[alfa6]

Major Hartney sent Luke on September 19th to Paris for six days for R&R (what is generally known as I&I). Luke seems to have been unable to unwind. I do not find this out of character one bit.

This is Luke’s last letter home. Again the strain shows.

Myself I would have pulled him out of combat immediately and sent him to sell war bonds or something. He deserved a chance to live.

September 25, 1918.

DEAR MOTHER:

I have not written for some days now on account of being so busy, as no doubt you have already heard. This is only a line to let you know that I am O. K. Now, mother, remember that I have passed the dangerous stage of being a new hand at the game, so don't worry, for I now know how to take care of myself.

Love to all,

FRANK

While Luke was in Paris “B” flight of the 27th was moved to an advanced airfield just south of Verdun and much closer to the line. “B” Flight was held on alert status, some aircraft with warm engines, flight suits on, etc. This field gave Luke a chance to get away from Captain Grant. Lieutenant Luke by his own wish was assigned further Draken missions. Lieutenant Ivan A. Roberts, Frank’s remaining friend in the Group, was detailed to fly with him.



COMBAT REPORT - September 26, 1918.

Lieutenant Frank Luke reports:

On patrol to strafe balloons in vicinity Consenvoye and Sivry I attacked with two others [a third plane had joined them after they left the airdrome] a formation of five Fokkers. After firing several short bursts, observed the Hun go down out of control. While at 100 meters I was attacked by two E. A. so I did not see the first E. A. crash.

I turned on the other two who were on my tail, getting on the tail of one, but guns jammed several times and after fixing both could only shoot short bursts on account of the several stoppages. One confirmation requested. The last I saw of Lieutenant Roberts, who was on this patrol with me, was in combat with several Fokkers in the vicinity of Consenvoye and Sivry.

Roberts was seen to crash in German territory. His fate is unknown. Late in 1920 Captain Grant received a letter that told of Roberts capture, imprisonment, escape and death. The writer, one "Jack LaGrange, M.D." was unknown to the American Legion and the letter is considered unreliable. Likely a fantasizing stay-at-home wrote it.

Hartney wrote:

[Luke] came to me and pleaded to be allowed to operate independently from [the B Flight forward Verdun] field. His CO, Capt. Grant, was frantic at his inability to control Luke's activities. Almost every pilot in the Group had had a crack at the balloon over Bethenville. But it was still up. While Grant and I were discussing the advisability of letting Luke operate as a lone wolf out of the Verdun field, Frank went out all by himself ... on Sept. 28 and burned up the Bethenville balloon in its nest."



COMBAT REPORT - September 28, 1918.

Lieutenant Frank Luke reports:

I flew north to Verdun, crossed the lines at about five hundred meters and found a balloon in its nest in the region of Bethenville. I dove on it firing both guns. After I pulled away it burst into flames. As I could not find any others I returned to the airdrome. One confirmation requested.

Luke, evidently the only man in the group able to destroy these important enemy targets, was acting without orders and according to his own plans. The sources are confused, but apparently Luke filed a brief Combat Report with Grant late in the day on the 28th and took off in a Spad to spend the night with a French unit. Technically Luke was absent without leave and a real butt head could have said he had stolen the Spad. So, guess what. On the morning of the 29th Grant demanded that Luke be arrested.

Luke landed at the advanced field near Verdun on the 29th. Late that afternoon he took off alone without authorization. He flew over an American balloon company near Souilly and dropped a note reading "Watch three Hun balloons on the Meuse. Luke."

Luke’s career as a Draken killer lasted for seventeen days.

