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105 years go today, September 29, 1918, this precious boy was killed in combat.

Frank Luke Jr., who would posthumously become the first pilot to receive the Medal of Honor, earned fame for his reckless, daring attacks of observation balloons, regarded as difficult and suicidal targets. Balloons were responsible for the slaughter of thousands of troops in the trenches as they allowed enemy artillery to fire more accurately, resulting in horrible deaths for men trapped like fish in a barrel.

Frank’s commanding officer said his unshakeable drive came from seeing the carnage firsthand while visiting the front lines. From childhood he had a history of reckless courage to help others in danger or being mistreated, and this trait not only carried into his combat tendencies, but also his personal life at the front. He befriended a pilot of the same age name Joe Wehner, a quiet boy from Boston who was receiving mistreatment for his German ancestry, his previous work in Germany with war refugees, and general anti-war attitudes. They became fast friends and roommates, and when posted to the same squadron flew together as often as possible, fixing up an abandoned cottage at the edge of their airfield to stay in.

Frank’s small stature and slightly-naive personality made him seem younger than he was, and his eager, excitable demeaner endeared him to many who knew him in civilian life and other squadronmates such as his commanding officer Harold Hartney, legendary pilot Eddie Rickenbacker, and others. Yet many in his squadron disliked him bitterly, cited as due to his eager chatter, bravado, and generally annoying, attention-seeking behavior, which was at odds with the description of those closest to him. A combination of his nervousness, desire to fit in, boyish eagerness, and effort to take the negative attention away from Joe are all logical reasons that could explain this. In any case, hostility among his comrades grew so bad as for them to intentionally send him and Joe on dangerous missions.

When the big American offensives began, the success of Frank’s combat strategies skyrocketed. In a scant 17 days he destroyed at least 14 balloons and 4 aircraft, making him America’s top ace at the time. Frank never told his family he was at the front because he didn’t want them to worry, and they only found out from the newspapers raging of his exploits. He tried to reassure them, but he wouldn’t give up his reckless strategy—it was working very well, even at maximum personal risk. Joe did his best to protect Frank on missions, even giving up his own victories to instead be Frank’s bodyguard in the air. One day after taking on 6 enemy planes who were trying to stop Frank from getting a balloon, Joe was shot down and killed.

Frank was devastated, and by all accounts was never the same again. He became even more reckless and roamed the front attacking at will, much to the consternation of his superior officers. Finally, after one night attacking several balloons in a matter of minutes, he was badly wounded and brought his damaged plane down in a field outside a little village, where he died. There is a statue of him in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, and he is buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France.

Frank and Joe’s remarkable and touching story have been close to me for many years, and I have just finished a second draft of a nonfiction novel about them. We must always remember—not only the historical aspect, but who they were as people. Take a look at the photo again. Could you see him as a beloved family member?

#this became and essay sorry not sorry #world war I #history #pilots #writers on tumblr #Medal of Honor

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One day about 15 years ago I read a story about a boy who died to save his friend. That friend them fought for another week on a broken heart and died to save the boys in the trenches. I’ve never been the same since.

Every step and turn of my life since then has been affected by them and I’m about to gamble again, make a huge life change and risk to keep trying to write their story and get it out there. And not their story only, but of so many other brave and loved and forgotten ones. I don’t regret a single moment, but I’d take a lifetime of regrets to keep them alive in someone else’s heart.

You’re will meet them all, soon.

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#idk what to tag this #people

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A ship dynamic I find interesting is super protective x super reckless.

The reckless one doesn't care about throwing themself into danger, because they just know that their partner will always be there to protect them from anything bad that could happen to them.

Can lead to a situation in which their partner simply can't be there to save them in time or is very late to do it, so they finally realize that they're also hurting their partner by putting themself constantly in dangerous situations.

#absolutely Frank and Joe

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AU where instead of the boys having their lives violently snuffed out they live happily ever after in a place like this 🥺

Gloucester, England by Iain Harris

#I do write AUs sometimes to cope #I can’t change their story for real but god I can dream #world war 1 writing #true stories #history #my rambling

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OP these are ALL so relateable but esp:

2 (my muse/es are real people from history and they never leave me alone)

3 (I wrote the entire book out of order, which came back to F- me up SO HARD)

4 (My writing is very visual because I’m literally seeing a brain-movie)

5 (World War 1)

10 (and on random scraps of paper all over the damn house

20 (oh god make it stop)

Please reblog if one or more of these apply to you as a writer:

1) Your muse feeds you ideas on its schedule, not yours.

2) Your muse has kept you awake until you wrote something down and/or woken you up to write.

3) You get ideas for chapters out of order, which never fails to irritate you. (Like yes, I'm glad you're telling me about chapter 7, but I need to finish 5 and 6 first. Sheesh!)

4) You see and hear everything you write about playing in your head like a movie. At this point, you're more of a reporter than anything else.

