THROUGH the dark night sky, streaking swiftly with their Hisso engines thundering, is the greatest trio of aces on the Western Front—the famous and inseparable “Three Mosquitoes,” the mightiest flying combination that had ever blazed its way through overwhelming odds and laughed to tell of it! Flying in a V formation—at point was Captain Kirby, impetuous young leader of the great trio; on his right was little Lieutenant “Shorty” Carn, the mild-eyed, corpulent little Mosquito and lanky Lieutenant Travis, eldest and wisest of the Mosquitoes on his left!

We’re back with the third and final of three Ralph Oppenheim’s Three Mosquitoes stories we’re featuring this March for Mosquito Month! And this one’s a doozy! Allied intelligence had learned that the Germans had built a great seaplane, destined to turn the whole tide of the naval war. This seaplane was not only a compact fighting and raiding ship, but it could make remarkable speed and cover remarkable distance. It was even rumored that the Germans proposed to send a whole fleet of these new planes across the Atlantic, with the object of raiding the American coast!

Many had been sent and tried to destroy the Reutz Aircraft Factory where said seaplane was being built and developed but were unsuccessful. Our intrepid Trio has been sent in a huge bomber alone, in an effort to get through and take out the plant. But when they are shot down 45 miles behind enemy lines—it’s Travis who comes up with a plan that will take them into the heart of the beast, through enemy jaws, to complete their mission and take out the plant! Read all about it in Ralph Oppenheim’s “Through Enemy Jaws” from the December 1929 issue of Sky Riders!

Into that maelstrom of screaming lead and crashing shells went the Three Mosquitoes, the dare-devils whom nothing could stop. Into that nest of spies and intrigue they dove, on the most treacherous mission they had ever had. Would the demonic, mysterious enemy seaplane gain through? The lives of millions hung breathlessly in the balance!

• Download “Through Enemy Jaws” (December 1929, Sky Riders)

AN OVERWHELMING majority of Oppenheim’s pulp output were aviation stories, many featuring our intrepid trio, The Three Mosquitoes. In 1933, when the Mosquitoes were winding down their adventures in Popular Publications aviation magazines, Oppenheim tried his hand at a new genre that was very popular at the time—detective fiction. Over the next fourteen years oppenheim would produce eighteen detective stories for the some of the leading magazines in the field—Dime Detective and Dime Mystery Magazines, Popular Detective, Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Mystery, Black Book Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Strange Detective Mysteries and Phantom Detective—as well as even ghost writing a Phantom Detective story (”Murder Calls the Phantom” March 1941).

Oppenheim had five stories in the pages of Thrilling Detective—the first two in 1936 and 1937 featured Dave Rogers. Dave Rogers was a motorcycle riding state trooper. In this second of the two published tales, a former state trooper, young Bob Hall, has returned to the station as a Federal Agent investigating a counterfeiting ring that is believed to be operating in the area. Rogers says he’s seen one of the three counterfeiters in the area, but is asked to give Hall a wide berth in his investigation. However, when young Bob Hall turns up frozen solid just a short time after Rogers has seen him speeding by on the other side of town, he throws himself into the case!

From the February 1937 issue of Thrilling Detective, it’s Dave Rogers, State Trooper in Ralph Oppenheim’s “Cold Steel!”

Dave Rogers, State Trooper, Battles Frozen Death in His Fight to Smash a Band of Murdering Counterfeiters!

• Download “Cold Steel” (February 1937, Thrilling Detective)

Next week: It’s Black Book Detective’s Jonathan Drake, Ace Manhunter!

“LET’S GO!” Once more, The Three Mosquitoes familiar battle cry rings out over the western front and the three khaki Spads take to the air, each sporting the famous Mosquito insignia. In the cockpits sat three warriors who were known wherever men flew as the greatest and most hell raising trio of aces ever to blaze their way through overwhelming odds—always in front was Kirby, their impetuous young leader. Flanking him on either side were the mild-eyed and corpulent Shorty Carn, and lanky Travis, the eldest and wisest Mosquito.

We’re back with the second of three tales of Ralph Oppenheim’s Three Mosquitoes we’re featuring this March for Mosquito Month! This one is epic! The “Flying Dutchman” and his Circus have been overwhelming the Allied squadrons up and down the Western Front with their sheer numbers. Needless to say Kirby wants to take out the “Flying Dutchman”—Kellar—and put an end to his Circus. They go up again each other several times with alternating fortunes and develop a mutual admiration and respect for one another. Unfortunately, the Western Front is not big enough for both Aces.

