By Ken "Killer" Fields, AAW Field Correspondent
The thunder of rockets and the staccato crack of bullets shattered the tropical calm of the Kingdom of Hawaii two days ago, as Royal Air Force planes battled Nathan Zachary and his fearsome "Fortune Hunters" pirate gang. Though the cause of the battle is unclear, there is widespread speculation that the Fortune Hunters thwarted the spearhead of an attempted British colonization of Hawaii. (British officials have denied all such claims.)
Pirates and Brits duked it out over the jeweled Kapuahi islands, culminating in a one-on-one duel between Nathan Zachary and the leader of the RAF flight, Major Sir Charles Winthorp. During the battle, Zachary downed Stewart, injuring the British fighter ace and leaving him in hospital in serious but stable condition.
Winthorp is a veteran British aviator, who began his career with the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War. Winthorp amassed a stunning number of kills during the War, receiving a battlefield promotion after making ace a mere three days after his assignment to a combat unit. Even more stunning: Winthorp had lied about his age to join the war effort, enlisting in the British military at the tender age of fifteen. During his first combat mission, Winthorp racked up three kills, including a German Pfalz, and two Albatros D.II fighters.
Nathan Zachary's career parallel's Winthorp's in several ways: he is also a veteran aviator, who began his career in Layfayette Escadrille volunteer squadrons in the Great War, at a young age, possibly as young as 16 years old. After an impressive but short series of victories Zachary was shot down by the German ace Heinrich Kessler, and made a prisoner of war. Zachary quickly escaped from imprisonment and made his way east to fight on the eastern front. Details of his time on the Eastern front are sketchy and contradictory, but it seems that Zachary may have fought as a mercenary. Zachary later attended Oxford University studying business and law, apparently under a scholarship, and became a successful Wall Street businessman in the 1920s. With the collapse of the United States, Zachary seems to have become a small time pirate with aspirations to rise to the level of the Black Swan or "Genghis" Kahn, but he has yet to achieve their fame.
