As unique a man as was Frank Luke Jr., perhaps no man in the 1st Pursuit Group was a more complex character than Maj. Hartney - a tiny, provincal Canadian blessed with eccentric charisma and leadership skills as nimble as his flying.
Sending Luke on leave that Sept. 19 was Hartney at his best ... a performance that within 10 days would be bookended by Hartney at his worst.
Born at Pakenham, Ontario, the 30-year-old Hartney was one of the elder statesmen of the American Air Service - despite never having lived in the United States. He was also blessed with world-class luck.
A naturally optimistic man, Hartney seemed destined for a life of mediocrity before the war intervened. A 1911 graduate of the University of Toronto, Hartney drifted toward a limited future as a lawyer, clerking for his attorney brother and taking night law classes in Saskatchewan. During this period he learned of openings with a local Canadian reserve unit. He joined the militia and was made a lieutenant in the Saskatoon 105th Fusiliers. Hartney saw it as something to do that might come in handy in what he hoped would be a prosperous future.
Then came the guns of August, and in October 1914 the 105th was mobilized. Hartney, a newlywed, began to prepare his men to fight a far-away war. After months of drill and pointless waiting, his unit shipped out in May of 1915, arriving in Britian for more training.
During those boring days in England, young Hartney watched with growing interest the comings and goings of the pilots from a nearby airfield. Aerial combat was in its infancy, but Hartney saw his future in the sky. He applied for a transfer to flight school, and to everyone's great surprise, received an appointment in October 1915.
The average life expectancy of military aviators in 1916 was something short of a month, but Hartney's transfer wound up being his reprieve. The 105th Fusilers left for France soon after, and took almost 100 percent casualties in the trenches.
Hartney's career with the Royal Flying Corps began in the early months of 1916 - the height of the Fokker Scourge. He would become an ace with the RFC's No. 20 Squadron flying the F.E. 2b - one of the war's stranger aircraft - in almost a year's worth of combat.
The F.E. 2b was a two-seat bi-plane pusher that entered service as a pursuit plane and continued to serve as a reconaissance platform after rapidly advancing technology rendered it obsolete. Its engine configuration gave the F.E. 2b a forward-firing machine gun punch (the Allies had yet to figure out the mysteries of syncronizing gear), and its performance put it on more-or-less equal footing with the Eindecker. It was faster than the E.1, packed more firepower, and had the maneuverability to match the ponderous scouts of its day.
What really set it apart, though, was a cramped arrangement that put the pilot in front of and below the observer. Both crew members were armed with flexible guns: the pilot's Lewis gun swung on a simple pivot, while the observer's weapon swept through a unique firing arc. It fired most effectively to the front, but could be employed on trailing targets that hung at an angle above the upper wing, the boom tails and the whirling prop. Germans quickly learned to avoid that limited field of fire.
In combat, the F.E. 2b typically kept the pilot/gunner roles segregated. The pilot - usually an officer - flew, and the observer/gunner - usually an enlisted man - did the shooting from the back seat. F.E. 2b gunners did their shooting while standing, often firing over the head of the pilot. Veteran pilots learned to keep in mind that violent manuevers risked throwing their crewmate out of the plane.
Unlike the scout aces of the war's later years, F.E. 2b pilots didn't typically do their own shooting. Hartney earned ace status in 1916-17 with official confirmation of five German aircraft (he claimed more than twice that many, including nine in one phenomenal mission), but his accomplishment was tarnished by the somewhat unfair asterisk - "F.E. 2b pilot."
Meanwhile, Hartney's flying skill and personal qualities began to attract the kind of attention and acclaim that a life on the Canadian prarie could have never offered. His superiors recognized Hartney's unorthodox leadership skills and promoted him to captain.
