Frederick Blakeslee painted all the covers for the entire run of Dare-Devil Aces. And each of those covers had a story behind it. This time, Eliot Todd recounts the story behind Blakeslee’s April 1934 cover for Dare-Devil Aces. . . .

SUNSET. The lone Spad droned on, headed directly into the blazing rays of a dying sun that flushed the western skies with crimson. A Yank pilot sat in the Spad’s tiny “office,” his back to Germany, his two hour evening patrol over. From time to time he turned and searched the sky for enemy ships. He had nearly reached the lines when he saw them—four black specks, one larger than the others, all spinning about in crazy gyrations.

He snatched for binoculars. Three Fokker D-7’s were ganging a French Salmson. One, a blue Fokker, was just dropping on the Salmson’s tail. Spandaus flamed. Twin Lewises flashed in the sun. The Fokker seemed to shudder. The motor belched a billowy sheet of livid flame, then, falling into a right-hand spin, the Boche plane blazed its final trail across the sky like a fiery comet.

Instantly the two remaining Fokkers caught the Salmson in a deadly cross-fire. That was enough for the Yank. He stood the Spad on its prop, spun around and roared toward the fight.

A blue Fokker swelled in his ring-sight. He estimated the distance. Two hundred yards, one hundred yards. He reached for the trips. But just as his fingers tightened on the stick a red ship appeared like magic at his right. Spandaus steel smashed into his motor. The Hisso ground to a stop with a grating of metal parts.

Numb terror gripped the Yank’s heart. Engine dead, he was cold meat for those Boches. The red ship had looped upward, probably intending to swoop in a death-dealing dive; and from the corner of his eye the Yank could see the blue Fokker swinging in on his tail. He began gliding earthward.

As he flashed past the Salmson, he glanced up—and gasped. For the French observer had aimed his guns and was riddling the belly of the red Fokker with lead. The Boche ship hung for a moment in the sky, almost motionless—then it began to fall in a series of crazy side-slips, pilot fighting the controls.

But the blue Fokker was fast on the Spad’s tail now, raking the crippled ship with burst after burst. The Yank felt the tiny shocks of slugs smash up the camel-back toward the fuselage. Grimly he turned to face the final burst. As he did so the Salmson whipped around in a vertical bank not fifty yards away. Again twin Lewises flamed; feathery tracers impaled the blue Fokker’s cockpit. The Boche pilot slumped forward. His ship plunged down, guns still yammering, a dead hand clutching the trips.

Breathing a sigh of heartfelt relief, the Yank eased the stick and sought a place to set down. There wasn’t much time to choose. Two miles inside the German lines, with 500 feet altitude and a dead stick, it was pretty much of a hit and miss proposition.

A clearing showed ahead. He landed in it, jumped out and touched a match to the ship just as a squad of Germans rushed into the open, waving their rifles. But before they could reach him the Salmson came hurtling over the trees, Vickers snarling. The Boches faltered and broke, running for cover. The Salmson banked, bouncing past the Yank, who ran after it. Bullets pinged around his head but he flung himself on the wing.

A few minutes later on the tarmac of his own drome, he gripped the French pilot’s hand in a gesture that expressed his thanks more eloquently than words.

“The Yellow Comet: The Story Behind The Cover” by Eliot Todd (April 1934)

Check back again. We will be presenting more Stories behind the Covers.