The fallowing reading passage contains vocabulary words from this lesson.
Carefully read the passage and then choose the best answers for each of the questions that follow
1 Lieutenant Frank Luke, the young, overconfident aviator, could not
seem to please anyone at the 27,h Aero Squadron. Assigned to an airfield
near the Allied front in July of 1918, Luke alienated himself from the veteran pilots by boasting about his unproven skills and by routinely abandoning his formation to fly off on his own. So scornful of Luke were the
other pilots that no one believed him when he, without witness, shot down
a German plane during a patrol. Branded a braggart and a liar, the 21-yearold aviator from Arizona withdrew to outsider status.
2 Luke spent his free hours honing his marksmanship, fine-tuning his
problematic Spad-13, and thinking of ways to prove himself. He found
one when he heard pilots talking about German observation balloons, or
Drachen. Quietly, Luke committed himself to a task that would secure him
a place in history.
3 Observers in balloons hovering high above the German ramparts
directed artillery fire with deadly accuracy. Shells pommeled Allied positions, forcing soldiers to take cover in the muddy, disease-ridden trenches.
Expensive to build and crucial to battlefield advantage, the balloons were
heavily defended by anti-aircraft cannons and squadrons of German fighter
planes. The Allies needed to destroy the balloons, but pilots knew that
such missions were suicide; a defensive wall of archie, or anti-aircraft fire,
shredded any plane that approached a Drachen. Even if a pilot were lucky
enough to set fire to a balloon, he risked going down with it when the balloon's gas exploded into a massive fireball. Only a maniac would volunteer
for such a mission; a maniac, that is, or Frank Luke.
4 The American offensive began on the morning of September 12, 1918,
and Luke's squadron took to the skies with orders to protect Allied balloons. Despite the orders, most of the pilots flew straight for the German
line. In his typical rite, Luke separated from his squadron and flew well
beyond his designated zone. He soon spotted the opportunity he was waiting for: a Drachen suspended above the horizon.
5 Luke pulled back on the stick and forced his Spad to climb high above
the balloon. Luke closed the distance, and then the Spad's engine raced
as Luke shoved the control stick to the firewall and plunged toward the
Drachen. Shells burst around the Spad, the shrapnel tearing through
its canvas wings and wood frame. Explosions surrounded Luke, but he
grunted through them, accelerating, until he was on a collision course
with the balloon. The Spad's twin machine guns opened up, their clacking inaudible amid the wind and bursting shells. At the last moment, Luke
pulled up-the balloon was intact. Determined, even as his plane was
slowly being shot to pieces, Luke made a second pass, holding the trigger
until his guns jammed. The balloon remained, and the archie became more
intense. Running out of time, Luke beat his jammed guns with a hammer
as he lined up for a third pass. The guns barked to life, and almost instantly, the balloon erupted into a great firestorm of burning gas, nearly
taking the Spad with it.
6 Wires, shredded wood, and ragged canvas dangled from the edges of
Luke's plane when he landed it behind the Allied trenches, short of the
airfield. Allied soldiers ran to the shot-up plane, thrilled by the spectacle
they had just seen in the sky. Luke, worried that no one would believe him
again, collected witness statements from the infantrymen.
7 Luke's first balloon-busting mission did not win him friends, but it
did gain him credit as a combat pilot and two more weeks of intense
balloon-attack missions, many of which were more harrowing than the
first. In seventeen days, Luke went on to destroy thirteen more balloons
and four enemy planes, making him the second highest-scoring American
ace of World War I. Historians still quibble about Luke's first unconfirmed
victory, but its relevance is overshadowed by Luke's sacrifice.
8 Lieutenant Luke met his fate shortly after he flamed an unbelievable
three balloons in fifteen minutes. Ground fire and eight German fighter
planes had severely damaged Luke's Spad, but before Luke was forced to
land in enemy territory, he fired upon a German infantry column. Luke
survived the landing, but the soldiers soon caught up with him. He died
fighting his would-be captors. Frank Luke's name is now memorialized by
Luke Air Force Base in Arizona
Germans protected the Drachen because
A. balloons weakened the morale of Allied troops.
B. balloons were cheap and effective.
C. artillery was useless without spotters in balloons.
D. balloons were the first line of German defense.
E. balloons were costly and allowed precise attacks on the enemy