He was not - by any stretch of the imagination - traditional leadership material. A short, skinny man with narrow shoulders, a high-pitched voice and a perpetual child-like alertness, Hartney presented a somewhat comical image. But he understood something the traditional military leadership of 1917 did not - the tactics and psychology of successful aerial operations. World War I was fought with the punative discipline required to send waves of young men against artillery and machine gun fire, but the aerial war went well when commanders fostered innovation, initiative and teamwork. Hartney understood that the key to success in the air wasn't discipline on the ground, but individual enterprise in the skies.
On Valentine's Day, 1917, Capt. Hartney and his observer flew a recon mission over Ypres. The new generation of German pursuit aircraft were rapidly reducing the life expectancies of F.E. 2b crews, but Hartney would cheat death again. Bounced by German fighters, the nimble Hartney put his obsolete fighter through every wild gyration he knew. He emerged from the dogfight with a damaged plane, a wounded gunner and dismal prospects - there were miles between him and the British lines.
Hartney's luck held. He managed to cross the trenches just moments before he ran out of sky, and he crash-landed - hard. The crash ruined Hartney's back, throwing him into months of hospitalization and recovery. He spent the next seven months in an English hospital.
The United States entered the war in April 1917 while Hartney convalesced from his wounds. American military planners quickly recognized their woeful unpreparedness for European aerial combat and launched a catch-up program: rather than try to home-grow a fighting air force, the U.S. would buy Allied aircraft, copy Allied doctrine and - in some cases - borrow foreign officers.
The American Expeditionary Force's tried recruiting air combat veterans to train and lead its rapidly forming Air Service units by offering promotions, commissions and the promise of American citizenship. Hartney found out about the voluntary program when the offer was posted on a hospital bulletin board and signed it without giving it much thought. When orders arrived transferring him to the American Army and promoting him to major, Hartney was taken aback - he had forgotten about the sign-up sheet at the hospital.
His American service began in September, 1917 - in Toronto, Canada. Hartney assumed command of the 27th squadron, which was training in Canada because there simply weren't adequate American flight schools.
After five months of training in Canada and Texas and an interminable bureaucratic quarantine in Hoboken, N.J., the 27th shipped out for England. A mid-seas swap of orders sent the 27th the France, where it continued training at Issoudon into early summer. On June 1, the pilots of the 27th and 147th squadrons joined the 94th and 95th squadrons at Toul to form the 1st Pursuit Group.
Hartney led the 27th through its early months, producing one short-lived ace and respectable (if not stellar) statistics. His methods drew the attention of his superiors, who - looking for a more dynamic leader to run the group - chose Hartney to replace Lt. Col. Atkinson on Aug. 21.
Removed from the daily flight line, Hartney continued to fly missions with his troops - often taking the group's only Sopwith Camel as his personal mount. Hartney added only one official victory to his list in 1918, but his primary achievement was the standard he set for his subordinates. He led with an intuitive panache that was lost on Capt. Grant but produced great results with Capt. Rickenbacker of the 94th.
When the night-flying 185th was added to his group in November 1918, Hartney again turned to an intuitive choice - Capt. Jerry Vasconcells. Primarilly equipped with Camels, the 185th never shot down an enemy plane.
At war's end, Hartney received a promotion to lieutenant colonel and took a desk job. Returning to Washington in 1919, Hartney worked for the Air Service in Washington until his resignation in 1921. His duties consisted largely of participation in air races and public displays of Air Service equipment. He became an American citizen in 1923, organized the National Aeronautical Association and wrote four books in the early 1940s.
His role in Frank Luke Jr.'s life, death and posthumous legend cannot be overstated. It can be argued that Hartney was both Luke's chief advocate and ultimate executioner. After the war, Hartney's quotes shaped much of Luke's public image, much of it inaccurate. His 1940 Up and At 'Em dealt tenderly and affectionately with the fallen hero, but much of its factual content is suspect. Like the other Rembercourt veteran to write about Luke in his memoirs (Rickenbacker) Hartney glossed over Luke's troubles. Perhaps sensing the public's fascination with "Peck's Bad Boy of the Air," each man took care to write about how much good will had existed between them and the dead ace.
