“He was the most-daring aviator and greatest fighter pilot of the entire war. His life is one of the brightest glories of our Air Service. He went on a rampage and shot down 14 enemy aircraft, including 10 balloons, in eight days. No other ace, even the dreaded Richthofen, had ever come close to that.” — Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, 26 kills, Medal of Honor, top American air ace of World War One.

“Fly on and fight on to the last drop of blood and the last drop of fuel, to the last beat of the heart.” — Captain Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, 1917.

In March 1918, young Frank Luke, Jr., age 20, a second-generation German-American from Phoenix, Arizona, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Aviation Section, U.S. Army Signal Corps, after pilot training in Texas an

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