THIS week we have a story by Raoul Whitfield! Whitfield is primarily known for his hardboiled crime fiction published in the pages of Black Mask, but he was equally adept at lighter fair that might run in the pages of Breezy Stories. We’ve posted a few of his Buck Kent stories from Air Trails. While the Buck Kent stories were contemporary (1930’s), “The Singing Major” from the January 1932 issue of War Aces is set in The Great War and, in fact, based on a real person. At the time of publication, Whitfield told the editors of War Aces that the legends of this major are still talked about among the peasants in one locality. His was a temperament they couldn’t understand, hence many are the wild stories about him.

One in particular they like to tell. A ranking colonel came to the major’s field for one of those everlasting inspections. The major smilingly met him and then, in front of the whole company and while humming Madelon, he knocked the colonel down. He did it to get the court-martial that would relieve him of his command, but the audacity of the act left him scot free. The colonel excused the act on the grounds of ragged nerves from overwork and war strain. His next effort was to knock a buck private kicking, but again it didn’t work. The major went through the war with something eating him inwardly and trying all sorts of things at the most unexpected moments to get himself in clink.

He looked mild, but he was rough, tough and nasty—that Singing Major, Up and down the Front he was famous for anything from arson to mayhem until he answered his third curtain call and found the Reaper himself blocking the wings.

• Download “The Singing Major” (January 1932, War Aces)

THIS week we have a story from the pen of the Navy’s own Allan R. Bosworth. Being a Navy man, Bosworth’s stories primarily dealt with the Navy. However, this week’s story from the pages of War Birds, Bosworth gives us something different—the Steenth Squadron has a German spy in their midst. Dizzy Donovan exists the help of a local orphan the squadron has taken a shine to to help ferret out the hidden Boche agent. But the pilots are the ones in for a surprise at Little Orphan Danny’s birthday Party! From the pages of the December 1932 it’s “Little Orphan Danny!”

Dizzy Donovan, premier poet of the air, took an orphan to raise. When the pilots of the Steenth tried to celebrate Little Danny’s birthday they learned about the war from him!

• Download “Little Orphan Danny” (December 1932, War Birds)

STARTING in the October 1933 issue of Sky Fighters and running almost 5 years, Terry Gilkison’s “Famous Sky Fighters” was a staple of the magazine. Each month Gilkison would illustrate in a two page spread different Aces that rose to fame during the Great War.

Although Gilkison was probably better known for his syndicated newspaper work, he also provided black and white story interior illustrations for pulp magazines. His work appeared in Clues, Thrilling Adventures, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Western, and Popular Western. Gilkison provided similar features in a few other Thrilling Publications—there was “Famous Soldiers of Fortune” and later “Adventure Thrills” in Thrilling Adventures, Famous Crimes” in Thrilling Detective, and the fully illustrated air adventure stories of Buck Barton “The Flying Devil” in The Lone Eagle! He signed most of this work with only his initials “T.G.” to maintain a low profile and preserve his reputation as a syndicated newspaper cartoon artist.

The November 1937 installment, from the pages of Sky Fighters, features Captain Donald MacLaren, Captain W.D. “Bill” Williams, Roland Garros and Anthony Fokker!

Next time in “Famous Sky Fighters”, Terry Gilkison features Lt. Paul Pavelka, Captain Georges Madon, General Italo Balboas and famous American adventurer Walter Wellman! Don’t miss it!

THIS week we have a story by Syl MacDowell! MacDowell is probably best known for his westerns. This time, MacDowell gives us brief tale of the mysterious Black Bat—is he man or beast? From the November 1931 issue of Aces, it’s “The Black Bat.”

Behind the curtain of night Weird wings hovered over the Yank tarmac. A ship crashed with no hand at the stick. . . . And the priceless eye of the army was missing.

• Download “The Black Bat” (November 1931, Aces)

“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 to vex not only the Germans, but the Americans—the Ninth Pursuit Squadron in particular—as well. Yes it’s the marvel from Boonetown, Iowa himself—Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham!