The Frank Luke corner at the USAF Musuem

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on October 21:
1760 Katsushika Hokusai (d.1849), Japanese printmaker,
born. Hokusai was a master designer of color woodblock prints. His paintings included 36 views of Mt. Fuji.
1772 Samuel Taylor Coleridge England, poet (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
1803 George Wright Brig General (Union volunteers), died in 1865
1833 Alfred Bernhard Nobel Stockholm, created dynamite & Peace Prizes
1912 Sir Georg Solti Budapest Hungary, conductor (Fidelio)
1914 Martin Gardner Scientific American math & puzzles columnist
1917 Dizzy Gillespie trumpeter, a creator of Bee Bop
1925 Joyce Randolph Detroit Mich, actress (Trixie-Honeymooners)
1928 Edward "Whitey" Ford hall of fame pitcher (NY Yankees)
1929 Ursula LeGuin American writer (Lathe of Heaven)
1933 Georgia Brown actress (Study in Terror, The Fixer)
1940 Frances FitzGerald NYC, journalist/author (Fire in the Lake)
1940 Manfred Mann rocker (The Mighty Quinn)
1940 Osamu Watanabe Japan, featherweight (Olympic-gold-1964)
1942 Elvin Bishop Okla, rocker/Blues guitarist, National Merit Scholar, Paul Butterfield Blues Band
1943 Paula Kelly Jacksonville Fla, dancer/actress (Liz-Night Court)
1949 Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister
1950 Ronald E McNair Lake City SC, astr(STS 41B, 51L-Challenger disaster)
1953 Charlotte Caffey singer (GoGos-Our Lips are Sealed)
1956 Carrie Fisher Beverly Hills, actress (Star Wars-Princess Lelia)

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Deaths which occurred on October 21:
1422 Charles VI, King of France (1380-1422), dies at 54
1439 Traversari Ambrosius (53), Italian humanist and leader, died
1805 Adm Horatio Nelson dies in the Battle of Trafalgar
The Nelson Society
http://www.nelson-society.org.uk/
1831 Nat Turner 19 associates, hung
1966 Gertrude Hoffman actress (Mrs Odetts-My Little Margie), dies at 95
1967 Ejnar Hertzsprung Danish astrophysicist, dies at 94
1969 Jack Kerouac (47), Beat Generation chronicler, dies of alcoholism in St. Petersburg, Fla. ("On the Road", "Dharma Bums.")
1984 Francois Truffaut director, dies at 52 of brain cancer
(Fahrenheit 451 (1966) (screenplay)
1992 Jackson Weaver, voice of Smokey the Bear, dies of diabetes
1992 Jim Garrison, Louisiana DA (investigate JFK assassination), dies at 70
1992 Shirley Booth, actress (Hazel), dies at 94
1995 Maxene Andrews, vocalist (Andrews Sister), dies of heart attack at 79

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Take A Moment To Remember
GWOT Casualties

Iraq
21-Oct-2003 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Private 1st Class Paul J. Bueche Balad - Salah ad Din Non-hostile - maintenance accident



Afghanistan
10/21/04 Samek, Jesse M. Airman 1st Class 21 Air Force 66th Rescue Squadron Helicopter crash 106 mi. E. of Shindand


http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
//////////
Go here and I'll stop nagging.
http://www.amillionthanks.org/

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On this day...
2137 BC 1st recorded total eclipse of the sun China
0310 St Eusebius ends his reign as Catholic Pope
0335 Constantinople emperor (Constantine the Great) enacted rules against Jews.
0686 Conon begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1096 Sultan Kilidj Arslan of Nicea defeats 1st Crusaders
1520 Magellan entered the strait which bears his name
(Ok, Name the strait. the 4th correct answer will win a valuable prize. Did I say valuable? I really meant invaluable...copacetic...meritorious...one might almost say keen. Oh your friends and neighbor will turn green with envy, and I can't say I blame them. So submit your entry along with $5.00 to cover S&H
Notice: all answers are property of Valin and/or "bunco."
"Remember at bunco you get what you pay for"
1529 The Pope names Henry VIII of England Defender of the Faith after defending the seven sacraments against Luther
1790 The Tricolor is chosen as the official flag of France.
(That would be white..off-white..eggshell white)

1797 US Navy frigate Constitution, Old Ironsides, launched in Boston
(SUPER FRIGATES - AMERICA'S HIGH TECH WEAPONS OF THE 1790's
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/supfrig.htm)