From the April 1928 issue of War Novels!

They were known as the “Three Mosquitoes” Kirby, Carn, and Travis—and they were famous all over the Western Front as the most daring three-plane combination that ever flew over the Boche lines and engaged the enemy planes in deadly combat. Kirby, the leader, was after Kellar, the German ace called the “Flying Dutchman”—and here is the story of what happened—one of the most thrilling and exciting flying yarns ever written! Zoom into her, gang!

• Download “The Sky’s The Limit” (April 1928, War Novels)

And check back next Friday when the inseparable trio will be back with another exciting adventure!

THIS year for Mosquito Month we’re going to focus on some of Ralph Oppenheim’s Detective fiction. An overwhelming majority of Oppenheim’s pulp output were aviation stories, many featuring our intrepid trio, The Three Mosquitoes. In 1933, when the Mosquitoes were winding down their adventures in Popular Publications aviation magazines, Oppenheim tried his hand at a new genre that was very popular at the time—detective fiction. Over the next fourteen years oppenheim would produce eighteen detective stories for the some of the leading magazines in the field—Dime Detective and Dime Mystery Magazines, Popular Detective, Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Mystery, Black Book Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Strange Detective Mysteries and Phantom Detective—as well as even ghost writing a Phantom Detective story (”Murder Calls the Phantom” March 1941).

Throughout all his detective stories, he had a number of detectives that returned in subsequent stories. These are the detective stories we’re going to feature this month. To get things going, we’ll start with the first of Oppenheim’s detective stories—”The Death Lady” featured on the cover! and in the pages of the July 15th, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine!

“The Death Lady” introduces us to “Honest” Glen Kelsey, a private dick who’s built his reputation on the strength of his trustworthiness! “‘Honest Glen Kelsey’—the man you can trust—three years with the Department of Justice, etcetera, etcetera.” His assistant, Mr. Peebles, was the direct antithesis to the young, broad-shouldered Kelsey, whose blue eyes, with their humor wrinkles, showed the lust for adventure—rather he was bald, near-sighted, and very clerkish, with spectacles on his thin nose.

George Cranford visits Kelsey’s office and explains the crux of the case:

“We have become what you might call country gentlemen,” George Cranford explained. “And since we’ve settled up there our life has been stainless; our reputation in the town is unimpeachable. But unfortunately,” his voice faltered, “there is something in the past, something which Stephen and I—Lord, I had hoped it was buried. But the past always comes back. Mr. Kelsey—the past always comes back. I was just beginning to forget—and then, only last week, came the first of the threats. Threats, Mr. Kelsey, from somebody my brother and I were both certain had died years ago—somebody,” his voice was a shaky whisper, “who has returned as if from the grave—from the dead—”

Cranford refuses to divulge too much information in Kelsey’s office and requests he come out to their Connecticut home, but entrust him with a valuable box before departing telling him to keep it in a safe place! Upon opening the box, Kelsey finds only small sharp rocks.

After narrowly getting crushed by a tree just outside the Cranford’s home, Kelsey arrives at the Cranford’s to find a a small group of suspects in the house: besides George and his brother Stephen, their niece from a third brother Ellen; “old family friend” Curtis Harvey; and the swarthy, almost olive-skinned Carlos, the new chauffeur.

Shortly after his arrival, George himself turns up dead and brutally mutilated on the porch! The sheriff is called in, questions everyone and locks down the house with Kelsey inside which does afford him a chance to get more information on people and search for information.

In addition to the question of who the murder is, is the question of why and or how the bodies are turning up mutalated. A question which is spoiled by the cover of the magazine which shows a man torturing another within a Iron Lady! That still leaves the questions of who and why—

From the pages of the July15th, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine, It’s Ralph Oppenheim’s “Honest” Glen Kelsey in “The Death Lady!”

There she stood—that enigmatic murder smile welded on her lips—waiting to clasp her victims in a death embrace. What was this horror-creature who cast her torture shadow over the House of Cranford—whose lightest caress meant bloody mutilation for those she wooed?

• Download “The Death Lady” (July 15, 1933, Dime Detective Magazine)

“Honest” Glen Kelsey would return for a second and final time a few months later. Once again featured on the cover and in the pages of the September 15th 1933 Dime Detective Magazine in a story titled “Brand of the Beast”.

Next week: It’s Thrilling Detective’s Dave Rogers, State Trooper!

