Frank Linke-Crawford

Oberleutnant Frank Linke-Crawford (18 August 1893 – 30 July 1918), was the fourth-ranking ace of the Austro-Hungarian Air Force during World War I, with 27 victories.

Early life He was born in Cracow, in what is presently Poland but then a provincial city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, Major Adalbert Linke, was a Galician soldier; his mother, Lucy Crawford, was British. Despite this mixed background, he was an Austrian citizen.

Linke-Crawford attended school in Meran, Tyrol and Hranice (Weißkirchen), Moravia before in 1910 he entered the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. Upon graduation, he was commissioned Lieutenant and assigned to the 6th Dragoon Regiment. On 28 July, a month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This was the initial declaration of war that snowballed into World War I.

Linke-Crawford first saw battle on the Russian Front. In November 1914 he was appointed commander of the infantry troop of the Sixth Dragoons. Between October 1914 and October 1915, he received several decorations; he also was hospitalized several times with malaria and dysentery.

Aerial service Upon his completion of observer training at Wiener-Neustadt in March 1916, Linke-Crawford was posted to Fliegerkompanie 22 to fly reconnaissance and bombing missions in two seater airplanes.

In September 1916, after six active months flying as an observer, he retrained as a pilot.

In January 1917 he was transferred to Fliegerkompanie 12 as chief pilot, which made him second in command of the unit. His new posting was still to a unit serving on the Isonzo Front in northern Italy. While his duties remained recon and bombing, he was now operating over mountainous terrain.

He gained a reputation for courage. On one of his long-range reconnaissance missions, he was attacked by an Italian SPAD, which riddled his Hansa-Brandenburg C.I with 68 bullet holes over a half-hour period. Nevertheless, he completed his mission.

On 4 August 1917, he was transferred to Fliegerkompanie 41, situated near Trieste. Flik 41 was Austro-Hungary's most renowned air unit; it was commanded by the empire's top ace, Godwin von Brumowski. Linke-Crawford damaged his airplane upon landing at his new base, Sesana Airfield.

He began wearing a scarlet flying helmet and white trousers when he flew, leading to the nickname of "Redhead". He marked his plane with falcons painted on either side. It was nicknamed "the flying coffin" and killed more pilots in flying accidents than died in combat.

Flying the Albatros D.III, he shot down a seaplane on 23 September 1917 to become an ace. Continuing to use the Albatros, he ran up a score of 13 by 13 December.

In late December 1917

Linke-Crawford's plane in Flik 60j was a Phonix D.I. He used this slow but sturdy twin-gunned fighter to run up seven triumphs in the first three months of 1918. Flik 60 transferred to Feltre, also in northern Italy.

Linke-Crawford's plane caught fire and as it fell out of the sky the vehicle disintegrated, before impacting the ground.

While the original Aviatik D-I design by Julius von Berg was sound, the Series 115 aircraft licensed and produced by the Lohner firm at Wien-Floridsdorf were notorious for failures along the trailing edges of the wings during high speed maneuvers, as Lohner had deviated from Aviatik specifications by employing thinner, lighter wing ribs. At the time of his death, Linke-Crawford was flying one of these sub-standard machines, build number 115.32.

His legacy was best described by one of his peers, Julius Arigi, who was the second ranked Austro-Hungarian ace:

"Linke was both a fine flier and a fine man. He gave his men full support and generally ignored the rules about officers and non-officers having little to do with each other. He often gave away victories to other, less experienced pilots. As you can imagine, the feelings of his men for him were quite strong."

Although Frank Linke-Crawford was originally buried at Pobrežje Cemetery in Maribor (now Slovenia) after the war, in 1919, he was reinterred in Salzburg.