AS EARLY AS WORLD WAR I, airmen who lost limbs in combat refused to let that keep them out of the air. In the Imperial Russian Navy, Alexander Prokofiev de Seversky lost a leg but learned to fly with a prosthetic and became a six-victory ace and later an airplane designer in the United States. During World War II, he would be outdone by Soviet fighter pilot Aleksey Maresyev, who survived a horrendous ordeal to become a fighter ace with no legs
