Billy H's

"The November Rampage" will apparently have to be cancelled. The "NR" as I'd hoped to arrange it was to be a bout in Globe, Arizona, a recreation if you like, of the incident, circa 1915, when Frank Luke won by a first round "K.O." over the California-based heavyweight "Battling" Haney.I offered that what occured was a precursor to the later grand courage evidenced by F.L. Billy H, countered that he felt it was not a great feat particularly- that a young strong amateur contender should be able to handle an aging "pro". I immediately took steps to permit Billy to further evidence his contention and arranged for an opponent for him to meet there in Globe later this month. The fighter I found who was to emulate Haney, is an experienced fighter and a chap with, as I remarked to Billy, a rather violent social history, (and here, perhaps, I erred in so finely defining the maniacal character of his potential opponent?). This propensity to violent conduct is due, primarily it is believed, to be the result of having, as a TBM pilot, been shot down by "friendly fire" while over the U.S. Fleet at Okinawa in '45. Well, you can imagine how he felt when I told him that Billy, indeed, had been a gunner at "Oka" and was still known, on occasion, "to fire a bit wildly." He was, to say the least, eager to get Billy into the small confines of a ring. Billy, however is deferring. To restate his final entry in the prior thread "October Rampage": He has been over the ground there in Arizona around the Ajo Mine and finds it not a venue suitable for the bout. Without remarking further upon the reasons for Billy's decision, just let me say that it is probably a wise one: May I remark in closing this thread that if the Kaiser had of looked Belgium over a bit, (checked out a mineshaft or two -had a few cold beers and tamales, etc- ("CB and Ts") and then later declined to enter into hostilities there- how much wiser a man history would have considered him to be! You might be interested in knowing Billy, that "The original" Billy The Kid also had some tenure in that part of old Arizona. As "Kid" Antrim (stepfather's name) he was arrested (as a "pre-teen") for stealing shirts from a Chinese Laundry in Bisbee-Douglas- his first arrest. Unlike our man, "Mick" Mannock, the Kid always tried to dress well.
Note for Ira: (Leo: don't read any further!) The ex-Dodger Prez. "Loud" Larry Mc Phail was involved in a attempt to kidnap the Kaiser from his refuge in Holland. His effort got him as far as an outer office, I recall. He then nabbed one of Willie's monogrammed ashtrays but was able to realize the folly (read-"sobered-up?") of the adventure and withdrew. Leo?-now especially don't read this!: Another note on things Doubledayian: Did you realize that the long-time "Commish" of baseball, Judge Landis, had a son named "Reed" who was a pretty good man with a Nieuport and a SPAD? VBR. Lee

Capt. Reed G. Landis was, indeed, the son of judge Tennessee Mountain Landis, baseball's first Commissioner...which was certainly no honor. I saw an hour on TV this morning about the great 1919 baseball scandal and throwing the world series, which they told about the Commish's letting himself be blackmailed and not doing anything to correct the problem he was installed to correct...
Similarly, I cannot find, in Frank Luke's service record, anything about him being qualified with the .45 pistol. It would be listed as "Pistol-D", D range being 15 and 25 yards. This carrying of a weapon he was not qualified to carry probably accounts for the "no casualty reports" of the ground pounders who blew him away for slaughtering their comrades and giving others lifelong wounds with incendiary bullets...definitely not the work of a "chivalrous ace."

[leo]

Forum Spook:

Whether or not Mr. Luke was qualified to use a .45 auto doesn't mean much. He came from an area where guns were a handy and familiar tool. In the air service I imagine that guns of anytype were readilly available. He would have access to one if he wanted it.
In war people get killed by all kinds of missles, Luke used the tools at hand. What would you expect him to do, land and change his ammo belts?