MARCH is Mosquito Month! We’re celebrating Ralph Oppenheim and his greatest creation—”The Three Mosquitoes! We’ll be featuring three early tales of the Mosquitoes over the next few Fridays as well as looking at some of Mr. Oppenheim’s detective characters. So, let’s get things rolling, as the Mosquitoes like to say as they get into action—“Let’s Go!”

The greatest fighting war-birds on the Western Front are once again roaring into action. The three Spads flying in a V formation so precise that they seemed as one. On their trim khaki fuselages, were three identical insignias—each a huge, black-painted picture of a grim-looking mosquito. In the cockpits sat the reckless, inseparable trio known as the “Three Mosquitoes.” Captain Kirby, their impetuous young leader, always flying point. On his right, “Shorty” Carn, the mild-eyed, corpulent little Mosquito, who loved his sleep. And on Kirby’s left, completing the V, the eldest and wisest of the trio—long-faced and taciturn Travis.

Let’s get things off the ground with an early Mosquitoes tale from the pages of the October 13th, 1927 issue of War Stories. The great German Ace Breikhart has been making his personal mission to down any observation balloon the allies have up. As a result, our intrepid trio has been assigned the task of protecting the observation balloons. An assignment Kirby finds boring and beneath his capabilities, until…

Breikhart, the greet German Ace, flying his darting little red Fokker, was bringing down captive balloons with devilish frequency. Again he outwitted Kirby—and now Kirby was in a savage, reckless mood!

• Download “Up and Out” (October 13, 1927, War Stories)

And check back next Friday when the inseparable trio will be back with another exciting adventure!

THIS week we have a story from the pen of the Navy’s own Allan R. Bosworth. Bosworth wrote a couple dozen stories with Humpy & Tex over the course of ten years from 1930 through 1939, mostly in the pages of War Aces and War Birds. The stories are centered around the naval air base at Ile Tudy, France. “Humpy” Campbell, a short thickset boatswain’s mate, first class who was prone to be spitting great sopping globs of tabacco juice, was a veteran seaplane pilot who would soon rate two hashmarks—his observer, Tex Malone, boatswain’s mate, second class, was a D.O.W. man fresh from the Texas Panhandle. Everybody marveled at the fact that the latter had made one of the navy’s most difficult ratings almost overnight—but the answer lay in his ability with the omnipresent rope he constantly carried.

Humpy & Tex find themselves in the brig, busted down for their shenanigans. They volunteer to dive down and unfoul the anchor seeing it as a chance to retrieve the cognac they had dropped in the harbor the night before, but end up abandoned without air on the ocean floor—definitely not the place for two airman! “Jawbone of an Ace” by the Navy’s own Allan R. Bosworth is one of the duo’s later adventures from the pages of the January 1935 War Birds.

Humpy And Tex, Flying Fish Of The Azores, In A Mad Scramble From Ocean Floor To Sky-Top For Cognac And Krauts!

• Download “Jawbone of an Ace” (January 1935, War Birds)

THIS week we have a short story by renowned pulp author Frederick C. Davis. Davis is probably best remembered for his work on Operator 5 where he penned the first 20 stories, as well as the Moon Man series for Ten Detective Aces and several other continuing series for various Popular Publications. He also wrote a number of aviation stories that appeared in Aces, Wings and Air Stories.

This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, 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.

Tip Top, one of the biggest producers in the movie field, is looking to add a news reel to their releases and want to buy up one of the present independent movie reel producers and it’s down to Compass and World News Reel. Which ever company can out perform the other and provide the best news reels will get the gig—only problem is, someone’s on the payroll of Compass at World News Reel and causing trouble. From the April 1928 Wings, it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Winner Take All!”

Two flyers of the newsreel wage an air-feud in the clouds, and over the flame-belching tanks of the oil fields Nick Royce, sky-eater, plays his ace-in-the-hole.

• Download “Winner Take All” (April 1928, Wings)

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 July 1936 issue of Lone Eagle.

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

THIS week we have a story from the short-lived Sky Devils magazine by Anthony Field. Anthony Field was a pseudonym used by Anatole Feldman who specialized in gangland fiction—appearing primarily in Harold Hersey’s gang pulps, Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, and Gangland Stories. His best-known creation is Chicago gangster Big Nose Serrano. But he also wrote a number of aviation stories including four stories for Sky Devils featuring Quinn’s Black Sheep Squadron—this is the second of those four stories!

Quinn’s Black Sheep is another of those squadrons populated with other squadron’s troublemakers like Rossoff’s Hell-Cats or Keyhoe’s Jailbird Flight or any number of other examples. It seemed every author had a series with a black sheep squadron.