5) Your muse is from a different time period. Victorian, WW1, WW2, etc.

6) Your muse rudely wakes you up because it's in a different time zone. Never mind it's night where you are - it's morning for them, so get out of bed!

7) Your muse refuses to let you write a new story until you complete the one you're writing.

8) Your muse decides to all but chuck months - or even years - of writing effort out the window by not feeding you ideas for said story.

9) You've abruptly lost interest in a story you spent ages working on. And yes, you're salty about it! You still have the documents just in case, though.

10) You keep documents on your phone so you can write at a moment's notice. Alternatively, you write emails/send texts to yourself so you don't forget fic ideas.

11) You've gotten so involved in doing research for a storyline, you forget what the storyline was in the first place. Cue you glaring at your writing device, shaking your hand or finger and blaming it for distracting you. Possibly swearing vengeance as well, depending on your mood.

12) You can come up with a good title and summary; it’s writing the story itself that’s hard. (Or vice versa.)

13) You have days where you wish you'd never written a single chapter of anything.

14) If your English teachers could see you now, they'd 100% call BS on your inability to write a 2 page essay back in school.

15) Your friends say you're talented - you disagree.

16) You can write AU stuff just fine, but don't ask you to stick to how characters are potrayed in the books/movieTV show. Canon is merely the playground in which you choose what to use and what to discard.

17) You've written one or more things that are cringe, but you're still lowkey proud of them.

18) You've written one or more things that are so far removed from that fandom, they might as well be in a different orbit. And for some reason, people like it! That confuses you, yet makes you feel validated.

19) Writing has become the addition you didn't ask for.

20) You write for one or more niche fandoms.

21) You never intended to become a writer at all, it just sort of...happened.

22) You've written PWP before.

23) You anxiously await the first review on any new fic you post, but then you're too nervous to check right away when you get the review notification.

24) You can deal with bad review(s) to a point, so long as none of them are the first one. If the first review isn't neutral or good, you'll be devastated.

25) There will always be a little part of you that's constantly amazed you wrote anything to begin with, besides your name. And you have fans too! That's the real shocker right there.

#Thanks for this #weird writing stuff #writer probs

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me when the emotionally repressed character is revealed to have had something happen in their childhood that was completely out of their control but changed them in a way they can never come back from

#me at Frank and Joe #cry

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Will I ever explain the anger and confusion that seizes me at the call, “Look at this trench, where all these soldiers were pierced and torn apart. It is haunted!” Or, “Come see this haunted burial ground, in the very place they were shot!” and so on. No, you fool, not at all. They are in the sunflower field, at that oak tree by the canal where they would swim while off duty, by the beat-up piano with missing keys that changed sides a dozen times. A wristwatch is more haunted than a thousand gravestones because only life clings to every surface it brushes—like the scent of a loved one after touching their cheek—not death, which is just the places where life doesn't go. 

The people you are looking for are only in the dark places because that’s where you seek them, and they want you. They’ll be much happier if you go to them, if you know where to look, away from pitch black where they died and toward the little slices of light where they lived. Butterflies are haunted; so are the rocks in the stream that look like stepping stones, and that straight part of the road big enough to make a ball game out of. These are more haunted then any bomb shelters, prison camps, or those cemeteries with the crosses and flags. The ones you seek? They will go where they felt the most alive. 

A gun will not be haunted, but the bent pocket knife someone used to carve their love’s name into the wooden stock is. Pick up the harmonica, not the shell casings, and the one who played it will come home with you. Above all, never stop looking. If you know where to look, you will never be alone.

#idk where this came from but here #I had to get something out #writing #history #haunting

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A collection of my favorite photos from France

#still haunts me #WW1 #history #writing

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My ouch today came from the story of a young WW1 pilot who while at the front made very close friends with another pilot he loved dearly, and when the other boy was killed he was devastated and riddled with guilt. One day his plane became badly damaged in combat, which usually meant inevitable death. At the last second he was able to get it under control and survive the crash. He later confessed in a letter that in those few moments, with the plane falling apart and the wind screeching around him, the ground rushing up and a horrid, painful death merely seconds away, the only thought in his mind was how happy his friend would be to see him.

#just rip my heart out would ya? #WW1 #pilot #writing #history

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i love when tragedies are like “the love was there. it didnt change anything. it didnt save anyone. there were just too many forces against it. but it still matters that the love was there”

#thank you OP for finding this for me! #and also for making me cry on a Saturday morning #the story in a nutshell #yes it’s a tragedy but also #love matters and counts for something #with the futility of everything it is enough

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So, a lot has happened. I’m going to the Smithsonian archives this week to look at another squadron scrapbook, and just got involved in a small WWI aviation museum who is building a replica of Frank and Joe’s plane. Gonna start volunteering to help, had a blast talking to the researchers and exchanging info

#the *coincidences* keep piling up

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1. your suffering can’t end until you stop identifying with it. if your sense of self is tied up in your suffering, anyone or anything that attempts to separate you from it will become the enemy because, whether consciously or subconsciously, you will on some level believe they are trying to take away a part of who you are.

