Raoul Lufbery, the Frenchman who became America's greatest aviator

New European

13-05-2025

The season was especially lovely that year, so much so that, on May 19, Lufbery took time to savour the lilac-scented morning. Nancy in bloom felt a very long way away from the battle front on a day like this. Still, when the American flyers were informed that a German spy plane had been spotted, the cry of 'in the air!' received an immediate response from Raoul, if not all of his colleagues.
'Unless the Germans find some new ways of protecting their shell factories, they are due for a very uncomfortable time.' So remarked air ace Raoul Lufbery in the spring of 1918.
The hesitation was in part because it appeared the flap might be a false alarm, the silent gun batteries suggesting the enemy craft had already been downed. But then the Albatross was spotted again and with only the inexperienced lieutenant Oscar Gude currently in the air, it appeared that the chance to claim another scalp would go begging.
That was until Raoul Lufbery – who'd commandeered a motorbike to get him to his flight as soon as possible – guided his Nieuport skywards. With 17 kills already to his name, the man affectionately known as 'Luf' fancied his chances of adding to his tally. That he wasn't terribly familiar with his borrowed plane seemed of little importance, likewise the reluctance of his colleagues to join him in the air.
Lufbery was further hindered by the fact the plane's guns hadn't been recalibrated to his specifications. Quite how he was expected to engage the enemy was hard to say, but Luf had overcome bigger obstacles in the past.
With so many things going against him Lufbery nevertheless manoeuvred into a strong position. Writing in Air Force magazine in January 1957, Ed Mack Miller thrilled at how Lufbery 'swarmed the Albatross at 2,000ft, firing several small bursts by way of warming up. Perhaps those first bursts confirmed suspicions that the Albatross had armour plate. Nevertheless, he attacked again only to have his guns jam. He circled to clear the jam then dived again to the attack!'
Which is when everything went wrong.
As Miller continues, '[Lufbery's] plane was seen to burst into flames. He passed the Albatross and proceeded for three or four seconds on a straight course. Then his friends at the airfield saw him climb out of the cockpit and almost back to the tail. The tiny figure on the blazing plane rode there for several seconds, and then they saw him jump.'
Whether Lufbery leapt to spare himself the agonies of a fiery death or did so in a game attempt to splash down in the Meurthe, we'll never know. He may have even slipped from the cockpit accidentally when the plane tipped, having removed his seatbelt to attend to a jammed gun.
Whatever the truth, Gervais Raoul Victor Lufbery died the instant he hit the ground. He was just 33 years old.
Such had been Lufbery's contribution to the war effort, his funeral was as big an event as the circumstances allowed. Those in attendance included Eddie Rickenbacker, the man who became America's greatest dogfighter. Claiming that he 'learned everything from Luf', Rickenbacker was determined to pay his respects to the shy, quiet man who'd mentored him.
In his memoir Fighting the Flying Circus, Rickenbacker noted that '[the mourners' flowers] covered the dead airman's casket and formed a huge pyramid over it.' Those to lay wreaths that day included Generals Liggett and Gerard and Colonel Billy Mitchell, the chief of the American Air Services.
Rickenbacker paid tribute through his participation in a flypast, after which he and his colleagues returned to base where 'we silently faced the realisation that America's greatest aviator had been laid away for his last rest.'
The only problem with that statement being that Raoul Lufbery wasn't American. Or rather, he wasn't just American. For one thing he was born in France. For another, he spent the years prior to the US entering the war serving in the French air force. Indeed, to this day, many of the tactics employed in aerial combat were either created or refined by Raoul Lufbery during his years of distinguished service with the French Air Force and the Escadrille Lafayette.
Born in Chamalières to a French mother, Anne Vessière, and Edward Lufbery, an American citizen employed by a local confectionery company, Raoul was the youngest of three brothers. Though he had no memory of his mother, who died when he was just one, Raoul's identity was strengthened by his relationship with his maternal grandmother, Madeline, with whom he lived while Edward Lufbery returned to the US to begin a new job and start a new family.
Following his father into the world of confectionery, the young Lufbery's wanderlust curtailed hopes he'd be satisfied with factory work. While still in his teens, he travelled to China, India and Turkey, as well as to Wallingford, Connecticut, where his father and siblings now resided. On his return to France, he did what many a nomadic Frenchman had done before and joined the Foreign Legion. Having fallen under the spell of stunt aviator Marc Poupe during his time on the subcontinent, Luf would soon transfer to the Aéronautique Militaire – where his persistence and attention to detail made him one of the country's most accomplished pilots.
A reconnaissance gatherer to begin with, Lufbery began fighter training in 1914. However, his legend wouldn't really take flight until he joined the Escadrille Lafayette in 1916. Comprised of American volunteer pilots, the squadron would have been a liability had Lufbery not been involved. For while his colleagues were, for the most part, wealthy young men with no combat experience, Raoul arrived both battle-hardened and determined to show what a Frenchman knew about flying.
With six kills to his name by the end of 1916, it was no great surprise that, when America entered the war the following year, Raoul enlisted in the US Army Air Service. Besides being mocked for speaking English with a Clouseau-esque accent, Lufbery's time in American fatigues was complicated by the higher-ups' conviction that he be of most use in an advisory role. Pilot-turned-author Edwin C Parsons would famously chastise the US military for their failure 'to recognise Lufbery's value as a fine fighter. They gave him the rank of Major and equipped him with a pretty uniform… then they left him to eat his heart out, sitting for months at a desk doing nothing.'
While his experience made him perfect to train the likes of Eddie Rickenbacker, it was Lufbery's tactical skill that saw him return to the cockpit. Once back in the skies, he set about bringing down German aircraft in a manner that suggested a belief that either the war or his participation in it would soon be at an end, a dark thought that became a tragic fact on May 19, 1918.
'Every one of us idolised Lufbery,' wrote Rickenbacker with regard to his fellow flyers. Truth be told, he could have been speaking for all those who opposed the Axis powers.