Captain Jack Quinn, brought in for disciplinary action, manages to convince the General that he could solve a lot of his headaches by hand-picking the problem aces out of other squadrons and forming an essentially independent squadron to take on the Boche. Thus, Quinn’s flight was a crew of hard bitten aces who had been tempered—to a man—in the cauldron of war, having unflinchingly facing Death many times before.

There are rumors of a spy on the Black Sheep ‘drome and when a mysterious woman arrives, Quinn finds himself thrown into the unfamiliar world of intrigue in an effort to find out who the woman is—and who the spy is and finds out there is a sinister plan afoot to wipe out the Allied High Command!

Once again the hell-diving Black Sheep Squadron rears through screaming, shell-torn war skies! Some member of that infamous Black Sheep Squadron was a spy who had sold their honor to hell—so theirs was a double mission of hate as they roared through flaming skies in a mad attempt to save the Allied High Command from raw annihilation!

• Download “Flaming Destiny of the Sky Damned!” (July 1938, Sky Devils)

“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!

Phineas Pinkham meets his match when the 9th Pursuit’s latest replacement in the form of one Lieutenant Monk Flanagan, once known as Perfesser Merlin the Great of the Hipperdrome Vodyville Circuit, arrives. Poor Phineas gets a taste of his own medicine—he can certainly dish it up, but can he take it? Find out in Joe Archibald’s latest Phineas mirthquake, “Pride of the Pinkhams” from the May 1932 Flying Aces.

One Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham to a squadron would be enough in any man’s war—according to Major Rufus Garrity. But somebody back at Wing thought differently when he assigned Lieutenant Monk Flanagan, late of the Hippodrome Vaudeville Circuit, to the Ninth Pursuit!

• Download “Pride of the Pinkhams” (May 1932, Flying Aces)

THIS week we have a story by J.D. Rogers, Jr. Rogers is credited with roughly fourteen tales from the pages of Flying Aces, Sky Birds and Sky Aces. “The Yellow Ace” from the August 1929 Flying Aces was his first published tale. In it James Lawrence arrives on the tarmac of the 23rd Squadron R.F.C. with his newly designed fighter plane. In the make-up of this plane was the knowledge and experience of a young man who had played and worked in his father’s aeroplane factory since age permitted. Prompted by zealous patriotic duty he had built this super fighter for his country, a country which the warring nations had far surpassed in the art of building aircraft. Refused a fair demonstration of his plane by a very inexperienced air board, the youth, with his flame of patriotism quenched, turned from his own country to England whose air board was frantic for a plane fast enough and maneuverable enough to successfully combat the German demons who had held the air supremacy through the war.

England welcomed the American. Her air experts praised the flying qualities of his plane demonstrated in trying maneuvers, but they were skeptical of its fighting ability. It was then that the youth, reckless because of miserable failure at home and unexpected success abroad, offered to fly his plane in real combat to prove its fighting ability. The air board, convinced that the pilot knew the maneuvers of air combat, gave him a thirty day trial upon the battle front to prove his handiwork. . .

Read the thrilling adventures of the man who was branded a coward. Follow flaming tracers as they eat into his plane. Watch him zig-zag through steel-spattered skies—and see if he’s yellow!

• Download “The Yellow Ace” (August 1929, 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 June 1936 issue of Lone Eagle.

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

THIS week we have another story by Alfred Hall Stark. Stark wrote a dozen or so stories for the pulps, frequently dealing with aviation, in the late twenties and early thirties before building a reputation for writing well-researched, fact-based articles for The Reader’s Digest, Popular Science, Saturday Evening Post and others.

As we found out in the letter Flying Aces published the month before last week’s story and two months before “Decoys of Doom”, Stark had written and submitted this story to the magazine first. From the July 1929 Flying Aces, it’s Alfred Hall Stark’s “Decoys of Doom.”

Every day the patrol went over the lines, and came back minus one plane and one man. Only the missing flyers could tell how they had mysteriously vanished—and the dead were turning in no reports at H.Q.

• Download “Decoys of Doom” (July 1929, Flying Aces)

THIS week we have a story by Alfred Hall Stark. Stark wrote a dozen or so stories for the pulps, frequently dealing with aviation, in the late twenties and early thirties. Stark was a pseudonym for Afred Halle Sinks. Sinks was a native of Ohio, who won his reportorial spurs in New York before heading to Porto Rico to work on the Porto Rico Progress published in San Juan. When sinks returned to the US, he was a staff writer for Popular Science and The Reader’s Digest building a reputation for writing well-researched, fact-based articles for those publications as well as others and newspapers.

