The New York Times–bestselling author “refreshingly re-tells, and corrects, the story of Frank Luke’s life and amazing aerial exploits” (War Bird Ace author Jack Stokes Ballard).
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, the second highest American tally in the entire war. Author Blaine Pardoe retraces and refreshes Frank Luke’s story through recently discovered correspondence. 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 brisk, nuts-and-bolts description of air warfare in the murderously flimsy flying machines of 1918.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This painstaking biography of World War I ace Frank Luke will earn Pardoe kudos . .. Thorough annotation makes the book that much more valuable to WWI aviation scholars as well as for more casual air-combat buffs.” —Booklist
