But there was no action. The 27th flew a morning patrol at 8:53 and another around lunch, followed by a voluntary patrol at 15:30 by by Hartney and Grant, who flew at only 600 meters altitude. Luke managed to pick up a patrol on the 13th as well, taking off at 17:20 with Vasconcells, Lennon, Hudson, Hewitt, Luke and Lyman, flying at 600 meters. They encountered nothing. Joe flew a voluntary patrol from 18:30 to 19:25, reporting nothing.

Hartney's orders for the 14th called for 12-plane patrols (six and six in echelons, with the lower between 2,500-3,500 and the upper between 3,500-5,500. It also allowed voluntary patrols when authorized by Group Operations.

Grant's orders assigned Hoover, Roberts, Dawson, Donaldson, Stout, Clapp and Nicholson to the lower echelon. The upper echelon was to be Vasconcells, Wilson, Hudson, Hewitt, Lennon, Lyman, Rucker, Luke and Wehner.

For once, the weather cooperated. Right on time at 9:30, Luke and the formation departed - without Joe. Wehner, apparently nursing a mechanical problem, remained at Rembercourt, making trial flights at 9:50 and 11:30.

Luke had balloons in mind that morning as well. After pumping hundreds of rounds into the Drachen at Marieulles, Frank had learned his lesson. He took off with his left gun loaded with tracers only - an incendiary stream for balloon busting and a regular load for reliability.

During the patrol, Frank Jr. and Dawson both peeled off from their respective echelons at different locations and attacked an enemy balloon near Boinville. After the first pass, the observer, Sergeant Muenchhoff of German Balloon Company No. 14, dove out with his parachute (Luke, despite repeated runs on the balloon and its batteries below, spared the observer. Afterward, asked why he didn't shoot him up as well, Luke replied: "Hell, the poor devil was helpless.").

In subsequent combat reports, both Luke and Dawson claimed to have downed it, and neither gave the other any credit. A third pilot - Lennon - also filed a claim on the balloon, saying he finished it off for both men. It is as if the three had each engaged in single combat with the same balloon.

Here is Luke's combat report:

"Left formation at Abaucourt and attacked an enemy balloon near Boinville. Dove at it six times at close range. Had two stoppages with left gun which carried incendiary bullets, and after fixing both, continued the attack. After about 75 rounds being left in right gun, I attacked an archie battery at base of balloon. Am sure that my fire took effect as the crew scattered. After my first attack on the balloon, the observer jumped. The last I saw of the balloon it was on the ground in a very flabby condition."

Contrast that with Lt. Leo H. Dawson's report on the same attack: "I left the formation over Moranville and attacked an enemy balloon near Boinville, diving at it three times and emptying both guns. Tracers entered it in great numbers. The observer jumped and the balloon was hauled down in a very flabby condition. White flaming balls were fired at me. Lt. Luke was below the balloon firing at the Archie battery. I left after the balloon had struck the ground it was not sent up again, at the time I left, twenty minutes later. From what I could observe it was very badly shot up."

Finally, Lt. Lennon: "Followed Lt. Luke and Dawson. Saw them attack enemy ballon in vicinity of Boinville. Observed that the observer jumped and enemy archie began to burst. The balloon flattened out and went to the ground. I dove on it and fired 50 round from each gun. The last I saw of balloon it was on the ground in a very flabby condition."

The Boinville drachen proved several things about balloon busting. First, burning a sausage without incendiary ammunition was damn near impossible. Though clearly damaged by fire from all three Spads, the grounded drachen was probably fixable. Second, without fighter cover, balloons were basically defenseless. And third, ground fire - unless concentrated and well coordinated - offered a statistical risk, not a direct threat.

In other words, Luke's first two balloons had been sitting ducks. But he was armed with a pea shooter.

Back at Rembercourt, Lennon, Dawson and Luke confronted each other. Luke had made six passes at the Boinville ballon and attacked the anti-aircraft gunners during Dawson's pass - and surely felt he had earned the credit for it by virtue of his greater risk. But Lennon and Dawson probably deserved a legitimate claim for delivering the coup de grace.

So Dawson and Lennon whined to the boss.

Grant - who had just received orders to take out a well-protected balloon near the front at Buzy - saw in their complaint an opportunity to deal with his primary discipline problem while securing the loyalty of his other pilots.

The C.O. sent word to have Luke and Wehner brought before him. They found him in his rough headquarters with Clapp, Lennon and Dawson, who watched as Grant drew neat little pencil circles around the names of towns on his operations map.

