IF YOU can’t make it to PulpFest in Columbus this weekend, you can still get copies of our new books online from the usual outlets. Both of our new books—Harold F. Cruickshank’s Sky Devil: Ace of Devils and Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange: Strange Hell—are now available to order online from Adventure House, Mike Chomko Books and Amazon!

While you’re waiting for the books to arrive, why not check out some of the extras we’ve put on line for each book to whet your appetite. For Cruickshank’s second volume of Sky Devil tales Ace of Devils we’ve posted the original pulp scans from Dare-Devil Aces magazine of the opening page art so you can see how it would have looked if you were reading the stories back in the 1930’s when they were originally published. You can also read the opening of the stories in the scans.

For the latest release of the weird World War I adventures of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange we have the original full page scans of the opening artwork for each of the six stories collected in Strange Hell! As we did for the last volume, we’re posting the full page scan so you can read a bit of story and enjoy Eugene M. Frandzen’s art in all its glory from the pages of Flying Aces magazine. Painton’s Squadron also uses Frandzen’s art, but here in the bedsheet sized issues of Flying Aces you get those glorious painted images Frandzen would do—much better than his line art.

And the piece de resistance of any Strange book—Chris’ great cutout artwork he does for each of the stories! There are only six this time—but they’re all winners. You can check them out on the Strange Hell Design page!

Both books are available for $16.99 wherever our books are sold, so pick up both today! You can order online from Adventure House, Mike Chomko Books and Amazon!

“Haw-w-w-w-w!” That sound can only mean one thing—that Bachelor of Artifice, Knight of Calamity and an alumnus of Doctor Merlin’s Camelot College for Conjurors is back and this time the marvel from Boonetown manages to wrangle himself a pass for leave but ends up fishing in the English Channel and reels in a Kapitan Poison in his deadly submersible!

Phineas goes down to the sea in ships—A Spad and a Short. The Boonetown Bamboozler wanted to knock off work and go fishing. But fishing in the Short proved short, and instead of knocking off work he knocked off a submarine.

• Download “Sea Gullible” (November 1935, Flying Aces)

Amidst all the great pulp thrills and features in Sky Fighters, they ran a true story feature collected by Ace Williams wherein famous War Aces would tell actual true accounts of thrilling moments in their fighting lives! This time we have American Flyer First Lieutenant Waldo Heinrichs’ most thrilling sky fight!

First Lieutenant Waldo Heinrichs was among the first contingent of flying cadets to be graduated from the air combat school at Issoudun, France, the great flying field established by the American Air Service on foreign soil after the United States entered the war. He was one of tho original members of the famous 95th Pursuit Squadron, the first American squadron to do actual front line duty with the American Army. Among his squadron mates in the 95th were Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt and Lieutenant Sumner Sewell.

No other American flyer ever fought through the hail of bullet fire absorbed by Lieutenant Heinrichs and lived long enough afterward to tell about it in his own words. The account of his last flight as written in his diary is one of the most amazing records of the war. He was shot down and captured by the enemy soldiers on the 17th of September, 1918, after compiling a record of sheer courage second to none.

THE BULLET ABSORBER

by Lieutenant Waldo Heinrichs • Sky Fighters, April 1935

WITH six other pilots from the 95th, I encountered an enemy patrol of nine planes flying at 2,500 meters. Lieutenant Mitchell, the flight commander, signalled for an immediate attack and went down in a dive for the tail of the first German. His guns jammed in the first dive. I followed on the same Fokker he had picked, one of seven which had remained to fight after our attack.

But my guns jammed also, at the first burst!

While zooming up, trying to clear, I fell into a spin. All seven attacked me in my spinning Nieuport. I straightened, hurdled a burst from a forward attacking plane. But the Fokker behind me got in a burst at close range. An explosive bullet hit me in the left cheek, then shattered my windshield. I spit out teeth and blood (16 teeth, I found out afterward). I pulled into a swift renversement, came out beneath the attacker behind.

Two more explosive bullets hit me in the left arm, tearing through, breaking the elbow. Two more broke in my right hand, nearly tore off my little finger. Another hit in the left thigh. One in the left ankle. One in the right heel. Two more hit my leg.

