Hoosier Aviator Paul Baer: America's First Combat Ace (Military). This item is unavailable.Hoosier Aviator Paul Baer: America's First Combat Ace (Military)

Indiana native Paul Baer was an American pilot of many firsts. Born into a modest midwestern family in the late 1800s, Baer grew up short and shy in Fort Wayne. Not short on ambition, he volunteered to join a new breed of combatant: the fighter pilot. Dogfighting in the skies over France during World War I, Baer earned a giant reputation as the first-ever American to shoot down an enemy plane and the first to earn the title of combat ace for earning five victories--before being shot down himself. Author Tony Garel-Frantzen celebrates the 100th anniversary of Baer's aerial heroics with rarely seen images, a previously unpublished POW letter from Baer himself and a look at the restless raptor's life of roaming.

Tony Garel-Frantzen worked as an award-winning reporter and editorial cartoonist for five years before embarking on a successful career as a public relations consultant and corporate communications executive. His first book, Slow Ball Cartoonist: The Extraordinary Life of Indiana Native and Pulitzer Prize Winner John T. McCutcheon of the Chicago Tribune, was published by Purdue University Press in 2016. Tony is a military aviation enthusiast and soloed his first plane, a Piper Cub J-3, in 2003. He and his wife have three grown children and live in Illinois with two dogs.