All,
Anyone who thinks that chivalry was alive and well in 1918 is definitely out on some different wavelength. In war, where it's a daily struggle for survival, the man who lets the enemy go out of some grand notion of humanity... is a fool. That very same person he lets go free could very possibly be killing him or his comrades the same day, if not the next. And if someone is out to kill me, you can believe that I'm going to do my best with whatever I have to make his death a particularly painful one. Incendiary rounds work like a champ for that very purpose. Cruel?! Yes, but then again so is the essence of warfare, after all it is killing one's fellow man. So remember when it comes to chivalry, the practice of it is contrary to what keeps one alive in combat.
VBR,
Jim

Jim "Ace" You are FINALLY getting the idea. Now, admit that Frank Luke had his mechanics and armorers load him with incendiaries, took off in spite of his C.O.'s direct order that he was GROUNDED until his court martial on charges of insubordination.
Then research his past... His sister, a nurse, goaded him into joining the U. S. Army.
His waving a pistol that he was not qualified to use merely points out that he was committing assisted suicide, because either way...live or die...his life was OVER. One way a dishonorable discharge, the other way being shot for having a load of incendiery bullets in his guns. Nice guy.
Too bad he didn't survive, though. He would have made a great professional wrestler. "Attilla, the Angry Ace."

Spook,
YOU HOWEVER, ARE NOT GETTING THE WHOLE POINT! Whether or not Frank Luke Jr. did commit an insubordinate act, you could hardly convince anyone that he committed a deliberate act of suicide. He was going after balloons, for which he needed incendiary rounds...duh! Imagine that! Now balloons were usually ringed by AA batteries and ground troops whom would've all been firing at him as he attacked. He was going after targets of opportunity (i.e. strafing ground troops) and what was he supposed to do, land, download all of the incendiary, then take off and start to strafe these same troops, all in the midst of his shooting down the balloons? Not to mention that the guns on his aircraft were the only means of self defense while being shot at during the time he was airborne. I suppose you may've used the .45 to shoot at the ground troops, but that sounds kinda dumb to me. He used whatever he had at his disposal to defend himself and his plane. As far as being .45 qualed, I don't think that his coming from an area of the U.S. where the gun was used as an everyday tool classifies him as not being qualified to use one. I'm sure that he shot very frequently as a younger man. While he may not have been a darling of the USAEF, he was no worse than any other pilot. If you look at several of the great aces in the service of the U.S., you'll find quite a few that were "black sheep" during their tenure in the service. But these were the ones who performed brilliantly at the moment of truth. "Pappy" Boyington, Urban L. Drew, Eddie Rickenbacker all had at one time or another been in trouble for one thing or another. They weren't a bunch of tight cracked Prussians who were so rigid that they couldn't be real people. : ) Anyway, you need to live with the fact that Frank Luke is a hero and was awarded the CMH for COURAGE AND BRAVERY above and beyond the call of duty. When he shot it out with a bunch of ground troops, it was probably holding true to what he believed in, to go down fighting rather than ignominius surrender. He had guts, and like him or not, his last fight is the stuff that legends are made of.
Regards,
Jim

Forum Spook: Could you please document your version of how Frank Luke met his end at Murvaux? What I am sensing is a hostility against Luke that is mostly based incorrect information about what actually happened and a lack of knowledge about army life. Let me explain; 1. Balloon busting, as done in the 27th called for one gun to be an 11mm gun firing incendiary rounds. Pilots were giving official orders to show the Gs, if downed. 2. If you inspect a training manual for officer's you will see that they were required to qualify for the .45 automatic and or the .45 revolver+ the Springfield rifle & probably the Enfield for those who trained in Canada. 3. If you read Maurer-Maurer's history of the USAS you will note that American pilots were ordered to shoot German pilots who parachuted from a disabled plane; that this order was not obeyed made our pilots subject to a courts-martial. In one of the three books on Luke, there is a part where he was asked why he did not shoot a German observer who had bailed out, but Frank said he could not do it. So much for the cold-blooded Luke. 4. The Gs who invented the flame-thrower, and poison gas did not do autopsies on men hit with any kind of bullet, let alone incendiaries. 5. Consider the fact that Frank's older sister Evie had to talk Frank into the service that summer-doesn't that indicate he wasn't a kill crazy kid? The war started in April 1917, but Luke was'nt the only shy about military service: after the first blush of volunteers, the Government had to institute a draft in May, but that's not a lack of patriotism, its an economic consderation: "Who's going to support the folks at home? And if no one is, am I supposed to let my people starve to death?" That Luke got into military threads on 29 September means nothing, because it took the construction gangs 90-120 days to construct the camps for a million men. 6. If Grant was going to court-martial Luke, why did he put him in for promotion to 1st LT and the DSC, and later the CMH? He'd look like an idiot, if he really did. I think it was an idle threat, but even if he had put Luke in for a CM, the war would have been over (assuming Luke lasted that long) and nobody would have been interested in doing it to a reserve officer. Then too Hartney would not have approved a CM, and it was Hartney who gave Luke permission to go on his final mission. 7. Everybody who wasn't there on that last mission seems to know exactly what happened on the 29th September, 1918, to Frank Luke, but the only people we know who knew what happened were the signers of the two affidavits taken after the event, and your perception of the event does not even come close to what these people swore to; and it does a disservice to him as well as to his family, at least one of which is a member of this Forum, and may read your speculations. 8. Barrett Tillman has a copy of Frank Luke: The September Rampage. Ask him to lend it to you; please read it through to see what I am trying to tell you about the reality of aerial combat. With kindest regards, Billy H/11/08/99.