I tried to yank the throttle wide to get more speed. No go! It would not work. The motor died. I saw my arm hanging broken at my side. The blood I spat out
splattered my goggles, blinded me, so I threw them up over my helmet, and dove for the ground. Pulled out just before I crashed into a wood, found a field in front of me, telephone poles. I dove under the wires, fearing they would crash me with a dead motor. The right wing crashed a telephone pole, broke it in two. The Nieuport landed, stopped five feet shy of the field’s edge—in enemy territory!

I broke the gas feed from the wing tank purposely. The gasoline filled the cockpit, sprayed over me. I reached for my matches in the side pocket, to fire the plane. But I was unable to hold anything. I tried to hold the box in my teeth, while I scratched the match, but my whole mouth was blown away.

I did not think to grasp the match box between my knees.

Sixty soldiers with rifles lined on me came running out of the woods. I loosed my belt. As I climbed over the cockpit I saw a pool of blood, my blood, swishing around in the bottom of the pit. I couldn’t run. I had no strength.

I surrendered, holding my right arm up with my left. The German soldiers gave me first aid, applying tourniquets to my left arm and left thigh. But they left me lying there on the field for two hours. Two stretcher bearers came along then and gathered me up. The war was over for me!

AGE OF ACES will be back at PulpFest again this year where we will be debuting our two new titles!

First, we have the lastest in our Captain Philip Strange series—back with six more weird WWI stories in Strange Hell! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI. The German Empire has unleased Hell on Earth! The dead are climbing out of their graves and giant skeletons attack the living. Heads are detonating and soldiers are turning to bronze. But flying to the rescue like an avenging angel is America’s own “Brain Devil,” Captain Philip Strange, the phantom ace of G-2 Intelligence. Whether it’s deadly bridges or killer broadcasts, when the Allies need a miracle they pray for Philip Strange! When World War I gets weird, only America’s own “Phantom Ace of G-2” has a ghost of a chance against the supernatural slaughter. Captain Philip Strange in his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

Our other title is from the prolific pen of Harold F. Cruickshank. Sky Devil: Ace of Devils collects the second half of Cruickshank’s stories about The Sky Devil and his Brood—Lieutenants “Chuck” Verne, “Slug” Walton, Mart Bevan, “Slim” Skitch and the maverick peelot, Tom Foster! Nowhere along the Western Front could you find a more feared crew, both in their element and out. The Sky Devil and his Brood could always be counted on to whip Germany’s best Aces, out-scrap entire squadrons of Boche killers, or tackle not one, but two crazed Barons with an Egyptology fetish! But what happens when they find themselves up in a dirigible fighting a fleet of ghost zeppelins, or down in the English Channel battling ferocious deep water beasts, or even behind enemy lines dealing with a crazed Major Petrie?

This volume is bursting with fifteen action-packed air tales of those riders of the Hell trail—including the seminal story we unwittingly left out of the first volume where Dawe is rooked out of command of the 120 Squadron in leu of the frequently simpering Major Petrie.

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Columbus for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

IN MAY 1927, ninety years ago, a little known U.S. Air Mail pilot became the first person to fly non-stop across the atlantic from Long Island, New York to Paris, France. Two months later, that aviator, Charles Lindbergh, embarked on a three month Good Will Tour of America that would see Lindbergh visit 82 cities in all 48 states and deliver 147 speeches and ride in countless parades. It’s estimated he was seen by more than 30 million American—one quarter of the nation’s population at the time.

The Tour’s purpose was the promotion of Aeronautics and to raise interest in commercial aviation. Lindbergh flew in the famed Spirit of St. Louis and was accompanied by a crew of three that flew along separately arriving a half an hour ahead of Colonel Lindbergh at all stops. Heading up the crew was Capt. Donald E. Keyhoe of the aeronautics branch, US Department of Commerce who is acting as Colonel Lindbergh’s aide and business manager of the tour; piloting Capt. Keyhoe’s plane was Philip R. Love, inspector, aeronautics branch, US Depatment of Commerce; the third member of the crew—arguably the most important—is Theordore Sorensen, expert mechanic of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, Paterson, NJ, who’s job it is to keep the Wright Whirlwind, nine-cylinder motor of The Spirit of St Louis in shape for the 13,000 mile grind.