2. read the above again.

#yep but it literally is a part of my sense of self #so I just got a bad hand dealt #not giving it up fam

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Today I visited the Arizona State Archives to read Frank Luke’s letters and see the photos in the collection. There are many photos of Joe there as well.

What a GOLD MINE of info, I learned all sorts of new things (Frank’s middle names was Joseph and Joe’s middle name was Frank, one of their squadron mates lied about his age and was 12 when he joined, and more) but what struck me the most was all the stuff I had in the book that I thought was headcannon, that I just had a hunch about, that was confirmed by the documents and notes. Mainly, Frank was the youngest in the group, he had close association with Martin and Hoover, was good friends with Joe before he arrived at the 27th, and more. Also confirmed that a lot of photos I suspected was Joe was actually him.

Reading Frank’s letters was so sweet and funny and heartbreaking. He had such a huge and vibrant and youthful personality. He was so earnest and lovable that so many people were smitten by him.

after all this I went back to my hotel, looking over the sunset in the Phoenix desert mountains that he loved so much, and cried

#notes #history #ww1 #writing #aviation history #biographical novel

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I am FREAKING out. Just found a letter from another 27th Squadron pilot who was in charge of mailing the personal effects of Joe (one of my pilots) to his family after he went missing. The letter proves the existence of a personal diary, Bible, lucky ring, and VIDEO FOOTAGE of Joe (we can safely assume the videos include Frank as well). The ring is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, but the other stuff is nowhere to be found. Time to put my detective hat on.

#ww1 #history #writing #seriously feel like my heart will give out #I’m useless for anything else today #DIARY??? #VIDEO FOOTAGE???

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Yes, I do take life advice from reckless WW1 pilots who died at 21 and got the Medal of Honor and loved each other more than would be considered socially acceptable in modern times, thanks for asking.

#I mean #it hasn’t failed me yet #fked me up a little but hasn’t failed #sots rambles #history #writing probs

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Strange things that have happened since I started writing a novel about a true WW1 pilot story:

I discover I was attending the same college the central character attended.

I meet a man whose great-uncle was in the same squadron, and he let me look through the guy’s scrapbook.

While on a trip to France for research, I was looking online for places to stay and chose a bed-and-breakfast at random. Something about the photos nagged at my brain until I compared it with my notes. Turns out it was sitting on the exact same ridge the kid I was writing about was shot from on his last flight.

Before arriving in France, I was writing a crucial scene that takes place in a field. Since I had never seen it, I obviously had to picture it in my head. Went to visit the area in France. Immediately recognized the field exactly as I had imagined it.

The squadron had a dog as a mascot, little guy named Jerry that was a not a common dog breed. I’d never seen one before in my life, or even heard of it. After getting back from France I go for a walk around the neighborhood. See my neighbor got a new dog. Guess what breed.

While looking for actors that would play all the main characters in a hypothetical movie (as all writers do) I came across a young actor that I just knew was someone, but not sure who. I attempted to pick randomly, but something told me “that’s not (character x), that’s (character y)” I had never seen a photo of the original character y, so I shrugged and went with it. A week later I found a photo of the real character y. Spitting image of the actor I had chosen.

Strange things UPDATED

I began writing a character without knowing who they were. I give him a filler name, and to my frustration he’s the only one in whose dialogue appears the word “ain’t.” I tried not using it but something kept forcing me, so I gave up. As I progressed, I decided it’s time to find out the real world counterpart. From the previous point, I figured I just have to look through the photos of the guys in the squadron and find the one that looks like the actor I had already chosen by gut as faceclaim. Bingo. Find the guys name. Discover he is from Bell Buckle, TN.

Found a song that perfectly encapsulates the story at its heart. Not a well known or very new song, found it totally by chance. Added it it to the playlist and listen to it often. All of a sudden I hear it everywhere: gas station, mall, haircut…I’m checking into my hotel in BERLIN and it’s playing on the radio

The plane flown by the MC is quite rare. There are practically no models and none still flying today. If a model is found it’s very old/in bad condion and never his specific plane with his markings and number. One day I’m browsing Facebook marketplace for the first time, just to ignore schoolwork. I see an old radio with a die cast plane to sit on top. It looks like his and sure enough…I look closer and it’s even American markings, look at more photos and his number is on it. Of course I had to buy. Of all the days and places for me to look. One in a million.

Oh and I see them. Talk to them. Well, the two main characters anyway. Have for years. Not getting too deep into that. I have weird sensations and feelings of the war, recollections and triggers from things I’ve never experienced. I see video footage, photos, and people and recognize them. Know answers to questions I shouldn’t. It’s weird at best, unnerving and traumatizing at worst. I don’t think about it too much.

#update #writing #ww1 #historical fiction #novel