1805 Battle of Trafalgar, Adm Nelson defeats French & Spanish fleet & dies
1824 Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement
1861 Battle of Balls Bluff, Va. Defeat sparks Congressional investigations
1867 Many leaders of the Kiowa, Comanche and Kiowa-Apache sign a peace treaty at Medicine Lodge, Kan. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker refused to accept the treaty terms.
1871 1st US amateur outdoor athletic games (NY)
1879 Thomas Edison perfects the carbonized cotton filament light bulb
1897 Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago is dedicated
1915 1st transatlantic radiotelephone message, Arlington, Va to Paris
1916 US Army forms Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC)

1917 1st Americans to see action on the front lines of WW I. First Division of the U.S. Army enters the front lines at Sommervillier under French command

1918 Margaret Owen sets world typing speed record of 170 wpm for 1 min
1923 Deutsches Museum, Munchen, 1st Walther Bauersfeld Zeiss Planetarium
1935 Hank Greenberg selected AL MVP unanimously
1944 During WWII, US troops capture Aachen, 1st large German city to fall
1945 Women in France allowed to vote for 1st time
1948 Beersheba liberated by the Israeli army
1948 Facsimile high-speed radio transmission demonstrated (Washington DC)
1950 Chinese forces occupy Tibet
1950 Tom Powers of Duke scores 6 touchdowns
1957 “Jailhouse Rock” starring Elvis Presley opened
1959 Dr. Werner Von Braun starts work at NASA.
1960 JFK & Nixon clashed in 4th & final presidential debate (NYC)
1966 144 die as a coal waste landslide engulfs a school in S Wales
1967 Thousands opposing Vietnam War try to storm the Pentagon
1969 Bloodless coup in Somalia (National Day)
1970 777 Unification church couples wed in Korea
1971 Nixon nominates Lewis F Powell & William H Rehnquist to US Supreme Court, following resignations of Justices Hugo Black & John Harlan
1973 A's manager Dick Williams quits after A's beat Mets in 70th World Series
1975 Venera 9, first craft to orbit the planet Venus launched
1976 American Saul Bellow wins Nobel Prize for Literature
1976 Cin Reds sweep NY Yankees, in 73rd World Series
1976 NY Knicks retire 1st number, # 19, Willis Reed
1977 US recalls William Bowdler, ambassador to South Africa
1979 Greta Waitz wins woman participation in NYC marathon (02:27:33)
1980 1st (& only) time Phillies win the World Series (in 98 years) (World Series #77)
1984 Steve Jones runs Chicago Marathon in world record 2:08:05
1987 Senate debate begins rejecting Robert Bork's Supreme Ct nomination
1988 Ferdinand & Imelda Marcos indicted on racketeering charges
1989 Buck Helm found alive after being buried 4 days, in SF earthquake
1989 Houston becomes 1st major college team to gain 1000 yards in a game
1989 1st black owners (Betram Lee & Peter Bynoe) to own a major sports team, purchasing Denver Nuggets for $65m
1991 US hostage Jesse Turner released from 5 years in captivity in Beirut
1991 Former California Governor Jerry "Governor Moonbeam" Brown announced his presidential candidacy.
1992 New York protesters upset with Sinead O'Connor for ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II on "Saturday Night Live" use a steamroller to crush dozens of the Irish singer's CDs, records and tapes.
1993 Military coup by Burundi Pres Ndadaye/525,000 Hutu's flee
1996 Mayor of Algiers, Ali Boucetta, killed by a stray bullet in fighting between security forces and terrorists in Algiers.
1997 Reversing months of strong opposition, the Clinton administration endorsed a revised Republican bill to restructure the Internal Revenue Service and shift the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the government in contested court cases.
1997 Pictures of the Antennae galaxies, two intermeshed colliding galaxies, were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1996 and revealed to the public for the first time
1999 A French-led expedition chopped clear the fully preserved carcass of a 20 thousand-year-old woolly mammoth, the "Jarkov Mammoth," from the permafrost of Siberia at Khatanga, Russia.
2002 Pres. Bush said he would try diplomacy "one more time," but did not think Saddam Hussein would disarm, even if doing so would allow him to remain in power.
2003 Pope John Paul II added 30 names to the list of his possible successors, installing a diverse collection of cardinals.
2004 Negotiations between the Sudanese government and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella organization for opposition groups from around Sudan, opened in Cairo under the auspices of Egypt.

