Singling out one individual as the most colorful aviator of the Great War is a challenge, given the pantheon of colorful characters to choose from. In my opinion, there is one ace who stands above the rest. No need to brace yourself for another yarn about Manfred von Richthofen. I think that the Red Baron's legacy has grown stale with overexposure and commercialization. Before you know it, someone will use his name to hawk pizza or something. I'd rather talk about a Frenchman: Charles Nungesser.

The Stuff of Legend was born in Paris on March 15th, 1892. He dreamed his boyhood dream of becoming a race car driver or a pilot, then ran away to Argentina to do both. There he raced motorcycles and automobiles, and soloed on his very first flight. He also refined a precocious athletic abilty, especially boxing--impressive accomplishments for a teenager. Nungesser was back in France, serving with the cavalry, when the war broke out. An act of heroism won him a requested transfer to the Flying Service.

He piloted a Voisin, an ungainly two-seater. The nacelle of Nungesser's Voisin sported a rough draft of what would become his personal emblem, a death's-head. The sight of a factory-fresh Voisin inspired Nungesser to venture some unauthorized freelancing in July, 1915. Nungesser and a co-conspirator borrowed the new biplane one pre-dawn without informing the squadron commander.
Just then the commanding officer received word of approaching hostile aircraft. He summoned the duty pilot to give chase. But the duty pilot, Nungesser, was nowhere to be found. For all the CO knew Nungesser was absent without leave. The CO boiled. The telephone rang. It was a report that someone had shot down a German. The mix of daring and delinquency earned Nungesser aCroix de Guerre and eight days' arrest.

Nungesser had found his niche. He completed fighter pilot training in November. Now he flew an airplane that suited his temperament: The Nieuport 11Bébé, the first aircraft ever designed as a fighter from the ground up. He marked this and all subsequent scouts with a coffin, candlesticks and a skull and crossbones. A black valentine surrounded this macabre assemblage. Nungesser's rakishBébé looked like a mechanical Angel of Death.

The new fighter pilot received his first Nieuport with the enthusiasm of a boy receiving his first bicycle. He celebrated his acquisition by buzzing the town of Nancy at thirty feet. As Nungesser terrorized the town the mayor filed a complaint with the commander ofEscadrille N 65. A boiling CO advised Nungesser to save his skills for the Germans. Nungesser saluted, climbed back into his warmBébé and took off for a German aerodrome. There he repeated his hair-raising performance. The CO was not amused: Eight days' arrest for the hot shot.

In January, 1916, Nungesser suffered the first of many near-fatal crashes. Mechanics pulled his broken body from the wreckage. Doctors agreed that he wouldn't survive the night. In two months Nungesser was flying again. Apparently Nungesser's boxer-hardened frame absorbed punishment that would have finished a lesser specimen. He now walked with a cane, the only concession he made to his injuries.

For the rest of the year Nungesser alternated between crack-ups, dogfights and hospital stays. Ordered by his doctors to take convalescence leave, he "relaxed at the front" by attaching himself to theLafayette Escadrille. He dazzled the Americans with two rows of solid gold teeth and breathtaking aerobatics. As Sergeant James McConnell put it, "an airplane seemed to obey Charles Nungesser's thoughts, not the controls." Soon Nungesser returned to his regular unit to wreak havoc on the Germans and on himself.

Yet another crash put Nungesser in the hospital toward year's end. His surgeons decided to rebreak and reset the poorly-healed fractures of previous disasters. Nungesser refused anesthesia. "The Indestructible," as he was called, agreed to orders to rest on condition that he be granted a roving commission when he returned to combat.

Nungesser picked up where he left off in May, 1917. The Germans had had about enough of the Frenchman who wouldn't go away. On the 12th, a lone Albatros dropped a note challenging Nungesser to a one-on-one duel over Douai that afternoon. Nungesser arrived at the appointed time and place to find not one, but six Germans waiting in ambush. The Germans were outnumbered. Two fell in flames, the rest scattered.

At about the time of the lopsided challenge Nungesser became an unwilling participant in a bizarre friendly-fire incident. He was pounced by a British scout while on a lone wolf patrol. Nungesser flew defensively, hoping that the tricolor roundels on his plane would register with the RFC pilot. But the Englishman pressed the attack. Nungesser shot the ally down. Nungesser suspected that the Englishman saw his death's-head calling card as the product of a Teutonic mind. From this time on, the ace would fortify the Frenchness of his airplanes by adding red, white and blue stripes to the wings.

Nungesser's ground conquests became as legendary as those scored in the air. He burned up the road from his base to his hometown in a German staff car (a Mercedes captured during his cavalry days) or in a Rolls Royce. He palled around with ace and kindred spirit, Jean Navarre, to savor Parisian night-life. Was it the many battle scars, or was it Nungesser's clanking, glittering medals that telegraphed "MALE ANIMAL!" to thejeunes filles ? Sometimes he reported for dawn patrols in tuxedo, slightly hung-over; a woman on his arm. He was the Rock Star of his age.

I gather that "The Indestructible" was a fiercely competitive individual. He endured terrible pain for the sake of another go. He seemed driven to end the war as French ace number one. He made an arrangement with his doctors: He would terrorize the enemy by morning, he would return to the hospital for treatment in the afternoon. Nungesser was keenly aware that his distracting injuries widened the victory gap between himself and his closest competitors. Still he would try. Mechanics carried Nungesser to his plane. He continued to run up his score. He went through the Nieuport sesquiplane series, and flew a Spad XIII in the twilight of the war. Lieutenant Nungesser became France's third highest-ranking ace with forty-five victories.

Nungesser did not handle peacetime well. He tried barnstorming, but it wasn't the same. A new challenge fired the old spark: First to fly the Atlantic. On May 8th, 1927, Charles Nungesser and navigator François Coli lifted off from Paris inL'Oiseau Blanc, a Levasseur biplane commissioned by Nungesser, bound for New York. They were never seen again.