To the brass hats Josephine was just a bomber in an American squadron cooperating with the R.A.F. in the Burma campaign. But to her crew she was a gallant old girl of the air who had been through many hazardous flying hours with her four boyfriends.
The dread skull emblem on their planes was the only flag the men of the Squadron of the Dead would follow, and to them fell the deadly tasks which no other squadron dared attempt. Yet powerful as they had become in the service of the Allies, a more terrible force had organized against them. For the German chief of Imperial Intelligence had proclaimed the grim order: “Every man in the Squadron of the Dead must be destroyed!”
Save for some strange, organ-like trills that had sounded from his radio, Dick Knight’s flight had been uneventful. But Knight did not know that those weird tones he had heard were the ominous notes of an overture to a drama of death. Nor did he know that just five minutes before, a gaunt Prussian, with feverish eyes on a black clock, had whispered: “Five more minutes! Only five more minutes to wait after all these years!”
On May 6, 1937, the airship Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed while attempting to dock with its mooring mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station. But one year earlier the Hindenburg was preparing to make its first voyage to North America, and “Flying Aces” was heralding its arrival with an article and cover painting in the June 1936 issue by C. B. Mayshark (which would have been on the stands in May).
One of our favorite writers here at Age of Aces is Donald E. Keyhoe, but he is as well known for his UFO research as he is for the air war stories he wrote for the pulps. Here is one of his earliest books on the subject, published in 1950.
Keyhoe is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. He flew in active service with the Marine Corps, managed the tour of the historic plane in which Bennett and Byrd made their North Pole flight, was aide to Charles Lindbergh after the famous Paris flight, and was chief of information for the Aeronautics Branch, Department of Commerce.
The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin has a collection of The Mike Wallace Interview shows on line including the one he conducted with Major Donald E. Keyhoe in 1958.
The Mike Wallace Interview:
Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe
(March 8, 1958)
That idea Phineas had for trapping half the German Air Force was good. G.H.Q. liked it. Even Major Rufus Garrity took to it. Oh, yes, there was a catch. Half the German Air Force had to fall for it, too.
The Squadron of the Dead return for another mission, but this one is unlike any they have taken on before.
Death lay behind those men in the somber, black uniforms, for every man in that squadron had been sentenced to die. Death lay ahead of them, for to them were assigned the grim missions no other squadron dared to take. Then at last came a task which even those ghosts of the war skies dreaded to face—yet it was a task in which death played no part.
In the November 1936 issue of Flying Aces, Donald E. Keyhoe introduced Richard Knight, ace pilot and secret agent of the U.S. government. Along with his dame-chasing assistant Larry Doyle, he confronts evil-doers around the world, flying his specially equipped (and heavily armed) blue Northrup.
Down upon the flood-lit Washington Airport came a sleek Douglas transport. And from it ran a strangely costumed girl wielding a glittering dagger in spirited attempts to protect herself from the burly men who sought to stop her. Only the lightning decision of a tall, well-built man in a car on the driveway saved her. That man was Richard Knight. And this surprising incident was destined to send him upon the most startling adventure of his career—an adventure which, wholly unknown to him, had begun more than half a century before he was born.
In this adventure, two of Arch Whitehouse’s most popular flying duos team up to foil a Japanese invasion of the Phillipines. Tug Hardwick and Beansie Bishop are joined by Coffin Kirk and his simian assistant, Tank.
Peculiar white wisps on the ocean below! What sinister thing did they hide? Tug had to know. But Beansie had no time for that mystery—what with gun-bristling Mitsubishis swarming down the skies to face his twin Brownings. What’s more, he now was encountering a mystery of his own. For a strangely-marked Breda had suddenly dived in among those vengeful “Rising Sun” fighters. And the gunner aboard that Breda was too efficient to be human!
Here is the starkly realistic story of an obsolete American submarine in war time—trapped by the thundering herd of depth-charging destroyers overhead. . . . The poignant, profoundly emotional account of men inside the firing pits of a battleship’s 14-inch turret guns—fighting the last desperate fight for Democracy.
It is the love story of a young naval officer, a girl correspondent, and an embittered novelist who has been to all the wars. The story is unfolded during what may be the most important hour in American history.
The United States has declared war on Germany, Italy, and Japan. The invading navies of these countries prepare for an advance on the Panama Canal. A terrific naval battle takes place. The result hangs in balance. And the suspense in this story is tremendous as the action shifts from the high seas where the U.S. Fleet is battling the enemy might—to intrigue-ridden Cristobal, where foreign agents strive to undermine the power of the U.S. in the Canal Zone, and where the unusual love story of the three principal characters reaches a surprise climax.
The Griffon is in the air to solve another high flying mystery. When is a good dollar counterfeit? That was only one of the baffling riddles that faced Kerry Keen after he attended that fashionable night club—by request. Sure, bad money is queer, but some things are a lot queerer—getting offered half a million bucks just for putting on a 200-mile air express act, for instance. Certainly, that was one for the book. And as for the silk-hatted man of mystery who had invaded Graylands—well, that was already in the book!
Here is another high flying adventure of “Cyclone” Bill Garrity and The Devildog Squadron. For months the grim spectre of that German staffel had stalked up and down the Front, dropping its sinister messages of death upon British and French squadrons. And now at last it struck at the flying Marines. For out of the cloud mists over that Devildog drome a white-winged German plane swooped low, and from it came the threat of doom—a black coffin holding the body of a Devildog pilot.
If you thought Elmer Hubbard and Pokey Cook were a couple of wild Indians before, just wait until you see them with their war paint and feathers on! Even C.O. Mulligan had to listen to their war whoops with a smile.
More planes shot down than in any other unit—more men gone west—that was the record of Eighty Squadron. And the first job they handed young Watson was a tough one—to be carried out “no matter what the cost.”
Those two news-hawks, Tug Hardwick and Beansie Bishop, were well acquainted with Old Man Trouble. And by steering clear of Hainan they were sure they could stay out of his clutches. But what Tug didn’t know—though he would soon find out—was that Old Man Trouble could find you anywhere, especially in China where oil flows thicker than blood.