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

England : Trafalgar Day (1805)
Hondurous : Army Day (1956)
Hong Kong : Kite Flying Festival
Laos : Full Moon Holiday
Somali/Sudan : Revolution Day (1964)
National Business Women's Week (Day 6)
National Shampoo Week Ends
National Babbling Day (So I guess that means a person is supposed to babble today, but what happens to you if you don't babble? I mean will the government come and arrest you for felony nonbabbling? It's my opinion the the government has much more important things....OOOHHH look a bright sparkly thing! I really like sparkly things, the way the light reflects off it when you put it in the sun light. We don't have any sun light here today the sky is a nice calming shade of gray...almost a zone V so if you are in Mpls you could go out and calabrate your camera to make sure the light meter is correct....gosh I sure hope it doesn't rain because it's friday and I hate rain on friday, although if it rains late at night when people are asleep I guess it ok.......
(For more on Professional babbling send $10.00 Valin @ Bunco. Remember at Bunco you get what you pay for)
Count Your Buttons Day
National Clock Month
Spinal Health Month
National Sarcastics' Awareness Month

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Religious Observances
RC : Commemoration of St Hilarion, abbot, ascetic, lover of solitude
RC : Commemoration of St Ursula, virgin, patron of brides

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Religious History
1532 German reformer Martin Luther declared: 'For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant.'
1692 William Penn was deposed as Governor of Pennsylvania. His overtures of gratefulness to James II for permitting religious freedom for dissenters of the Church of England led William and Mary to charge Penn with being a papist.
1751 The first Baptist association in the American South was organized at Charleston, SC. It was formed under the initiative of Oliver Hart, who had left the Philadelphia area to become pastor of the Charleston Baptist Church in 1749.
1808 Birth of American Baptist clergyman Samuel Francis Smith. Credited with writing over 100 hymns, Smith is best remembered as the author of "America" ("My Country, 'Tis of Thee"), written at age 23, while a student at Andover Seminary.
1892 Birth of James L Kelso, American Presbyterian archaeologist. He participated in digs at the biblical sites of Debir, Bethel and Jericho, and authored the text "Ceramic Vocabulary of the O.T."

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

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Car Ticketed With Dead Body at the Wheel

Oct 21, 6:26 AM (ET)


SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A traffic warden slapped a parking ticket on a car which had its dead driver slumped at the wheel outside an Australian shopping mall, an official said Friday.

The body of the 71-year-old man, whose identity was not immediately released, was discovered Thursday in a parking lot in the southern city of Melbourne, The Age newspaper reported Friday.
The man had been reported missing nine days earlier and was known to be seriously ill, the newspaper said.

Nevertheless, a parking officer who inspected the vehicle failed to notice the man inside and issued the parking fine two days before his body was discovered.

Paul Denham, the mayor of Maroondah council, where the man was found, said the parking officer was "distressed" to learn that the dead man had been inside the car.
"Our local laws officer checked and wrote out the ticket at the rear of the vehicle and placed the ticket from the passenger side on the windscreen," Denham said in a statement. "The local laws officer did not notice anything unusual regarding the vehicle, and is extremely distressed to have learned of the situation."

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Thought for the day :
"Second to agriculture, humbug is the biggest industry of our age."
Alfred Nobel

[Valin]

According to Hartney Luke tried to go up on an unauthorized third patrol at dusk in another pilot's plane and was massively chewed out by Captain Grant. Major Hartney persuaded him to fill out his combat reports and accept Grant's orders. Joe Wehner did fly that evening; and while a French flier beat him to the balloon, he shot down two Fokker D-VII's (although not confirmed).



