The Arizona Dragonslayer

A simple telegram plunged America into the Great War. The
Zimmermann telegram, intercepted by American intelligence in April
1917, revealed Germany’s efforts to encourage Mexico to invade the
United States. For a towheaded kid from Arizona named Frank Luke,
Jr., and other citizens of the states along the Mexican border, the
threat of invasion was real and personal. Anti-German sentiment
swept the nation that spring. Sauerkraut became “Victory Cabbage”,
the precursor to Freedom Fries, and suspicion fell on families of
German descent such as the Lukes, whose name had been Luecke just a
generation before. The immigrants’ son Frank Luke, Jr. had a lot to
prove when he joined the Army a few months later. By the time Luke
completed flight training, received his commission, and joined the
27th Aero Squadron in France in July 1918, the surge of American
forces onto the Western Front promised a swift end to the war – and
the life expectancy of a pursuit pilot at the front was just three
weeks. If Frank Luke was going to prove anything, he needed to work
fast. In just a few months, he would demonstrate how well he could
work under pressure, becoming one of the most decorated flyers of
the First World War.