"Corps has been giving Group holy fucking hell about a drachen over near Buzy and Hartney has passed the shit down to me. Well, shit runs downhill, and I'm handing it down to you.

"Drop out of the formation at Buzy and - try to get back. And keep your eyes open. There's a whole fucking flock of Fokkers nesting under that sausage."

When Hartney dropped by the 27th flight line later that afternoon, Grant, Clapp, Dawson and Lennon approached him.

"Maj, we've been elected today to get that balloon," Clapp said. "Evidently you don't like your old gang in the 27th any more and want to get rid of us. You've detailed us to do the job and to name the man to go down at that sausage. Now, here's the proposition: Grant and I are going to put your boyfriend, Luke, on that assignment. If he gets it, he stays in the 27th. If he fails, you'll O.K. a transfer to some other outfit or to the rear. He's a menace to morale."

Hartney didn't object, but he didn't give away much, either. He could sense the resentment, and probably understood that for the men before him the best outcome would be Luke's death or humilation. But somebody had to get that balloon at Buzy.

Rembercourt buzzed with the news. Grant and company were really sticking it to those two kraut pilots. The flyers talked uneasily among themselves. "He's so damn great, well, here's his chance to prove it." The mechanics shook their heads.

Meanwhile, Frank and Joe made quick plans. Frank would come in low, armed this time with a full incediary load. Joe, his Vickers armed with a regular mix of tracers and slugs, would hang high and try to get the drop on the fighter escort. To put it in terms that two football players might have used, Frank's job was to tackle the balloon - Joe's job was to take on the blockers so Frank could shoot past into the backfield.

Frank checked his ammo belts carefully - he already knew from experience that the hotter incendiary rounds tended to jam. He slipped out any round with the slightest imperfection and eyeballed every link.

At 14:30, nine Spads from the 27th took off. The main body - Roberts, Rucker, White, Dawson, Wilson and Stewart - flew under the command of Vasconcells. Luke and Wehner, the suicide squad, hung back.

As the wedge neared Buzy, Luke wiggled his flippers and swung away from the formation, Wehner following immediately and making altitude.

If not too busily engaged with the sausage, Luke would participate in the dogfight certain to follow, but it was 10-to-1 Wehner would have to fight it out alone. Meanwhile, at least part of the main body circled close enough to observe the attack - but far enough away to keep out of the ensuing fight.

The weather was clear, so from a long distance Luke could make out the shape of his target. There were other sights to see, too - most notably a second balloon below him near Waroq and a German fighter squadron racing to intercept him from above.

Luke goosed the Spad up to its top level-flight speed - 130 mph - and nosed over into a shallow dive. His flight path put him dead-on the Buzy balloon, but his eye was on the fighters. Combat is typically chaos, but this was a simple calculation. He had the faster machine and a slight positional edge. If he could get to the balloon first he would have one unmolested pass at the drachen. If they could cut him off or settle in on his tail, Frank would have to drop the attack and run like hell. Either way, there would be no second attack run.

The Fokkers (and Albatroses) - Luke counted eight of them, Joe only five - closed on him at an angle, but his lead held. He had won the race: now it was just a matter of holding his diving Spad 13 on the drachen long enough to flame it.

If that sounds easy, it isn't. At long range, Luke would have to hold his Spad's blunt nose a little higher than his line of attack to compensate for the falling trajectory of his bullets. At 160 mph that range would change so quickly that Luke would have to increase his dive angle radically just to keep his bullets on target and his plane on the right path. Most dangerous of all, the point-blank killing burst would have to be fired with his plane headed straight toward an exploding target.

But Luke's obsessive machine-gun training was about to pay off. Squeezing off tight bursts that registered even from long range, Luke's Spad bored in on the Buzy drachen. He closed on it in a matter of seconds, the balloon suddenly looming huge in his sights. Frank gave it everything he had, flying straight at the target and holding the trigger until both guns jammed.

But the jam came too late for the Buzy drachen. This one didn't sag and burn or go flaccid and fall. It shivered, convulsed orange flame - and exploded spectacularly. Frank broke left and up, feeling the sudden, intense heat of it.

If he celebrated, his celebration ended quickly. With his eye searching for those diving Fokkers, Luke pounded on his twin Vickers. They were cooked - overheated and wedged tight by that final, all-or-nothing burst on the balloon.

Then the Fokkers were on him, toggling back on their throttles as they slowed and wheeled into combat. Frank sagged back on the stick, stood the quivering Spad on its tail and tried to throw them off.

