TERROR OF THE AUTUMN SKIES PA

Frank Luke, Jr. was an unlikely pilot. In the Great War, when fliers were still #xE2;#xAC;Sknights of the air,#xE2;#xAC; Luke was an ungallant loner#xE2;#xAC;#x1D;a kid from Arizona who collected tarantulas, shot buzzards, and boxed miners. But during two torrid weeks in September 1918, he was the deadliest man on the Western Front. In only ten missions, he destroyed fourteen heavily-defended German balloons and four airplanes, the second highest American tally in the entire war. Author Blaine Pardoe retraces and refreshes Frank Luke#xE2;#xAC;"s story through recently discovered correspondence. Frantic, short, and splendid, the life of Frank Luke, Jr. dramatizes the tragic intervention of an American spirit in the war that devastated Europe.

Blaine Pardoe is a novelist and military historian. He has been a featured speaker at the United States National Archives, the United States Navy Museum, and the New York Military Affairs Symposium. His books have been printed in six languages. Pardoe resides in Amissville, Virginia.