The tour’s participants (left to right): Donald E. Keyhoe, Philip Love, Charles Lindbergh,
with C. C. Maidment, and Milburn Kusterer.

Heralded everywhere they went, the Tour was a great success. Lindbergh followed it up with a Good Will Tour of sixteen Latin America countries between December 1927 and February 1928.

Captain Donald E. Keyhoe wrote a book about his experiences flying with Lindbergh on the Good Will Tour. It was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 1928. As promotion for the book—simply titled “Flying with Lindbergh”—Keyhoe himself went on a bit of a promotional tour speaking at various schools across the country.

Below is a recounting of Captain Keyhoe’s talk to the packed crowd at the high school in Belvidere, Illinois.

PAL OF LINDY TALKS TO BIG SCHOOL CROWD

Belvidere Daily Republican, Belvidere, IL • Tuesday, November 27, 1928

LIEUTENANT DONALD KEYHOE TELLS OF ODD SENCE OF HUMOR OF THE “FLYING COLONEL” AND RELATES SWIFT PROGRESS OF AVIATION IN THIS COUNTRY—ADDRESS MUCH ENJOYED

By far the most enjoyable and instructive of the attractions yet offered during the progress of the high school lyceum program was the appearance and address given Monday afternoon by Lieut. Donald Keyhoe, who accompanied Col. Charles Lindbergh on his goodwill trip over the United States following his epochal solo flight to France.

Lieut. Keyhoe, who has been publicity director of the U.S. bureau of aviation of the department of commerce, appeared before the crowd that entirely filled the high school auditorium attired in a marine uniform.

He punctuated his highly informative and interesting talk with interesting experiences he has had in the flying game and while all were much enjoyed especially so were those with Col. Lindbergh. “Lindy” he described as a man without a nerve in his body and utterly without fear. He said he detests hero worship and will frequently quit hotels by riding down on a freight elevator at the rear rather than encounter crowds waiting for him in front.

The colonel, he said, has an odd sense of humor and told of how he and another flyer had shaved off one half of the speaker’s mustache, forcing him to remove the other half. Keyhoe also recounted an incident wherein Lindbergh had sewed up his clothing while he slept and also stitched tightly in his pocket his billfold. Lindbergh remarked to the hotel clerk while Keyhoe was endeavoring to get it out that it merely showed his Scotch training and that he sewed it in his pocket that way every night.

The desire to fly, Keyhoe said, started back in the stone age but the first real attempt was not made until 1783 when the first smoke balloon made a successful flight with animal passengers in the basket. “There are no dull moments in the flying of balloons,” he said pointing out that they are left to the whims of the elements.

There has been some criticism of the U.S. government, he said. over the building of dirigibles but pointed out that the two now being constructed for the navy overcome all objections.

The greatest advance in flying has been in airships. He traced the steady progress of aviation since the first Wright plane had been sent aloft and said it received its biggest boost during the late war. Rapid strides have been made since the coming of peace until today there are airplanes from coast to coast with airports and beacon lights to assist flyers.

“Your training days will be the happiest of your education,” he told the big crowd of students.

Commercial aviation got its big boost from Col. Lindbergh’s goodwill flight and since that time there has been a steady and rapid increase in air mall, air mindedness, etc.

The speaker said that flying is becoming more and more safe and that much unfavorable newspaper publicity concerning accidents has been a retarding factor. Government regulations, he pointed out. tend to discourage stunt flying.

He painted a picture of the future of aviation and said that it will be but a short time until practically everybody “will be tacking to the air.” Although
there are still some doubters concerning aviation he prescribed as a cure a ride with a trusty pilot.


Plenty of thrills may be had 
from flying he said without resorting to ddoing “stunts” in the air.

Lieut. Keyhoe was introduced by Supt. R.E. Garrett and given a rousing welcome by the students.


The aviation committee of the Chamber of Commerce was present and held a short conference with him following his address.

