I knew about Frank Luke, but then I was in the Air Force.  There is an Air Force base named after him.  Luke AFB is located near Phoenix, Arizona.

You missed the picture of his mom at the end

I think he kept in the letter for a couple of reasons. Its a way to honor the sacrifice his family made. Since he didnt get to read it, it deserves to be read and heard in remembrance. In the relatively peaceful times we live in, it keeps those realities of war in the forefront of our mind so that we aren’t doomed to repeat history.

The saddest part of Frank Luke's story is that the war would end less than 2 months after his death.

"Uncommon Valor was a common Virtue" - Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, a quote he used to describe the Marines and Sailors who fought during The Battle of Iwo Jima. And it my opinion, a quote that describe all of the Allied forces during The First and Second World Wars.

More caution after reading a letter? No. that wasn't him, he was his own man, it was his law always.

Oh, Boomy's gonna bawl at this one.

I live in El Mirage, Arizona about a mile from the runway of Luke Air Force Base.  It's one of the bases used to train pilots of our allies on the F-35 A and F-16 aircraft. I get an "airshow" about 5 times a day.  There is a replica of the plane flown by Luke in terminal 3 at the Phoenix airport. It bears the original squadron markings and was restored using original parts of period aircraft.
T. Boyte
Gunnery Sergeant, USMC, retired
Vietnam 1965-66/1970-71
Bronze Star, Purple Heart

you missed the most saddest part nick shows a picture of Luke's mother getting his M.O.H medal

You automatically get a like from me for any Fat Electrician video. 👍

BTW- first fighter pilot to be awarded the highest medal for valor, The Medal of Honor.

Boomy, love your reactions to death.  ALL of the aircraft in World War 1 were death traps.  My mother's older sister was married to a man whose father had been an American pilot in the Great War.  He said that as many men died learning to fly as died in combat.  In combat, the pilot had no protection from the bullets fired by the enemy, no protection from fire aboard his own aircraft. and no system to keep him safe in a crash landing.  Also, no country allowed its pilots to fly with parachutes during the war, except for Germany and then only at the very end of the war.  When I was a kid, I memorized so many of the fighter aircraft of the Great War and could not concieve of how insanely dangerous aerial combat at that time was until years later.

A pugilist is  a fancy, classic word for a boxer or a person who fights with their fists" for anyone else because i had no idea what that word meant

"Why would anyone want to try and pilot one of these planes?" Good question with two simultaneous answers; 1, air superiority; it was legitimately the BEST plane on the battlefield (and truly, wasn't that much worse than everything else. Still very new tech for WWI, 15 years of development.) It was all super "you're probably going to die" in any plane, and the Spad was the BEST plane going. 2...not really optional for them; when your commander says "you go do ___", welp, you've got your orders and they're what you do, or else. "Wanting to", never really a question that came up. When the commander says "you stand on your head and blow bubbles out your ass", if you don't want punishment, you figure it out.

I went to Luke Elementary School- he’s been my hero since 1973.

Thank you for seeing my recommendation! I was hoping you would watch this video.❤

That man went down fighting. He knew he was about to meet his maker, so he was going to take as many down with him as possible. HERO.

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Frank Luke Jr. was the first American aviator to receive the Medal of Honor. Known as the "Arizona Balloon Buster," he earned the award posthumously for his actions in WWI, specifically destroying 14 German observation balloons and four airplanes in just eight days.

Another reason WW1 planes didn't use parachutes was due to the fact that MOST of the pilots didn't even trust the parachute to work. Remember, that this is really when the use of airplanes started to really become "normalized". As such, the concept that a simple "silk sheet" would provide enough "lift" to let you SAFELY try to exit the plane to land safely was considered itself "insane" at worst, and just "dangerous" at best.

So, it wasn't simply in order to "save the plane" from jumping early, but the pilots NOT trusting the parachutes in general..... and because the extra "bulk" of the parachute would NOT allow the pilots to sit properly in the plane itself. The seats were extremely "tight" and didn't give you much room for extra gear. So, basically it was a simple issue of design limits, not trusting the parachute gear AND not wanting people to "jump early".

Learning about men you should have already known about brings me great pleasure.