This is a story of high finance as well as high flying. It never would have been written if a couple of Yankee doughs had not found a cache of Jerry marks in a deserted abri near Vaubecourt.

You see, a year before Uncle Sam peeled off his coat and spat on his hands to take a poke at Kaiser Bill, the Frog poilus had chased the Heinies out of the aforementioned Frog hamlet. And the Jerry brass hats, evidently very hard pressed, were satisfied to escape with even their skivvies. They left behind them a Boche paymaster and payroll buried in a mass of debris.

The doughs who stumbled over this treasure left the Heinie paymaster where they found him—because he was no longer fit for circulation—but the marks, having escaped the blast of shells, soon began to circulate throughout France; and thereupon reports hit Chaumont to the effect that a flock of Yanks, the majority of whom had failed to pass an intelligence test, had purchased the Kraut legal tender at various places and had paid for it with honest-to-goodness French and American currency.

From the November 1937 Flying Aces, it’s Phineas Pinkham in “Crash on Delivery!”

“Gimme this an’ gimme that!” Yes, it seemed that everybody in the sector had the “gimme’s.” Jacques le Bouillon wanted marks, a slew of tough doughs wanted francs, Hauptmann von Katzenjammer wanted his pay, and Colonel McWhinney wanted satisfaction. Outside of that, everything was peaceful—except that the M.P.’s wanted Phineas!

• Download “Crash on Delivery” (November 1937, Flying Aces)

FREQUENT visitors to this site know that we’ve been featuring Terry Gilkison’s Famous Sky Fighters feature from the pages of Sky Fighters. Gilkison had a number of these features in various pulp magazines—Clues, Thrilling Adventures, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Western, and Popular Western. Starting in the February 1936 issue of Lone Eagle, Gilkison started the war-air quiz feature Sky Writers. Each month there would be four questions based on the Aces and events of The Great War. If you’ve been following his Famous Sky Fighters, these questions should be a snap!

Here’s the quiz from the March 1936 issue of Lone Eagle. (Note: the blanks provided don’t always match the correct answer!)

If you get stumped or just want to check your answers, click here!

LESTER DENT is best remembered as the man behind Doc Savage. But he wrote all number of other stories before he started chronicling the adventures of everyone’s favorite bronze giant. Here we have an action-packed tale of war time intrigue from the pages of the April 1932 issue of War Birds—”Sea Bats!”

A flying ship without a pilot; a murder without a murderer; a base without a hangar—Squeak knew something was haywire. It took double-crossed wings to throw the shadow of black crosses where they belonged.

• Download “Sea Bats” (April 1932, War Birds)

And as a bonus, here’s another newspaper article about Lester Dent! This time it’s an article of Lester planning on touring the west retracing the route he had taken as a kid in a covered wagon. From The La Plata Home Press, it’s “Magazine Writer To Tour West!”

Magazine Writer To Tour West

La Plata Home Press, La Plata, MO • 13 AUGUST 1931

Doing Farm Work Here Occupied Part of Vacation

THIRTY years ago, Bern Dent of LaPlata, then a rancher in the West, trailed cattle herds over a route thru the Northwest. The country was then sparsely settled. Today, his son, Lester Dent, New York fiction writer and author of western stories, starts from his LaPlata farm home to cover this same territory and on to the coast, not in a slow-moving van, but in a high-powered motor car.

Crossing the Big Horn mountains, Mr. Dent will also retrace the course of a trip he, as a small boy, made in company with his parents in a covered wagon, before the era of motor cars and good roads. On this trip, there were no bridges and they camped three weeks on the banks of Big Powder river, waiting for that fast-flowing stream to subside until it could be forded.

After helping put up hay, and wielding a hoe on his father’s farm here, Lester Dent went to Carrollton, Mo., Thursday, where he plans to join his wife for a motor trip through the Black Hills, the Yellowstone and Jackson Hole country, Oregon, Utah and Colorado. A sister-in-law, Miss Corrine Gerling, of Carrollton, will accompany them.

Mr. Dent will obtain material to be used in a series of western stories he is writing. He will return to LaPlata in three weeks or a month, and in October will return to New York for the winter.