• Download “Pal of Lindy Talks to Big School Crowd” (November 27, 1928, Belvidere Daily Republican, Belvidere, IL)

If you’d like to read of Keyhoe’s experiences flying with Lindbergh, here’s a copy of Keyhoe’s book sourced a few years ago from archive.org:

• Download “Flying with Lindbergh” (1928)

YOU never know what you’re going to find in Fawcett’s Battle Stories’ letters column, The Funkhole. Frequently there is information about their authors or even letters from them. In the May 1929 issue I was surprised to find a letter from Harold F. Cruickshank himself! It was in response to a reader thinking he may have come afoul of him during the late great hate! (The portrait of Mr. Cruickshank below was in an ad a few pages later!)

NOT HAROLD F. CRUICKSHANK

IT WAS coincidence of name that prompted Edgar Fawcett, 95 High Street, Yonkers, New York, to read Fawcett’s Battle Stories magazine. Likewise, it was coincidence of name that prompted him to write the following letter.

    After reading for the first time the December issue of Fawcett’s Battle Stories, I congratulated you on producing an A 1 book. It was the name Fawcett that drew my attention to the magazine, it being my own name.
    I am American born but when I was sixteen I went to Toronto and joined the Canucks, serving in France and Belgium with them. They made the best of buddies and too much praise cannot be given to them. The name of Harold Cruickshank brought back a memory to me of an officer by that name who once gave me a sentence of three days Royal Warrant. I wonder if he is the same person.
    So much for that, so I will close, wishing you continued success with your magazine.

Here is Mr. Cruickshank’s reply to Mr. Fawcett’s letter:

    How could Mr. Edgar Fawcett think I’d be such a brute to crime a poor, lowly buck private? Say, that’s quite funny, isn’t it? But I’m sorry I cannot recollect any Fawcett in my travels. In any case I have a record that takes a lot of beating. Although I had charge of oodles of men—tough eggs, bums, hard-hitters and crooks, tailors, sailors, cooks and what have you, I never remember criming a solitary man. One time there was a fellow who got nasty, went A.W.O.L. and raised hell in general. I was orderly sergeant at the time and of course had to cover up his absence. I got away with it but when the rotter came back he was worse than ever. I should have reported him and got him sent down for a hefty session but instead I paid him a visit and told him if he didn’t straighten out I’d knock his block off—and in those days I was in good training—did a lot of leather pushing. It had the desired effect for he shut up like a clam.
    I always got along well with the boys—did my share of the work and we never had any trouble at all.
    It so happens that I have my old field book here with the nominal roll of my last platoon. There is no Fawcett listed.
    I say I never crimed a man. I’m wrong. Once a gang of my platoon complained that a member was so dirty that he was lousing them up. I investigated and I never saw so many cooties gathered together in one place in my life. I felt like smashing hell out of that bozo and would have done it if it were not for the fact of a dislike for contact with such a loathsome, dirty swine. We all got together—in conjunction with my officer—and paraded the animal to the bathhouse where he got all that was coming in the way of water, soap and a touch of the hose.
    Give Edgar my regards. Tell him I’ll buy him a drink if he ever drops around to Edmonton. But I’m sorry I wasn’t the “gentleman” who threw him in the jug. At least I have no recollection of any such thing.

• Download “Not Harold F. Cruickshank” (May 1929, Battle Stories)

And look for a new volume of Mr. Cruickshank’s SKY DEVIL stories coming soon!

Amidst all the great pulp thrills and features in Sky Fighters, they ran a true story feature collected by Ace Williams wherein famous War Aces would tell actual true accounts of thrilling moments in their fighting lives! This time we have German Flyer Ritter von Schleich’s most thrilling sky fight!

Hauptmann Ritter von Schleich was one of the least known, but nevertheless, one of the greatest and most successful of the German war birds. A nobleman by birth, he was educated for service in the army beginning with his early childhood. When the war broke out he was an officer in the Uhlans, the most aristocratic branch of the German Army. After transferring to the flying corps, he served some time as an observer, before learning to become a pilot himself; paralleling in that respect the career of Baron Manfred von Richthofen, who preceeded him as an officer of Uhlans.

