure and constantly reprimanded, Luke was actually under arrest on the day of his final flight, but he stole a plane to join the fatal action that won him the first Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to a pilot. Blaine Pardoe retraces and refreshes Frank Luke's story through recently discovered correspondence. What emerges is a portrait of a life out of an "Old West" that was, by the late Teens, colliding with modernity. Frantic, short, and splendid, the life of Frank Luke, Jr. dramatizes the tragic intervention of an American spirit in the war that devastated Europe.

A portrait of the first pilot to win the Congressional Medal of Honor traces his rise from a young loner to a formidable soldier on the western front, documenting his military contributions throughout ten missions as well as the daredevil spirit that placed him at perpetual odds with his superiors.

General

ISBN		9781602392526
Fiction/Non-Fiction		Non-Fiction
Publisher		Skyhorse Pub Co Inc
Pages		301
List Price		$24.95
Author		Pardoe, Blaine L.
Publication Date		07/01/2008
Release Status		Out of Print
Format		Hardcover
Language		English
Measurements		Height: 9.25 Inches (US) Width: 6.25 Inches (US) Thickness: 1 Inches (US) Unit Weight: 1.34 Pounds (US)