Frank Luke, the Arizona Balloon Buster, and the Seventeen Days That Made the Second-Greatest Ace of the First World War

Frank Luke Jr. scored 18 aerial victories in just 17 days - 14 balloons and 4 aircraft - making him the second-highest scoring American ace of the First World War. He died on September 29, 1918, at age 21, six weeks before the armistice. No American pilot before or since has accumulated aerial victories at that rate.

Who Was Frank Luke?

Luke was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1897, the fifth of nine children in a German-American family. He grew up in the Sonoran Desert, doing hard physical labor around copper mines and developing the kind of self-reliance - and indifference to risk - that the desert demands.

He enlisted after America entered the war, trained as a pilot, and arrived in France in the spring of 1918, assigned to the 27th Aero Squadron, First Pursuit Group. His reception was hostile. He told anyone who would listen that he intended to become an ace. His squadron mates found him insufferable. He had no kills and all the confidence of someone who didn’t know yet that he should be afraid.

He wasn’t wrong about himself. He just hadn’t found his method yet.

Why German Observation Balloons Were the Most Dangerous Targets on the Western Front

The German observation balloons - Drachen, meaning dragons - were among the most valuable assets on the front. Tethered at 1,500 to 3,000 feet, they gave artillery spotters a direct line of sight to the rear of enemy lines. Taking one out required flying directly into a concentrated kill zone.

Each balloon was protected by flak batteries, machine gun nests, and standing patrols of German fighters with no other assignment. The balloons themselves were filled with hydrogen, so a hit with incendiary rounds produced an immediate fireball. The moment a pilot opened fire, the observer jumped by parachute and the ground crew began winching the balloon down at full speed. The attack window was measured in seconds.

Most pilots avoided Drachen entirely. Luke studied them like a hunter studying game - approach angles, sun position, when anti-aircraft crews were most distracted, how fast a Spad could come in before the gunners could track it.

The Partnership With Joseph Wehner

Luke’s method depended on a partner. Joseph Wehner, from Milford, Massachusetts, was everything Luke wasn’t: methodical, quiet, thoughtful. Wehner had his own trouble with the squadron - his German heritage drew suspicion in 1918 - and the two misfits built a working system.

Wehner flew high cover, intercepting any German fighters scrambled to protect the balloon. Luke came in below and attacked the target. The arrangement required complete mutual trust, the kind built without ceremony between two people who have agreed to rely on each other without conditions.

The Seventeen Days: September 1918

September 12, 1918 - Luke destroyed his first balloon. The 27th Aero Squadron’s war diary noted it in a single line.

September 18 - Luke and Wehner flew out in the afternoon. Luke destroyed three balloons in a single afternoon. He landed, refueled, and launched again before dark for a fourth. The squadron that had dismissed him as a loudmouth was watching closely now.

The Germans were learning his patterns. Defenses around every Drachen on the front were tightened. Fighters were scrambled faster. Flak concentrations grew heavier. The attack window kept shrinking.

September 26 - Wehner was flying cover on a balloon run when German fighters found him. He went down and did not come back.

Luke kept flying. September 28 - three more kills, his total climbing through 15, 16, 17.

The Last Mission: Murvaux, September 29, 1918

Luke launched on September 29, 1918 without authorization. He had been placed under an informal arrest for going absent without leave - a habit he had developed of disappearing for days at a time without informing his commanding officer. He filed a note that he was going after balloons near the Meuse-Argonne front and was gone before anyone could stop him.

He flew toward the village of Murvaux, where three German observation balloons were up. He destroyed all three.

Villagers on the ground watched a Spad come in low and fast, machine guns firing, and three consecutive fireballs rise in the autumn air. The aircraft was badly damaged by ground fire. The engine was roughening.

Luke turned west toward American lines. He didn’t make it.

His Spad came down in a field outside Murvaux. German soldiers moved toward the crash site. Luke climbed out of the aircraft, drew his service pistol, and fought until he ran out of ammunition.

Postwar accounts from witnesses in the village describe him holding off the soldiers alone. He died in that field on September 29, 1918. He was 21 years old. The armistice was six weeks away.

What Eddie Rickenbacker Said

Eddie Rickenbacker finished the war as the highest-scoring American ace with 26 victories. He said, without qualification, that Frank Luke was the most daring aviator and the greatest fighter pilot of the entire war.

Rickenbacker was not known for handing out praise. His assessment of Luke carries weight precisely because of that.

Luke received the Medal of Honor posthumously. His family accepted it in Phoenix the following year. History moved quickly past the war, but the desert outside Phoenix eventually got a permanent reminder.

Luke Air Force Base

Luke Air Force Base sits on desert ground just west of Phoenix, not far from where Luke grew up. The Thunderbirds trained there. Fighter pilots still train there today. The base was named for him in 1941.

Every jet that lifts off from that runway is downstream of what a 21-year-old kid figured out about flying directly at the thing everyone else avoided.

Key Takeaways

• Frank Luke scored 18 aerial victories in 17 days in September 1918 - a rate no American pilot has matched
• His specialty was German observation balloons (Drachen), which were heavily defended and avoided by most pilots
• Joseph Wehner, his wingman and partner, was killed on September 26, 1918, three days before Luke’s final mission
• Luke died on September 29, 1918, outside the village of Murvaux, fighting on the ground after his aircraft went down
• Eddie Rickenbacker, the top American ace of WWI, named Luke the greatest fighter pilot of the war
• Luke Air Force Base, west of Phoenix, Arizona, is named in his honor and remains an active fighter training installation