Other passages from Up and At 'Em suggest it is not too much of a stretch to say that Hartney was as skilled at public-relations "spinning" as he was at combat aerobatics. In 1942, Hartney again showed this willingness to stretch the truth when he vouched for the truthfulness of an atriociously romanticized and inaccurate NBC radio play on Luke's flying career. His willingness to endorse propaganda seriously reduces his credibility.
He died soon after World War II.
Last Tango in Paris
Hartney's famed intuition guessed right about Frank Jr. The kid from Arizona had always flown with a fearless confidence - it was the glue that held the different parts of his personality together. In combat, it meant a surprising fierceness - a boldness that made enemies question the obvious at crucial moments. But Joe's death reduced him. Frank Luke Jr. was not the same man after Sept. 18.
Hartney could look into Frank's eyes and see the the tunnel-vision focus of the damned, so rather than send him back out into the aerial arena, Hartney sent him where all of the AEF wished to be: Paris.
It didn't take. Despite Hartney's best intentions, Frank Jr. arrived in Paris desparately alone. With no friends to fall back on amid the bright Paris nightlife, the revalry around him simply emphasized Luke's own misery. For all his tough hide, Frank Jr. was not a calculating, cold-blooded boy. He was a wide-open kid. The scorn of his squadronmates hurt him more than he ever let on.
Without a circle of friends with which to cruise the bars and brothels, the leave started badly and spiraled downward from there. There is no account that I know of that describes Frank's last leave, although the 1942 NBC radio play depicted a bitter, drunken Luke lashing out at soldiers from another unit who attempt to befriend him.
"The gayest wartime city in the world had nothing to offer him," Norman Hall wrote in Luke's biography after the war. "Apparently Luke had sat around the Hotel Chatham and instead of mixing with the boys and girls had thought up a new plan to down enemy kites."
The sure only record from this period of which I am aware is this - a letter Frank Jr. wrote Tillie from Orly:
"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 I am OK. 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."
It was a lie.
By my count, Frank Jr.'s week of leave should have expired on the 26th or 27th, depending on how Hartney chose to count it. But these were momentous times: the American Expeditionary Force and the First Army were forming up for the final drive into Germany, an offensive that would take the battle-tested troops of St. Mihiel and drive them north up the Marne river valley. Military planners hoped their campaign would push Germany to the brink by the summer of 1919.
Plans for the offensive were secret, but its preparations could not be hidden. Up and down the trenches, thousands of doughboys, caissons, mules and trucks pulled out of the lines and trooped up sodden roads to the northwest. In the rear, busy railyards lurched through the groaning logistical work of great armies on the move. The bawdy houses and salons of Paris hummed with the desparate, excited energy of young men who know each dance may be their last.
Whether Luke returned to his unit by his own intuition or on orders that have not been passed on to us, he did so with the certain knowledge that a big fight was coming. He boarded another train and shunted out of the yard under coal smoke and steam.
Surprised to learn of his return, Hartney reportedly asked Luke what he was doing back so early. Said Frank Jr.: "There wasn't anything to do."
Back to the fight
During his absence, the 27th had regrouped. It flew a couple cursory patrols on the 20th, then rested its planes and pilots on the 21st. Hudson got in a scrap on the 22nd, though nothing was shot down in the process. The 23rd passed without a flight, and patrols on the 24th were uneventful.
On the 25th, Vasconcells moved B-Flight north to the advanced field south of Verdun. Hall would later credit Luke with the idea for moving B-Flight north, a dubious claim at best. He goes so far as to suggest Luke persuaded Hartney to move "a balloon-busting" flight north, despite the major's objections. It doesn't add up. Not only was the idea executed while Luke was on leave, but Vasconcells' mission had nothing to do with balloons and Luke - the 27th's top balloon-buster - wasn't included.
