Frank G. Tinker, Jr. was the top American ace flying under contract with the Spanish Republican Air Force in the Spanish Civil War. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Class of 1933, he went into combat with Soviet airmen during the war. Through sheer perseverance, he rose from a teenage enlisted seaman, through the U.S. Naval Academy, to the officer’s wardroom—then pressed on to claim the wings of a naval aviator and to become a top-flight fighter pilot and a published author. Tinker possessed extraordinary people skills—skills that allowed him to move with relative ease among common seamen, naval officers, foreign combat pilots, left-wing literati in Madrid and Paris, and the rural folk of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, who embraced him as “one of their own.” While in Spain, Tinker socialized with Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Robert Hale Merriman, the leader of the American Volunteers of the Lincoln Brigade and Milton Wolff, Merriman’s successor, who led the 15th International Brigade during the Battle of the Ebro.
This first in-depth biography of Tinker covers his experience in combat, culminating with his commanding a Soviet squadron and terminating his contract with the government of Spain. Tinker would become the top American ace during the Spanish Civil War after downing eight enemy airplanes in combat. After returning to the United States, he wrote a memoir about fighting for Republican Spain and in June 1939 died under mysterious circumstances in Little Rock, Arkansas. The authors, well-known aviation historians, also offer a rare discussion of the aerial tactics introduced in the Spanish Civil War that became standard procedures in World War II and firmly establish Tinker’s aviation feats for the historical record. Five Down, No Glory includes an introduction by Richard P. Hallion.
