To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [396]
Still serving the French Air Service, he is promoted to colonel, and is recalled to France in 1933 to command yet another flying squadron. But seeking to remain close to his growing family, he chooses to retire, and in 1935, his service to France concludes.
He dies in Paris, in 1948, at age fifty-nine. He is buried in the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial.
BILLY MITCHELL
The man most responsible for the creation of an effective flying arm of the United States military returns home to confront the never-ending bureaucratic obstacles to his ideas of a continuously modernizing air force. Through Pershing’s help, Mitchell’s air force is given considerable status in the Army Reorganization Act of 1920, but Mitchell is not satisfied, and his aggressive and unyielding style makes enemies. In 1925, his harassment of his superiors over their failure to give priority to his arm of the service brings about his court-martial, for “conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline.” In response, Mitchell resigns from the army. He dies in 1936, at age eighty-eight. It is only after his death that his enthusiasm for the value of aircraft is accepted as standard policy in the American armed forces.
EDWARD “EDDIE” RICKENBACKER
On May 30, 1918, he becomes an official ace by claiming his fifth victory. His verified total of kills by the end of the war totals twenty-six, which makes him, officially, the most successful American ace of the war. After Lufbery’s death, Rickenbacker is named to command the Ninety-fourth Aero Squadron, which, under his leadership, shoots down more enemy aircraft than any other American Squadron.
He returns home a celebrated hero, and his memoirs, Fighting the Flying Circus, are published in 1919. Using his considerable skills as both a writer and public speaker, he skillfully promotes and romanticizes the exploits of America’s flying aces, including, of course, himself. The former race-car driver founds Rickenbacker Motors, becomes the first president of Eastern Airlines, and in 1930 receives the Medal of Honor. He lives the flamboyant life of a national hero until his death in 1973. Throughout his life, those who seek out his tales of air combat in the Great War learn firsthand that Eddie Rickenbacker never fails to give credit to the one man who taught him how to fight and defeat the enemy in the air: Raoul Lufbery.
ERICH LUDENDORFF
With the abdication of the kaiser, Ludendorff escapes the wrath of the German mobs by traveling first to Denmark, and then to Sweden. He immediately begins work on his memoirs, driven by the belief that he must expose the damaging effects of Bolshevism, which he believes to be the cause of the violent unrest in Germany. By February 1919, when civil order begins to quiet Berlin, Ludendorff discreetly returns, protected by many who still regard him as an important national hero. He is infuriated by the terms of the armistice, and begins to speak openly that Germany’s defeat came not so much at the hands of the Allies but from the “back-stabbing” of the civilian politicians in Berlin. It is a philosophy that finds sympathy with a great many former soldiers. In March 1920, he is one of the leaders of a march on Berlin that intimidates the civilian ministers, including the chancellor, Friedrich Ebert, into leaving their posts. But the would-be coup has no real muscle, and the chaos in Berlin erupts into fighting between factions loyal to all sides of the issue. Ludendorff wisely escapes the conflicts, and seeks refuge in Bavaria. Though he stays out of the public eye for nearly two years, he begins to follow the rise of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, whose most vocal leader is Adolf Hitler. Hitler speaks to Ludendorff’s own increasing obsession with identifying the enemies of Germany. In December 1921, Ludendorff writes: “I see the work of the Bolsheviks in the writings of the Jews.”
In May 1923, he meets Hitler face-to-face,