1. Gervais Raoul Victor Lufbery was a French and American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I Because he served in both the French Air Force, and later the United States Army Air Service in World War I, he is sometimes listed alternately as a French ace or as an American ace.
Raoul Lufbery was born at Avenue de la Poudriere in Chamalieres, Puy-de-Dome, France to American Edward Lufbery and a French mother.
When Raoul Lufbery was one, his mother died and his father returned to the United States, where he lived in New York, New Jersey, and then Wallingford, Connecticut in the United States, leaving him to be raised by his maternal grandmother, Madeline Vessiere Greniere in France.
Raoul Lufbery worked in a chocolate factory in Blois and Clermont-Ferrand until 1904.
Raoul Lufbery ran away from his grandparents' home at 19, and travelled to such places as Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, the Balkans, and Turkey.
Raoul Lufbery was first assigned from the recruit depot of Fort McDowell, Angel Island to Company F, 20th Infantry Regiment, at the newly established Fort Shafter, Territory of Hawaii on 13 December 1908.
In 1912, Raoul Lufbery traveled to French Indochina, where he took a job as a mechanic for French aviation pioneer Marc Pourpe, whom he met in Calcutta the same year.
Meanwhile, Raoul Lufbery joined the Foreign Legion and later transferred into the Aeronautique Militaire as a mechanic.
Late in 1914, Raoul Lufbery was accepted into the pilot training program and was assigned to fly reconnaissance missions with Escadrille VB 106.
Raoul Lufbery later applied for a transfer to fighter planes and was trained on the Nieuport.
Raoul Lufbery's success was due to perseverance and attention to mechanical detail.
Raoul Lufbery was often harassed by fellow pilots for working with the mechanics on his plane.
Raoul Lufbery inspected and polished each bullet in his gun's drum to help avoid jams, a frequent problem of the Lewis gun.
Raoul Lufbery spoke English with a thick French accent and had little in common with his comrades, most of whom were from wealthy families and were Ivy League educated.
Raoul Lufbery was commissioned in the United States Army Air Service in late 1917 with the rank of Major.
Raoul Lufbery had claimed 16 air kills by this time, with another unconfirmed.
The 94th's first combat patrol on 6 March 1918, saw Raoul Lufbery leading Rickenbacker and fellow flyer Doug Campbell in unarmed airplanes.
Raoul Lufbery had unconfirmed claims in April 1918, on the 12th and the 27th, while leading 94 Squadron.
At an altitude variously estimated between 200 and 600 feet, Raoul Lufbery was said to have jumped out of the plane, either to avoid a fiery death or as an attempt to land in the nearby Moselle River, rather than being thrown from the cockpit after it flipped over above the village of Maron.
Raoul Lufbery's falling body struck a metal garden picket fence, causing his death.
However, on-site research by Royal D Frey of the National Museum of the United States Air Force established in 1962 that witnesses on the ground below the action saw the plane, not burning, flip over, and Lufbery was thrown out, having unfastened his seat belt to clear a jam in his machine gun during his final fight.
Raoul Lufbery was buried with full military honors at the Aviators Cemetery at Sebastapol, France.
Raoul Lufbery's remains were later removed to a place of honor at the Lafayette Memorial du Parc de Garches in Paris.
In 1998, Raoul Lufbery was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame.