The Never Ending Story
Resilience of the 1911
On the evening of the 29th of September, 1918, America's leading air ace of World War I was engaged in a fight for his life. Arizona native Frank Luke had just downed three German observation balloons. While burning his last one over Murvaux, France, he came under heavy anti-aircraft fire. Wounded, Lieutenant Luke landed his SAPD XIII in a field, crawled from the cockpit, pulled his 1911 pistol, and used it to defend himself from the advancing Germans. Moments later, Luke succumbed to the single bullet wound he had received while in the air. Lieutenant Luke was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Frank Luke was the first airman to receive the Medal of Honor, and he was also the first United States Army Air Service member to become an ace in a day. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, America’s most celebrated fighter pilot of WW I, said Frank Luke was, “…the most daring aviator and greatest fighter pilot of the entire war...He went on a rampage and shot down fourteen enemy aircraft, including ten balloons, in eight days. No other ace, even the dreaded Richthofen, had ever come close to that.”
You can argue the pros and cons of the 1911 all you like, and it’s something we will probably debate for all eternity, because it looks like this grand old gun will be with us forever. What you cannot argue with is that now, more than a century after introduction, the 1911 is more popular than ever. I just spent a week at a compound on a mountain top, where Wilson Combat makes the best 1911s in the world. From highly refined conventional 1911s, to more modernized examples like the EDC, SF, and Project 1 double stack pistols, Wilson Combat has carried and evolved this more than 100 year old design into the new millennium.
If you like plastic pistols with no safeties and spongy triggers, including some that seem to go bang all on their own, you'll probably not understand or appreciate any of this. But here is something that illustrates the timelessness of the 1911 that you should understand.
If Frank Luke were to magically appear in the skies today, and land his SPAD XIII anywhere in America, there are few things he would recognize or know how to deal with. To Luke, our modern jet powered airplanes would seem like alien spacecraft. Our automobiles, congested highways, cell phones, computers, and even our modern women, would be like a horrific science fiction nightmare to a man who might have been the bravest military pilot, ever. Of the many things that would confuse and bewilder our hero, there is one tool Luke would recognize and could still use with skill. As much as our world has changed in the last century, Lieutenant Frank Luke could feel right at home — and like he was back in 1918 — with a 1911 that he could find just about anywhere.
Some plastic pistol afficianados will claim the 1911 sucks. Maybe in some ways, to a mind polluted with modern foolishness, it does. However, the 1911 will never suck near as much as not having one.
More on Frank Luke
If you are interested in reading more about Frank Luke I would strongly suggest you order the book, The Stand, 2nd Edition: The Final Flight of Lt. Frank Luke Jr., written by Stephen Skinner. I have read the First Edition, cover to cover, and it is one of the best researched and most detailed biographies of a World War 1 fighter pilot you can find.
NOTES: There is a replica of Frank Luke’s SPAD 13 in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, and Luke Air Force base in Maricopa County, Arizona is named after Frank Luke.
More on the 1911
If you would like to read more about the 1911, check out THIS ARTICLE at Gun Digest.
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I sent you an e-mail with a copy of an article I did that include that pistol. Maybe that will help.
Some of those plastic things are marvelous and some are not.