Fokker D.VII
Germany

http://www.aviation-history.com/fokker/d7.html



The Fokker D.VII was unquestionably the best all-round German fighter of the First World War.


In January 1918 a competition open to single-seater fighters powered by the 160 hp Mercedes engine was held at Johannisthal, near Berlin. It was won outright by an angular little biplane with thick cantilever wings, the Fokker D.VII, designed by Reinhold Platz. Unquestionably the best all-round German fighter of the First World War, it was a development of Platz's experimental V.II, built late in 1917.

Its engine was either the 160/180 hp Mercedes or the 185 hp BMW, neatly cowled and fitted with a frontal radiator. BMW D.VIIs had the better performance and were much sought after. The 200 hp Benz was experimentally fitted without great success. The exhaust system was either the usual external horizontal pipe on the starboard side, or separate internal pipes connected to a large main pipe which protruded through the starboard cowling.





D.VII wings had two spars with plywood ribs; the leading-edges were of ply, the rest of the structure fabric covered. Unequal chord ailerons framed in steel tubing, were fitted to the upper wing only, which had a slight curved cutout in its trailing-edge. The lower wing was housed in a recess in the fuselage bottom; both planes had wire trailing-edges, giving *em a 'scalloped' appearance. Interplane and center section struts were of streamlined steel tubing.

The fuselage was constructed of wire-braced welded steel tubing with a three-ply top decking behind the cockpit; the whole being fabric-covered, except for the engine cowlings. Fin, balanced rudder, tailplane and balanced elevators were also of fabric-covered steel tube. Two struts braced the tailplane from below. The undercarriage was of streamlined steel tube and its axle was enclosed in a large fairing which gave some extra lift.



Twin Spandau guns were synchronized to fire through the revolving propeller.


Following its success at Johannisthal, the type was ordered in large quantities; not only was it built by the Fokker concern (Fok. D.VII F), but also by its rivals, the Albatros Werke (Fok. D.VII (Alb.)) and the Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke (Fok. D.VII (OAW)). Mercedes and BMW engines appear to have been distributed impartially to all three companies.

While not especially fast, the D.VII's strong point was its great maneuverability at high altitudes. It was extremely easy to fly and had no terrors for the beginner. Jagdgeschwader Nr. 1, the Richthofen 'Circus', received the first D.VIIs in time for the Second Battle of the Aisne in May 1918, and soon found that the new type gave them a good margin of advantage over their opponents. By the autumn the majority of the Jastas had been reequipped with D.VIIs. So highly did the Allies esteem the machine that their Armistice terms specifically ordered the surrender of all Fokker D.VIIs.

As a safeguard against a possible shortage of steel tubing and competent welders, the Albatros company built a D.VII with a plywood fuselage, but it was not found necessary to produce this variant. When the war ended, production of the type for Austro-Hungary had begun at the Hungarian Engineering Factory, Budapest (MAG).

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Specifications:
Fokker D.VII
Dimensions:
Top Wing span: 29 ft 3.2 in (8.93 m)
Bottom Wing Span: 23 ft 0 in (7.01 m)
Top Chord: 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m)
Bottom Chord: 4 ft 0 in (1.21 m)
Gap Between Wings: 4 ft 2 in (1.28 m)
Length: 22 ft 9 in (6.93 m)
Height: 9 ft 2 in (2.80 m)
Weights:
Empty: 1,540 lbs (698 kgs)
Gross: 1,936 lbs (878 kgs)
Performance:
Maximum Speed: 116 mph (186 km/h)
Service Ceiling: 19,600 ft (5,974 m)
Fuel Capacity: 20 gal (75.70 lt)
Powerplant:
One Mercedes 180 hp (134 kw) 6-cylinder Inline type, Watercooled.
or
One BMW 185 hp (137 kw) 12-cylinder Vee type, Watercooled.
or
One Austro-Daimler 210 hp (156 kw).
Armament:
Twin Spandau synchronized guns fired through the revolving propeller.