The first time I really took much of an interest in him was about three days after I had lost six of my officers and Don Hudson had shot down two biplane Rumplers carrying four men on Aug. 1, 1918. I had already been up to the lines to see if I could find any of my boys.... That first day I could not get any farther than Villers Cotterets, not far from our small advance airdrome, although farther north, and had to return by foot and freight train via Paris.
A couple of days later Luke came to my tent and said, 'Major, Lt. Clapp says it is all right for me to go up with you this morning if you can take me.' I shall never forget that journey. Frank, one enlisted man and I went along in my Packard. On this trip he talked freely, of his days on the plains back home, of incidents of his training, of his ambition to be an outstanding flier. He was extremely serious always.
Walking to the top of a hill we found the two German planes Hudson had brought down... The two pilots and their observers were still there, their faces black, the summer sun getting in its rapid work. One of them had on very light patent leather low shoes. This impressed Luke. 'Wonder where he was the night before,' he murmured. Rumor had it among the ground troops that one of the Germans was a girl, but this was not true.
Three hundred yards farther we came to the top of another knoll and looked down the other side, a smooth space of about a hundred acres. Never have my eyes rested on such a sight. May they never again behold one like it. The hill was literally covered with dead men, side by side, head to head, little or no space between, practically all of them American doughboys. They had died in droves charging German machine gun nests left behind to cover the retreat. Right in front of us were a German and an American who had actually pierced each other with their bayonets and neither bayonet had been withdrawn.
Frank stooped over and picked up some unmailed postal cards fallen from a pocket of one of the dead boys. The one on top was addressed to his mother out in Iowa.
‘Leave them there,' I said. 'That American padre over there is busy picking up such things to send back to the next of kin.'Carefully and reverently, Luke replaced the cards in the pocket of the dead Yankee.
'Boy!' he exclaimed. 'I'm glad I'm not in the infantry. They haven't a chance, have they, Major?'
Hiking back to the road, we got into our car and made our way farther along toward Fismes, on the Vesle, where somebody had told us the front line lay. We noticed some peculiar stares in the eyes of several small detachments of American troops marching on the road. Presently a young second lieutenant stopped us.
'Sir, do you realize you're beyond the front lines? The last car that went up there didn't come back. It was captured.'
Things were so quiet it seemed incredible...
...We found several, including two enemy and several British Camels. Most of them had bullet holes through the headrests. On one we actually found a rifle lying on the wing. The plane seemed intact and only a splotch of blue and a torn helmet indicated what had happened to the pilot.
‘These men were all diving away when they were hit, weren't they, Major?' asked Luke.
'Yes,' I replied. 'It's what I've told you and the other boys a dozen times. That's about the only time one gets hit.'
'By God, they'll never catch me that way,' said Frank.
.... We walked farther and saw other wrecks but none of them ours. Then we went back to the Packard and drove toward Fere-en-Tardenois. Luke asked permission to go over and take another look at the two crushed, interlocked German two-seaters. We got out and I strolled over to glimpse again that terrible slaughter field where so many men lay dead for economic and political reasons beyond their comprehension. It was getting dark. Except for the rumble of distant guns there was absolute silence. Silhouetted against the evening skyline on top of that hill was one moving figure. It was the steel-helmeted padreSlowly he would stoop over and pick up something and put it in his pocket. I did not disturb him.
Again in the car we were almost to Fere-en-Tardenois when something attracted our attention. It was a group of American soldiers watching something in the sky a little distance away. We got out and joined them. It was a single German plane. He had dropped from the sky like a bullet and poured some incendiary bullets right into one of our observation balloons. The sausage, full of hydrogen, was falling in flames. The occupants had bailed out in their parachutes. Even as we watched, the heine pilot dipped into a swift attack on a second balloon nearby. He caught it asit was being dragged down by its winch. It, too, went up in flames. The rattle of our machine guns were terrific but it meant nothing. The Boche Albatross went blithely hedge-hopping homeward. All was still again.
The sights and experiences of that day must have had a profound impact on Frank Luke. A less intrepid boy would certainly have lost any further desire to go into such gory and savage doings and would have found ways and means of getting himself sent to a safer part of the war zone. But with Luke it was different. All the way home he was silent. And I am positive that on that homeward trip he laid out his future course and made his plans to become our most spectacular flier and the world's greatest strafer of enemy balloons.