Vasconcells' primary mission was to maintain an alert field - capable of responding quickly to any threat or opportunity within the zone of advance.
His secondary mission was to provide a refueling station for 1st PG pilots. Rembercourt had been well positioned for St. Mihiel, but the action along the Marne was well north of the group's aerodrome. The flight time from Rembercourt to the front line grew from 18 minutes to more than 30, and distances increased as the Allies drove the Germans back.
The Marne offensive began Sept. 26 like a replay of St. Mihiel: a massive early morning artillery barrage beneath a cold and unrelenting rain.
From late September through November 1918, northeastern France experienced the worst wet weather in decades. During Luke's final four days the rain was light yet constant, with resulting poor visibility, and the German balloons were up all along the front.
The morning patrols took off under fair skies at 5:18, with Vasconcells and Roberts both flaming drachens in separate combats.
That afternoon, Luke flew his first patrol since Joe's death, taking Roberts and a second pilot along with him at 800 meters. Patroling for balloons near Consenvoye and Sivry, he attacked a formation of five Fokkers. Descending to 100 meters in the melee, Frank got a Fokker in his sights and, after firing "a few short bursts," the German fell out of control.
Frank wheeled on the two Fokkers that trailed him and dropped in on one's tail. The lucky German pilot survived, though, when both Frank's guns jammed - repeatedly. How this combat concluded isn't known, although Frank claimed only one victory.
Roberts didn't return. The last time Luke saw him, the boarding school headmaster's son was engaged with two fighters. He was presumed dead.
He wasn't. Surviving his crash landing behind German lines, Roberts was imprisoned in the same camp with Lt. McElvain, a victim of the Aug. 1 debacle. But his war story doesn't end there. On Dec. 11th, former POW McElvain returned to the 27th and told the tale of Robert's death: escaping in the 11th hour of the war, Roberts was shot dead in a small ravine only a couple of miles from the American lines on Nov. 10 - the day before the Armistice.
Years after the war, Grant reportedly received a letter from a doctor who claimed to have escaped with Rogers. But, for reasons I cannot know, the letter was regarded as a fake. Historians are still divided over the basic circumstances of Robert's death.
For Luke, though, Ivan's disappearance had an immediate and crushing psychological effect. In two consecutive patrols he had lost two wingmen - both of them friends. His guilt in Joe's death was now compounded. Frank Jr. never flew in formation with anyone again.
One possible criticism of Frank's career is that he never really engaged in a prolonged aerial duel with a capable pilot - that he was never tested in the finer points of air-to-air combat. I think that is inaccurate. True, his other victories over heavier-than-air craft (a surprised Albatros on Aug. 16, a disadvantaged Halberstat two-seater and two Fokker D- 7s destroyed by head-on and one-pass bursts on Sept. 18) were slash-and-run kills. But the dogfight on the 26th was different: Frank engaged a superior force, maneuvered to get good position, then killed his opponent with quick, accurate bursts - and flew home without a single bullet hole in his plane to show for it. It was evidence of the kind of pilot he could have been.
But these are empty considerations for historians who seek only to place dead men in meaningless hierarchies. The meaningful truth of Sept. 26 is that it marked the point-of- no-return for Frank Luke Jr.
Luke was a gifted individual with no need for the constraints and protections of a higher authority. Combat proved his point - then presented its bill. Luke may not have needed those protections, but his lack of caution and foresight came at at the cost of two lives. It took the deaths of Joe Wehner and Ivan Roberts to teach Luke that his successes had been selfish ones. It must have been a staggering lesson to learn.
Before Sept. 26 he was a fearless maverick more interested in testing the limits of the rules than in their blatant disregard. After Sept. 26 he was a guilt-ridden and essentially suicidal loner. Frank Luke Jr. no longer gave a damn - for himself or the army.
Now the play enters its final act. There are really only four actors left on the stage by this point: Frank, Hartney, Grant and 1st Lt. Jerry Vasconcells of Denver, Colorado.
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