[1][2] Tucker graduated from Harvard University in 1907 and attended Columbia Law School but dropped out to work for the American Book Company for five years.
In 1917, while on his way to China and Japan with a friend, Austen "Billy" Parker, to study traditional Asian theater, he became stranded in Panama, unable to find passage on any of the ships transiting the Panama Canal because of shipping diversions due to demands of the First World War, he and Parker decided to head for France to join the war effort.
[1][2] On March 28, 1917, Tucker joined the French Foreign Legion, but only a few weeks later in April he transferred to the Lafayette Flying Corps.
On July 8 he was part of a routine patrol of five Spads when they encountered 15 German Fokkers in the Soissons and Chateau-Thierry area.
He was found with the wreckage of his plane in a field along the Longpont-Chaudun road or on a battlefield at Vierzy - the German records are incomplete.