Howard Morry, a high strung product of post war flying, had become fed up on the tame round of air mail jumps. He had not said so, but while loafing about waiting for his dispatches, he would fondly tinker with his silver winged monoplane. It was of no particular make, but his own assembly of everything good. With Morry at the controls it could outrun and outfly any one hundred and fifty horse powered crate in government service. Morry would put it to the test when he went undercover with some smugglers working the southern border.

From the November 1929 Flying Aces, it’s Stanley Wagenen’s “The Ace of Diamonds!”

“Major Chatterton, commander of the Border Patrol, dares you to try and cross the American boundary at noon tomorrow.” Thus ran the message, and thus began the gamest scrap the air has known!

• Download “The Ace of Diamonds” (November 1929, Flying Aces)

From the June 13th, 1930 issue of The Wisconsin State Journal, meet the man, the myth, H Stanley Van Wagenen:

Pinkham’s really put his foot in it this time—or so it appears—and he’s sent off to another squadron to be their problem. Problem is, he’s been sent to the drome of the Twenty-Ninth Squadron, south of Lerouville. The Twenty-Ninth was a forbidding-looking collection of hangars and huts, an outfit that every pilot who wished to grow old prayed to keep away from. There was a curse on the place. It was known all over France as the Suicide Squadron. And it was at the Twenty-Ninth that hard-bitten individuals who scoffed at discipline and military regulations eventually found a home. . .

They’d been threatening to transfer Phineas for months, and at last the axe fell. Major Garrity couldn’t handle Pinkham, eh? Well, who could?

• Download “The Grin reaper” (May/June 1933, Flying Aces)

“Crash Proud” from the April 1930 issue of Wings features Dumpy Scarth. Dumpy first appeared in a 1921 issue of Adventure—he was one of the first members of the boarder patrol Burtis introduced us to. Despite his name and matching appearance, Dumpy is one of the most skilled fliers in the patrol.

In the story Corpus Christi has been hit by a flood and the boarder patrol is out looking for and helping the isolated survivors. To make matters worse, the same flood that decimated the town also allowed a homicidal maniac to escape from prison!

Scarth admitted he was the best in the flying game. Then came the flood, and a doomed city looked to the air.

• Download “Crash Proud” (April 1930, Wings)

This story is based upon real events Burtis lived through during the four years he was an Army flyer—in the March 1924 issue of Everybody’s he recounted the experience as being his most depressing time as an aviator.

This week we have one of those stories that took place on the ground. It a piece and bloody tale of “Watson’s Guts Brigade”—a troop of Canadian horse artillery down in the mud and mire of the trenches, ordered to stop the German’s advance upon the Allied position. From the March 1929 number of War Novels, it’s Harold F. Cruickshank’s “Drawn Sabers!”

For a long, miserable winter, this troop of Canuck Horse had served as infantry in the mud-filled trenches, but now they were withdrawn and rehorsed. The Boche threatened the Allied lines, and these hard riders of the West were ordered to stop them!

• Download “Drawn Sabers” (March 1929, War Novels)

While visiting a girl he had previously met at a chateau in the French countryside, Jimmy Brill stumbles upon a Russian plot to go to the American headquarters in Froidvalle where they plan to kill the guards at the general’s office; steal all the maps and plans; blow the place up, and set it on fire to create a diversion while they get away, flying the maps and plans to Germany. Success or failure of the Russian’s plans rely on if Jimmy can stop the “Red in the Sky!” From the pages of the April 1932 Wings.

It was a quiet, peaceful meadow—a haven in the horror of war. Or so Jimmy Brill thought when he slanted down. But it proved to be the hot spot of the whole sector!

• Download “Red in the Sky” (April 1932, Wings)

As a bonus, here’s brief letter H.P.S. Greene had published in then letters pages of the December 1928 Flying Aces, wherein he gives a quick account of himself and his flying ability.

This week’s story features that crack pilot for Tip Top News, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931.

After an assignment where things go from bad to worse, Nick and Art are sent out to redeem themselves by covering the big Air Derby. They find out when they get there that the lead ship is nothing but a publicity stunt for their arch competitor’s new aviation themed movie. What can they do but fulfill their assignment and hope that something goes wrong with Super-Art’s publicity ploy.

From the March 1929 Wings, it’s Nick Royce in Frederick C. Davis’ “Winged Showdown!”

The Goddess of Chance sent them into the skies with clipped wings. But Nick Royce lived by one code—and he dared all in one last cloud-gamble to get the shots!

• Download “Winged Showdown” (March 1929, Wings)

The Brass Hats had just ordered .Major Rufus Garrity to send a certain fireproof German balloon down in flames. Then Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham came home—leading a goat named Horace. The date—but of course you’ve guessed—was Friday the thirteenth!

• Download “The Fryin’ Dutchman” (April 1933, Flying Aces)

This time it’s O.B. Myer’s turn to spin this issue’s “Hangar Yarn”—a the round-table of airmen who, after flying hours, gather to yarn and smoke. All of these tales are told by airmen, in an airman’s fashion that’ll make you feel right at home in the old hangar.

“Did j’ever hear how Ab Longstreet got my Croix de Guerre?” asked Ed, flipping his cigarette butt so that it landed right next to a five-gallon can of gas.

• Download “Sudden Hardware” (April 1930, Wings)

THE demand from readers for an article, showing how a professional writer’s mind works as he writes, has risen in recent months from a mild polite murmur to a steady daily yelp. Inadvertently we mentioned our desire to publish such article, and the hounds were off.

Robert J. Hogan, whose article on the subject is the one finally selected, writes us: “Believe me, this is the toughest job I’ve handled in a long time. I only hope your readers get as much help out of it as I got out of your magazine in the early stages. To lift the lid of the old bean and let your subscribers peer inside . . . gosh! what an assignment!”

Mr. Hogan flew for the U.S.A. during the War, and acted also as a boxing instructor at camp. After the War he was chief engineer for an aircraft corporation that took a beating in the depression. Bob Hogan started over again as a pick and shovel worker on a construction job.

Two years later he went into the home construction business for himself, and from there into selling real estate. His old love was aviation and “I was unhappy away from it. I took to writing to occupy my mind, writing flying stories for the pulps, on the back of the stationery of my real estate business. I have been a full-time writer for three years and sold my first story five years ago. I’ve sold to 35 magazines.

“I sell on contract 160,000 words a month, and lay off after three each day. I write about all the stuff that’s in the magazine ‘G-8 and His Battle Aces’ and I do the main story each month for Wu Fang, published by Popular Publications, 205 East 42nd St., New York City. The story that I talk about in the following article was sold today to Wu Fang and will appear in its January issue.”

• Download “Inside a Author’s Brain” (October 1935, Writer’s Digest)

DEMYSTIFIED. The cover of the issue in question of Robert J. Hogan’s The Mysterious Wu Fang! Hogan penned all seven lead stories for the magazine from September 1935 to the March 1936 issue when it folded.

That Frog dentist thought he was pretty funny when he gave Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham laughing gas. Well, as Phineas says, “He who laughs last—laughs last!”

• Download “Nothing But The Tooth” (March 1933, Flying Aces)