ACE: If you read my reply to the Forum Spook, you'll find that I agree with just about everything you said about Luke and his reputation. What we are dealing with is the reputation of an American flyer who gave his life, a man whose relatives (one of whom is a member of this Forum) are bombarded by the false perceptions broadcast in these word boxes. When I came here, I assumed that Forum dealt in WWI aviation history; and that history was the truth of what happened, and that historians dealt out that truth where it was known, and did not speculate on the unknowns. As to the Prussians, there were, as you put it, tight cracked Prussians, but does anyone really know who these Prussians were, and from whence did they come? And has anyone in this Forum seen a real Prussian, and talked to one, or does everyone think that Eric von Stroheim was a Prussian, just because his movie name was Prussian? Marlene Dietrich was a Prussian; so was Goering, the last commander of JG1, and so was FLs daddy, and his uncle who fought for the Union in the Civil War. Oh, yes, Manfred von Richthofen and his brother Lothar were Prussians...But does anyone really know them? Kindest regads, Billy H/11/09/99.

Billy, I assume that YOU as the only gen-u-wine Pro(phylactic) Aviation Historian can prove that these gentlemen you feel were beyond reproach were not lying to protect the poor relatives.
It is a strange morality, to say the least, to NOT fire at a fellow flyer and shoot hell out of the ground pounders just because they don't belong to the same fraternity.
This is all a moot question, because you CANNOT PROVE beyond reasonable doubt anything you say about Luke. It was a common trait among officers to "never speak ill of the dead." But you, as a PRO-fessional, know the truth, right? Why is it that nobody else in these 80 some years came to the same conclusions? Did you know him personally? Why did almost everybody who write about him in the intervening years give the impression that he was a troublemaker and insubordinate. Unfortunately, after his untimely death the court martial papers were discarded. But, somewhere a record of them exist. I don't see you doing any of the PERfessional research you accuse everybody else of ignoring.

Spook,
I can only come to the conclusion after reading your posts that you haven't the faintest knowledge of military life in combat, and have never served a day in the military in your life. If you did you would know that there ARE seperate fraternities within the military, and all have the tendency to look down their noses at others who do the same in return. There is nothing strange at all about a flyer who wouldn't shoot at a fellow flyer because of the brotherhood they share, but think nothing of strafing enemy PBI's. Aviation and Grunts have always had a rivalry. But back to the strafing...I have a question for you. If the ground pounders were firing at him, what makes it so immoral for him to return fire? Was he just supposed to let them shoot him down without his being able to defend himself? You REALLY need to become a little more REALISTIC in what your trying to say? As I said before, war in and of itself is killing the other guy before he kills you, and you use whatever you have at your disposal to accomplish the task. Let me ask you this too...in your judgement, is it immoral for an artillery crew to take out a sniper with a 155 Howitzer Flechette round? I think not if you want to do a complete job with minimal casualties. Or was it immoral for the Germans to use the Flammenwerfers to clear out trenches? Or to use Mustard Gas, Phosgene Gas, Chlorine Gas? War has no scruples, and who are you to sit in judgement of the efforts of one man? If you don't like him that's your perogative? However, I think before you start spouting off about motives, you need to get a little practical research into military life done. Also why don't you produce these records of proposed courts-martial that you are referring to. I'm sure that Frank Luke had his negative characteristics, but then don't we all? That's what made him totally human. It's easy for people to sit here in judgement 80 odd years after the fact? But then, were you there to prove what you're purporting is fact? And where did you come up with your information? Frank Luke died a hero, and it REALLY belittles those who try to make him out to be less than he was... a hero!
Regards,
Jim