War has its humorous moments as well as its many tragic ones. At least it would seem so after reading the account of the German flying captain, who took a captured Allied plane and rode the battle skies in company with an enemy patrol, the only instance upon record when it was known to be done.

A SKY TRICK

by Captain Ritter von Schleich, Imperial Flying Corps • Sky Fighters, July 1934

THE DAY before this, my most thrilling day in the air took place. My staffel had forced a young, inexperienced French pilot to land his latest model Spad pursuit plane intact behind our own lines.

After painting a black cross on it in the place of the circular cocarde of the Allies I decided it would be great fun to take it on a flight over the enemy lines. Fortunately, my staffel had forced it to land with almost a full supply of ammunition, so I had plenty of bullets for the Vickers guns. I phoned our anti-aircraft batteries and informed them of my plans so they would not bother me.

After taking off, I headed for Verdun. Our own Archies let me pass unmolested. When I slid across the lines, the Allied Archies did the same thing. I encountered a single enemy aircraft on patrol over Verdun, but he waved at me and passed on. I laughed and waved back, then swung about and headed for the Argonne. Over the Argonne I ran into the tail end of a formation of five Spads who were sweeping along parallel with the lines at 10,000 feet.

I goosed up my engine and took my place at their rear, flying along behind them and following the leader’s signals as well as I could. Suddenly they banked and flew over my own lines. I went in with them, still keeping my place in the formation.

As I flew along I wondered what would have happened if the leader really knew who it was tailing along at the rear of his flight. It was a sad thought, though. It certainly would have been curtains for me if those Spad pilots had suddenly turned and charged me.

We had gone about five miles behind our own lines when I decided that I was not
giving our Archie gunners any breaks at all. They had been directed not to fire at my plane, hence could not fire at the others in the formation without danger of getting me.

I banked off suddenly, went into a half roll, then dived to 6,000 feet. Our Archie gunners opened up then with a terrific barrage. The Spad pilots maneuvered then to escape it. The leader wheeled, saw me going down, caught sight of the black cross on my Spad for the first time, I guess, and came tearing down after me.

At 3,000 feet he let me have it—a heavy burst that forced me to duck swiftly. Now, that he had attacked me, I felt that I would not be taking advantage of my trick, so I maneuvered into shooting position and fired back.

We went at it hammer and tongs. I swept by him so close one time that I could see the angry expression on his face. We went round and round. Bullets nicked my Spad, but they did not come close to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his mates up above come streaking down to join the fun. I knew I had to do something quick or be in an awful pickle. I zoomed, half rolled, came down at my opponent with both Vickers blazing. The burst was effective. He sagged in his pit. The Spad went floating down in an uneven spiral.

I followed down until it crashed, then went hedge hopping over the field for my staffel drome, with all of the speed I could get from my captured Spad. Our Archie gunners kept my pursuers so high they could not reach me.

It was my twentieth victory. I got official credit for it later. Yes, under the circumstances I am sure it was my most thrilling sky fight.

Frederick Blakeslee painted all the covers for the entire run of Dare-Devil Aces. And each of those covers had a story behind it. On Dare-Devil Aces’ July 1936 cover, Mr. Blakeslee depicts a French Hanriot-Biche pursuit plane attacking a flight of German Junkers!

THE queer looking French ship on the cover is a Hanriot-Biche pursuit. As the student of aviation can readily see, this is an abrupt departure from the usual type of pursuit ship. Here, because the ship is a pusher, the cockpit is placed well forward in the bow, from which the pilot has a clear, unobstructed view. You have also noted, perhaps, that the radiator is even further forward than the pilot. This is permissible through the use of the air-cooled, 600-horsepower Hispano-Suiza engine. But probably the most unique feature of this odd ship are the two tail booms between which the three-bladed, metal propeller revolves. The Hanriot’s two machine guns fire from the bottom of the cowl.

The green ships are German Junkers, once used purely as transport planes, but now employed by the Rhineland as bombers.

“The Hanriot-Biche Pursuit: The Story Behind The Cover” by Frederick Blakeslee
(July 1936, Dare-Devil Aces)