The story of Lester Dent and his development as a fiction writer is as interesting as any story he has written. On the cover page of such magazines as All-Fiction, Popular, Western Trail, War Brides, War Aces, you will find the name of Lester Dent, and now, after writing all kinds of adventure stories, his name is found in Scotland Yard and other such magazines, as a writer of detective stories.

• Download “Magazine Writer To Tour Wes”
  (13 August 1931, The La Plata Home Pressn)

ORTH is back for one last battle! Silent Orth had made an enviable record, in the face of one of the worst beginnings—a beginning which had been so filled with boasting that his wingmates hadn’t been able to stand it. But Orth hadn’t thought of all his talk as boasting, because he had invariably made good on it. However, someone had brought home to him the fact that brave, efficient men were usually modest and really silent, and he had shut his mouth like a trap from that moment on.

it had been nine months since the previous Silent Orth story graced the pages of Sky Fighters, but the quiet pilot has returned for one final dogfight in Hell skies! Seriously injured and captured by the Germans, Orth finds his way back to an Allied hospital only to be blown back into action by German bombs—and it’s pure retribution for the trio of German Aces who tried to stop him! It’s “The Return of Silent Orth” from the pages of the December 1936 Sky Fighters!

A Hun Bomb Blasts a Wounded Yank from a Hospital Cot to the Middle of Battle!

• Download “The Return of Silent Orth” (December 1936, Sky Fighters)

THIS week we have a fun tale of the Cuckoo’s Nest from the prolific pen of Alexis Rossoff. The Cuckoo’s Nest stories ran in War Birds in 1930. The Cuckoo’s are an outfit a lot like Keyhoe’s Jailbird Flight—a group of hell cats who found themselves afoul of military rules who have been given another chance to die fighting rather than rotting in Blois cell.

Twenty saddened Cuckoos stood with heads uncovered and bowed in the eerie ghost dampness of the new dawn, paying their last respects to all that remained mortal of Jerry Coyne. A sorrowful grease-ball smoothed the surface of the fresh mound while Johnny Walker—his voice husky with emotion—intoned the war-bird benediction. “God, be kind to Jerry Coyne. He was a good scout and our buddy.” The Cuckoos added their earnest “Amen,” and the ordeal was at an end. One more of the flock had gone West to paradise on spirit wings. Who would be the next to follow Jerry Coyne? That was the question. From the April 1930 issue of War Birds it’s Alexis Rossoff’s “Code of the Cuckoos!”

Already the throbbing sky in the distance was heavy with dire promise. It was a grim, spectacular game—the cards were dealt out to a strange group of fighting war birds—as strange as that part of the Front had ever heard of, and the stakes were the now-worthless lives of those men. Johnny Walker winged on to an ominous rendezvous with death. A yarn about an outfit you will never forget!

• Download “Code of the Cuckoos” (April 1930, War Birds)

“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 to vex not only the Germans, but the Americans—the Ninth Pursuit Squadron in particular—as well. Yes it’s the marvel from Boonetown, Iowa himself—Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham!

France and England borrowed plenty from Uncle Sam during the years of the Big Fuss and citizens on this side of the big pond are still wondering why they have not paid up. There was one thing which the Limeys returned in 1918, however, that certain taxpayers wished they had kept. This was an aviator by the name of Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham, exponent of legerdemain, prestidigitation, black magic, ventriloquism, and all other such doubtful arts that have been nurtured through the centuries to plague the civilized world.

It was the Kaiser’s dread “Ogre of the Ozone” who was causing all the trouble. He’d introduced a game of hop-scotch that the Ladies from Hades hadn’t bargained on. And when the bullets began to fly, split skirts came back into style. So when the Brass Hats tossed Lieutenant Pinkham in with the kilties, said Pinkham found himself in a tight spot—and you can take that two ways.

• Download “Scot Free-For-All” (October 1937, Flying Aces)

As a bonus…some fan art of the Boonetown Treasure!

