“Famous Sky Fighters, October 1935″ by Terry Gilkison
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 October 1935 installment, from the pages of Sky Fighters, features Sgt. James McConnell, Capt. James Norman Hall, Lt. Frank Engle, the war correspondent who ended up fighting, and the father of aerial combat Eugene Gilbert!
Next time in “Famous Sky Fighters”, Terry Gilkison features a bunch of Captains—James B. McCudden, Winand Grafe, Henry Clay, and John Alcock, and the most famous of all war airplane builders—Tony Fokker! Don’t miss it!
Mosquito Month we have a non-Mosquitoes story from the pen of Ralph Oppenheim. It was always his observer, Jim Evans, who judged the dive, who directed Haskell as the latter worked controls, who told Haskell the precise moment to jerk back his stick and pull up—the same moment when Evans would release the bombs. And due to this uncanny judgment of Evans, and also to Haskell’s flying skill and strength, the two had never failed. Oh, they had been a team—Bomber Dan Haskell, big, husky, two-fisted—and Jim Evans, smaller, but lithe and agile and just as ready for action. An inseparable team, Which co-ordinated like a machine—which could do bombing work as no other unit. With Haskell as reckless pilot, and Evans in the rear as gunner and observer—though he wore a pilot’s full two wings—they had fought their way through all odds, dived upon their target hellbent, and blasted it right off the face of the earth. But Jim had been lost the day before on a run leaving Dan to set off on a daring mission alone—He must bomb bridge K-100 to keep the Germans from advancing on the Allied lines! From the June 1934 issue of Sky Fighters it’s “Mission of Death!”
the third of three Three Mosquitoes stories we’re presenting this month. The Three Mosquitoes disband! The darker side of notoriety rears it’s ugly head—is Kirby a “Glory Grabber” taking all the glory and sharing none of the credit—easily picking off the other’s adversaries out from under them? Does he take Shorty Carn and Lanky Travis for granted? Yes, that inseparable threesome have it out and go their own ways! Each sinking the lowest a man can go without the others—and just as the big German offensive is about to kick off! Can the Kirby, Carn and Travis fix their “Broken Wings” or is this it for the intrepid trio? In what is probably their darkest tale, from the pages of the January 1931 issue of War Birds!
the second of three Three Mosquitoes stories we’re presenting this month. The Three Mosquitoes have been dispatched to the Scottish Highlands to investigate sightings of German Gothas! Equipped with brand new Sopwiths, the Three Mosquitoes take on The Black Raiders and try to fathom how these planes could even be this far from their Fatherland and so perilously close to the shipbuilding yards of Deemsgate! It’s a mystery whose answer lies in the craggy mountains of Scotland!
Mosquitoes—the approach of spring has brought the Mosquitoes out of hibernation to help hurry on the warm summer months ahead. At Age of Aces dot net it’s our fifth annual Mosquito Month! We’ll be featuring that wiley trio in three early tales in the hell skies over the Western Front. And we’re starting things off with a bang! The Germans have developed a new super explosive they’ve called XXX—five time as powerful as the Allies’ most destructive explosives! A boast they demonstrate by wiping the 44th Squadron’s drome off the face of the map! The Three Mosquitoes concoct a perilous plan to sneak into the largest and most well-guarded German munitions plants where the XXX is being manufactured and blow it all to kingdom-come!
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! 
a story from William E. Poindexter. Poindexter’s work appeared frequently in the supporting pages of the air pulps of the 1930’s. Here, he gives us the tale of Little Ossie Timpkins—who asked nothing more than to be considered a fighting man. But due to his stature, found himself on terminal kitchen duty—until he thinks he found a way to prove to himself and the others that he truly is “A Fighting Man!” From the pages of the May 1932 Flying Aces.
had a story in a majority of the issue of Flying Aces from his first in January 1930 until he returned to the Navy in 1942. Starting in August 1931, they were stories featuring the weird World War I stories of Philip Strange. But in November 1936, he began alternating these with sometime equally weird present day tales of espionage Ace Richard Knight—code name Agent Q. After an accident in the Great War, Knight developed the uncanny ability to see in the dark. Aided by his skirt-chasing partner Larry Doyle, Knights adventures ranged from your basic between the wars espionage to lost valley civilizations and dinosaurs.