The German leader veered off and up, fell over into attack position, and sprayed him with tracers. A second fighter fell in behind the leader, and the two raked Luke's fuselage with short, quick bursts. Bullets splintered his instrument board and ripped the doped fabric of his wings. Frank rolled, tipped the Spad over on one wing, and swung away.

Were it not for Joe Wehner, the story of Frank Luke would have ended right here.

Throttle open, guns chattering, his goggled face poked far over the edge of the cockpit, Wehner charged the enemy formation. Joe dove into it and through it to the two planes on Luke's tail. They veered, forgot Luke, and shied off . The first pilot never quite made it all the way around: Joe killed him on his first pass.

With jammed guns and a damaged aircraft, Frank needed a break to have any hope of survival. When Joe presented it, Frank took it. He dove and slipped away, leaving Joe to fend for himself.

Joe could hold his own, but he could do the math, too. Five-to-one is a sucker's bet. Joe meant to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. His out-of-the-sun attack had confused the enemy, which scattered. By the time the Fokker pilots had realized there was only one Spad coming to the rescue, Joe's sudden dive and 220-horsepower Hispano Suiza had carried him out of danger.

The German pilots probably would have given chase to one or both, but their mission restrained them. Having lost one of their balloons to the Americans, the German flight leader held them back to protect the survivor.

Wehner formed up with the rest of the patrol, which landed at Rembercourt at 16:05. Luke, who wouldn't return for another 45 minutes, was nowhere to be seen. To the conspirators and their silent accomplices, it was obvious what had happened. The last anyone had seen of Luke was his Spad spinning down under attack by three Fokker D-7s behind the German lines. The Arizona Boaster had surely bought it, and the provincal pain in their ass had been relieved.

Somehow it's easier for the dead to be heroic - they don't hang around to remind us of their human frailities. The men who had shunned Frank and arranged to send him on a deadly mission without adequate protection wasted no time mythologizing the fallen hero and revising their own roles in his death.

Hartney describes the scene:

"After the second patrol I had scarcely landed and made my way to Group headquarters when Grant, Clapp, and Dawson came galloping up, highly excited. Dawson was the spokesman:

"'Listen Major, we want to take that all back. Boy, if anyone thinks that bird is yellow he's crazy. I'll take back every doubt I ever had. The man's not yellow; he's crazy, stark mad. He went by me on that attack like a wild man. I thought he was diving right into the fabric. Then, even after it was afire, I saw him take another swoop down on it. He was pouring fire on fire and a hydrogen one at that."

"Said Clapp, with tears in his eyes: 'Gosh, Maj. Who spread that dribble around that Luke is a fourflusher? I'd like to kill the man that did. He's gone, the poor kid, but he went in a blaze of glory. He had to go right down to the ground to get that .... balloon and they've got the hottest machine-gun nest in the world around it. They couldn't miss him.'

"The telephone rang. It was the 27th Squadron HQ. 'Major, you'd better come down here quick and ground this bird, Luke. He's ordered his plane filled up with gas. He's just run over to Wehner's ship and he says they're going out to attack that balloon at Waroq. His machine is full of holes, two longerons are completely riddled and the whole machine is so badly shot up it's a wonder he flew back here at all. He's crazy as a bedbug, that man.'

"We ran all the way, a quarter of a mile, to the 27th. On the way over, all of us puffing from the exertion, Capt. Grant, who always had more or less of the West Point attitude toward fliers, grunted to Clapp:

"'You're his flight commander, Clapp. I hold you responsible. He's making a burlesque of the 27th and I'm just not going to stand it. Balloons or no balloons, we must have discipline.'

"The mechanics, who idolized Luke, had already stymied him. They had pulled at least two square yards of fabric off the fuselage from the cockpit back and a like amount off one of the wing panels, to lay bare the punctured spars, fittings and cables. Luke was standing by, sheepishly.

"'Wehner wants me on this next patrol, Major. Won't you let me have Hoover's ship over there? It's all gassed up and Hoover told me I could use it in a pinch. Come on, Major, please.'

"Grant then stepped up, with very stern mien.

"'Who's running this outfit Major? You or I? I need Hoover's ship for the next patrol. We've got two balloons already today and this next one Wehner is after isn't so important.'

"Grant was Luke's immediate commanding officer. He won out. Luke slunk away, giving Grant a disdainful look, and made his way over to Wehner.

"I followed and caught him by the arm.

