Salem-News.com`s Tim King Returns From Research Trip on WW1 Aviator

Unruly cowboy aviator Lt. Frank Luke Jr. is the inspiration behind countless "maverick" American fighter pilots over the years. His story is riveting and a Salem, Oregon producer and a Virgina-based author are hot on the story's trail, preparing individual versions for print and for the screen.

Salem-News.com

(SALEM) - A producer`s plans to produce a documentary and an author`s goal to complete a book about America`s first bad-boy military pilot took a huge leap forward over the weekend, as a team of researchers including our Executive Editor Tim King, rendezvoused at an aviation museum in Colorado to study and record prized historic documents relating to Second-Lieutenant Frank Luke JR of Phoenix, Arizona.

Luke is remembered in history as `The Arizona Balloon Buster" because his specialty, along with his wingman Joe Wehner, was shooting down and `flaming" Hydrogen-filled German observation balloons that loomed over the front lines. It was dangerous work, and both were killed doing it, but not before achieving great fame.

Frank Luke grew up in the immediate post cowboy era in Phoenix. Just before the U.S. entered the First World War, he was the high school football captain who ran a winning touchdown with a broken collarbone, an amazing athlete and horseman; he was also great with a six-shooter. Historians have always drawn a strong correlation between Luke`s abilities to ride a horse and shoot a gun, and his quick successes as a fighter pilot.

In spite of his attitude, Luke was a human being every step of the way. His best friend suffered from a spinal disorder and was regarded as a `hunchback." Bill Elder was unable to participate in sports, but Luke saw to it that he was never picked on.

While undergoing officer`s training in Dallas Texas, Luke befriended a young African American orphan boy and wrote to his family about wanting to bring the boy back to Phoenix after the war.

In France, he cleaned up at the poker table, and donated his winnings to a French orphanage.

But while Frank Luke was the leader of the pack in the early days of Phoenix, his acceptance among the other WW1 fighter pilots stationed in France was slow in coming. Luke disobeyed orders without second thought, and he had no doubt that he would be successful in combat. He was confident, too confident, and pilots who had all recently lost friends in combat didn`t like the young man who they initially called `The Arizona Boaster" when he told them about all the Germans he was going to shoot down.

To give you insight into Luke`s character, he was the first American military pilot to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, and he earned it while he was under arrest.

Tim`s plans to produce an hour-long documentary on Frank Luke Jr. have led him halfway around the world, trying to learn who Frank Luke was, and pin down the truth of what happened on his final day. Like Germany`s Red Baron, Manfred Von Richtoffen, Luke`s death is shrouded in mystery and controversy.

He was brought down on September 29th 1918 with his SPAD biplane badly shot up. He made a forced landing in a field outside of Murvaux, not far from the historic war town Verdun. Official accounts have Luke exiting his plane, then dying in a shootout reminiscent of the OK Corral, with the Germans approaching him from three sides and Luke`s pistol or pistols blazing away as he went down in a fury of angry bullets.

The problem is, when Luke`s body was recovered, it only showed one entry wound in the chest. It was described as a large wound that is fairly consistent with a machine gun that was located on a hill just outside of Murvaux. Newly acquired research lends more credence to the belief that Luke was mortally injured while in flight, and died while trying to reach Milly Creek, about fifty meters from where he landed.

The American team that recovered his body in January of 1919 did not report injuries that appeared consistent with the `German shoot-out" theory.

The German officer contacted by Frey also said that Luke was dead when his men reached him.

Attempting to gain the family`s thoughts and memories of Frank Luke, Tim brought a crew to Phoenix in the summer of 2001 to conduct the first and only television interviews with members of the Luke family, including several nephews and nieces of Frank Luke`s, and two his sister-in-laws, both 93-year of age at the time.

In an effort to eventually raise funds for the full production of the documentary, Tim created the Website, www.frankluke.com and that has generated interest in the story and the proposed documentary. He continues to hope that the groundwork already covered in the production of the documentary will attract the attention of an investor who can assist in bringing the project to completion.

Then a little over a year ago, Tim was contacted by an author in Virginia named Blaine Pardoe, who has several published books to his credit. Pardoe was exploring the idea of writing a factual and well researched book on the life of Lt. Frank Luke Jr. and wanted to know if Tim, having already completed a great deal of research on the subject, wanted to collaborate.

This eventually led Tim, Blaine, and researcher Jean Armstrong to The Lafayette Escadrille Museum in Fort Lupton Colorado last weekend to research hundreds of files on Luke and some related flyers from the American 27^th Pursuit Squadron in France during WW1.

Tim King says the major effort of Blaine Pardoe and Jean Armstrong in researching Luke through all of the major WW1 archival sources in the nation and now through the treasured archives at the Lafayette Escadrille Museum in Colorado, is causing all of the obscure facts on Luke`s story to emerge clearly.

"Luke`s story has been the subject of several books, and his story has been mentioned in thousands of accounts in other books, in magazine articles, etc. But the overwhelming preponderance of the material needed to accurately write about Luke was sitting in a file at this museum."

An Air Force officer and researcher named Royal Frey became highly interested in the Luke story while stationed in France during the 1950`s and 1960`s. At that time, many people who were present in Murvaux when Luke was shot down were still living. After interviewing the alleged witnesses of Luke`s death, Frey went to even greater effort by contacting the surviving members of the German machine gun team that actually brought Frank Luke down.

As Royal Frey researched the Luke story, he also became acquainted with the surviving aces and other pilots of the American 1^st Pursuit Group, of which Luke`s `Screaming Eagles" 27^th Pursuit Squadron was a component. As these pilots became old and passed on, they left their collections of WW1 photos, diaries, letters, articles, and other material with Frey. When Frey passed on, the items were passed on to the founder of the Lafayette Escadrille Museum in Colorado.

Tim King says that he hopes to bring the documentary to completion over the course of the coming year to eighteen months. `It makes great sense that Blaine and I time the release of our projects out together, the anniversary of WW1 is only eight years away, and in doing Luke`s story, we are going to bring people the most exciting person who entered the First World War in my opinion."

Many more aspects of Luke`s life will be examined in the documentary; Tim says it will be difficult to keep it at only one hour. `Blaine mentioned how his story is not just another war story, it is a story about a human being and about other people that were greatly affected by his life.` I couldn`t agree more, there was a girl in Frank Luke`s life and her name is Marie Rapson. Now she will emerge as more than just a quick reference in a book."

While Frank Luke Jr. was the first American aviator to receive the Medal of Honor, he was also the leading American ace at the time of his death. Eddie Rickenbacker surpassed his record in the months following his death, but it is noteworthy that all of Luke`s official kills took place in a span of approximately three weeks. Watch for more updates as the story, now under production in Salem, Oregon, progresses.