THIS week we have a story from the pen of C.M. Miller! Miller is known to Age of Aces readers as the author behind Chinese Brady, an old war horse who’s fought in most every scrap there’s been. This time it’s a little something different than our usual aviation tale. Miller gives the story of five sailors in a launch separated from their boat trying desperately to get back. Only trouble is, a German Uboat is using them to get their at the U.S.S. Leichester too! From the pages of the July 1929 issue of War Novels, it’s “Five Gobs!”

Five gobs stranded in a motor boat didn’t amount to a tinker’s damn when that periscope sneaked up. The U.S.S. Leichester turned seaward and ran like the devil—leaving those five to play with a Heinie sub.

• Download “Five Gobs” (July 1929, War Novels)

THIS week we have a story from the pen of Donald E. Keyhoe—in fact, I believe it is his first aviation story he had in the pulps! More soap opera than dashing wartime aviation thriller, Keyhoe tells the story of Harvey Masters, Dizzy Jim Boyd, and the girl unwittingly caught between them! The strangest part is that nobody ever suspected the truth about Dizzy Jim Boyd, though there was a lot of guessing when he first showed up at Western Airways Field, until the day when Harvey Masters came through and stopped for gas. . .

From the pages of the December 1929 issue of Wings, it’s Donald E. Keyhoe’s “Flying Mad!”

They called him “The Sheik” until he took the air and danced his crazy crate. And then they dubbed him Dizzy Jim. Nobody knew where he came from or why, but he came a-roaring . . .

• Download “Flying Mad” (December 1929, Wings)

STARTING in the October 1933 issue of Sky Fighters and running almost 5 years, Terry Gilkison’s “Famous Sky Fighters” was a staple of the magazine. Each month Gilkison would illustrate in a two page spread different Aces that rose to fame during the Great War.

Although Gilkison was probably better known for his syndicated newspaper work, he also provided black and white story interior illustrations for pulp magazines. His work appeared in Clues, Thrilling Adventures, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Western, and Popular Western. Gilkison provided similar features in a few other Thrilling Publications—there was “Famous Soldiers of Fortune” and later “Adventure Thrills” in Thrilling Adventures, Famous Crimes” in Thrilling Detective, and the fully illustrated air adventure stories of Buck Barton “The Flying Devil” in The Lone Eagle! He signed most of this work with only his initials “T.G.” to maintain a low profile and preserve his reputation as a syndicated newspaper cartoon artist.

The September 1937 installment, from the pages of Sky Fighters, features Major Jimmy Doolittle, Armand Pinsard, and Captain Bruno Loerzer!

Next time in “Famous Sky Fighters”, Terry Gilkison features Captain Donald MacLaren, Captain W.D. “Bill” Williams, Roland Garros and Anthony Fokker! Don’t miss it!

THIS week we have a story from the pen of a prolific pulp author—F.E. Rechnitzer. Tip Hunley was a forgetful sort—he would even forget his commanding officer’s direct orders. The result of which found him grounded the night before his squadron was to set to bomb the ammunition dump at Roulents early the next morning. However, he neglected to remember that he had been grounded when he took a Sopwith Camel up and took on the Roulents dump all on his own! Surely an unforgettable story he could one day tell his grandkids! From the pages of the September 1934 issue of Sky Fighters, it’s F.E. Rechnitzer’s “Solo Show!”

Tip Hurley Was Grounded for Disobedience—But No Brass Hat Could Stop That Hell-Bent Sky Rider from Taking a Crack at the Roulents Dump!

• Download “Solo Show” (September 1934, Sky Fighters)

THIS week, he have a story from the pen of a prolific pulp author O.B. Myers! Myers was a pilot himself, flying with the 147th Aero Squadron and carrying two credited victories and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

When the visiting General sent Jake Munns back to his headquarters to fetch his binoculars, he had no idea that t would be those same glasses that would save his life! From the June 1930 issue of War Birds, it’s O.B. Myers’ “The General’s Glasses!”

The cockeyed general sent Jake Munns winging for his field glasses. But when Jake went to look for the general again he found him in the center of No-Man’s-Land, and what they didn’t find out about those glasses!

• Download “The General’s Glasses” (June 1930, War Birds)