"'Listen, Frank, old boy. I appreciate all you're doing. I'm so proud of you I hardly know what to do. It's only a few hours since the army called for the destruction of those balloons and you did it. No outfit can beat that. The famous French Cigogne group, with their great aces, Fonck and Garros (is Garros still alive on Sept. 14?- ed.), is over the hill there and they can't even get their new 220 Spads into service, let alone shoot down balloons. Have patience. In flying, patience is the best virtue you can have if you want to live to be an old man.'

"He looked at me with a strange, inquiring gaze. Maybe he was not intent on living to be an old man. I know he liked and trusted me. I added quickly: 'Besides, Frank, you've got to make out a couple of combat reports. What's the use of shooting them down if you don't get credit? Moreover, I want you to try that dusk idea of yours. I think you'll get them easier and with less risk in the evening when the Huns are afraid to fly.'

"It worked. As his group commander I could easily have given him strict orders and court-martialed him out of the service if he disobeyed them. But by this time I was getting quite wise in the peculiar mental process of war pilots and how to get the very best out of them. My little piece of flattery save him from disgrace, because Luke was simply not susceptible to ordinary Army discipline. And it cost the Germans at least one dozen balloons and three airplanes.

"Wehner was standing by his machine. A big, athetic six-footer, he had a decided poise coupled with cool, calculating sense. He was rubbing his goggles.

"'How many's he got, Major?' he asked, smiling.

"Two more!" I said.

"Well, leave him here on the ground. There's only one balloon left up there and even if I get it I still can't catch up to him."

Wehner took out his map, a piece of paper cut down to about three inches square mounted on stiff cardboard which he could easily hold in his hand as he flew.

"I'm going to climb to the ceiling today, Major. It's so hazy I doubt if I'll be seen from the ground. Then I'm going 10 miles directly south over the lines and from there I'll catch him unawares in a swoop from his side. Nothing will stop me."

I could see that Luke was fairly aching to go along. Wehner leaped into his cockpit and was off in less than 60 seconds.

"Remember your promise, Major," Luke said as we parted, he to his tent." Joe's voluntary solo patrol arrived over Waroq too late. The French ace Rene Fonck had burned the balloon only moments before, attracting the attention of the blue-green Fokker interceptors. Distracted, the Fokkers were unprepared for Joe's surprise attack. He downed two of them in quick succession and returned home.

Sept. 14 had been a big day at Rembercourt. Rickenbacker shot down a Fokker, his seventh; Lt. Wilbur White of the 147th had shot down a balloon and an EA over Chambley, and Luke had flamed two sausages during a midmorning flight.

It had been a good day for the 27th. In the morning Frank, Dawson and Lennon had combined to down one balloon. In the afternoon, Frank had claimed another. Squadron records show Clapp claimed a Fokker, although his official flight report from the morning patrol doesn't claim any kills and squadron records don't show him flying again that day (perhaps he went up with the 14:30 patrol. Hartney is clearly confused about the facts of the day, but he does remember Clapp talking about witnessing Luke's attack...). To cap it off, Joe recorded the squadron's first double victory - while flying alone.

That night at the squadron mess was probably one the few times that Frank and Joe were ever given much general acceptance. The others had thought Frank was dead and had gone on the record talking about what a great, brave pilot he was. Now that he was inconviently alive again, shunning him like the old days would be transparently hypocritical.

For this one day, perhaps, life was what Frank had expected it would be. He had proven his skill and bravery, survived a challenge that would have killed lesser men, and returned to find even his enemies clapping him on the back.

That night was the beginning of the legend. Luke could see his destiny - American balloon buster - spread before him, and the adreneline of that plunge over Buzy still coursed through his body like the crackling spark of a hot-wired fence.

There would be armament changes - upgrading from their standard 7mm round to an unproven 11mm "balloon gun" that Lt. Cosgrove the armament officer had scrounged. There would be advanced operations fields so they could get to the balloons quicker. There would be twilight and dawn drachen hunts, with special arrangements to allow pilots to land in the dark. It was a heady night for the two friends.

But the successes of Sept. 12 and 14 had another effect as well - in the minds of Harold Hartney and Billy Mitchell, those victories labelled No. 27 Squadron "the balloon platoon." When the orders for Sept. 15 arrived via courier, the men read their dubious honor: while the rest of the group patrolled in force, 27th alone was assigned the task of attacking the three balloons at Tronville and a fourth balloon at Villers-sous-Paried.

Attacking balloons was the best way to get yourself killed, and thanks to Luke and Wehner, now the brass expected them all to make a living at it.