Stark wrote “The Hurricane Kid” while still in Porto Rico. It was published in the June 1929 issue of Flying Aces.

Meet Crashing Kid Sperry, the Crack-Up King of the Caribbean, on the payroll as a curiosity. He got sore at the boss, became an air bandit and flew with sensational audacity right into a raging hurricane. Did he come out alright? Read it and see!

• Download “The Hurricane Kid” (June 1929, Flying Aces)

In a brief biographical paragraph from an article in 1963, Alfred Halle Sinks was said to be living in Philadelphia and responsible for the public information program that launched Bucks County’s open space conservation program. By that time he had been editor of the Bucks County Traveler, as well as a staff writer for Popular Science and Reader’s Digest, and had contributed articles to the Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Ladies Home Journal, and other leading national magazines.

As a bonus, here’s a letter from Alfred Hall Stark that Flying Aces published in the March issue—the month before the issue this story ran.

Sinks was living in Carversville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania when he passed away October 26th, 1974.

WE’RE celebrating the holidays with Harold F. Cruickshank—creator of those great Aces of the Western Front’s Hell Skies—Red Eagle, Sky Wolf, and Sky Devil. But this holiday season it’s going to be a down home Christmas featuring Cruickshank’s Pioneer Folk stories from the pages of Range Riders Western (1945-1952) on Mondays and Fridays; and Cruickshank’s own recollections of homesteading life from The Edmonton Journal’s The Third Column on Wednesdays.

The Edmonton Journal regularly set aside the third column on its editorial page for submissions from freelance writers, of which Cruickshank was an occasional contributor over the years. His columns frequently focused on his life growing up as a homesteader with his father and brother who had all immigrated from Scotland in 1905 to Barrhead, Canada along the famed Klondike Trail, just to the northwest of Fort Edmonton.

Here’s one last The Third Column by Cruickshank to end the month and start the new year!

The Third Column

by Harold F. Cruickshank • Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Canada • Thursday, 1 April 1954

Spring Around the Corner

So the great Burns opened his poem. “Up In The Morning Early.” I imagine that Rabbie must have written this poem one wild March, for his next stanza pretty well describes the conditions hereabouts when:

Watching the antics of the sparrows of late I have noticed quite a bit of confusion.

Two weeks ago. when there were marked signs of an early spring, a mated pair of sparrows decided to take up residence in a “bungalow” originally built for the tree swallows. Mrs. Sparrow fussed about, tossing bits of last year’s old nest out the front door, and began building a new one.

Mr Sparrow was very busy putting on quite a show of fidelity. An unattached hen was determined to break up the home, but Mr. Sparrow chased her away repeatedly.

When at last Mrs. Sparrow elected to go into residence, it was amusing to observe that the ol’ boy was much less severe on the intruding “vampire” he. He made some sporadic, token counterattacks, but these he soon gave up. It was very early in the season, and I imagine that he wasn’t too sure of the permanency of his new union with the incumbent Mrs. Sparrow Be that as it may, the “hussy” was permitted to perch quite close to the new home—just in case.

Then, alas, the “cauld” wind came to “drive sairly” down over the sector, and with the sharp drop in temperatures, the sparrow marriage seemed to I dissolve automatically. No doubt the sparrows were the victims of an attack of premature spring fever. They have “flown the coop!”

The sparrows are not the only creatures to have fallen victims to the false spring. Many an overcoat has been tossed into the moth-proof bag, and topcoats substituted. As a result, presumably, many of our fellow citizens are barking and sneezing.

* * *

Down through the ages. March has been one of the most maligned months of the year, and not without some justification.

Perhaps the best that may be said for it is that it is the natal month of some very important persons, and that it is closer to April and May than are Decemoer and January. As well, it is the source of a pretty well frayed cliche: “Spring is just around the corner.”

That is a fact . . . Spring is just around the corner. Don’t ask me what corner, but it is there somewhere. At this season of the year, forgetting the sparrows for the moment, I think back to the arrival of the ducks and geese and other harbingers of spring—the songbirds. There were times, of course, when the sharp-witted geese and ducks miscalculated, or were wholly deceived by the false spring, which had decided to flirt with winter a while longer.

Venturesome ducks and geese frequently poured down on the lakes almost before the Ice was clear. Wherever there were patches of open water, you would find the feathered swimmers, their chorus disturbing the air. Their voice sounds, more than any other factor but the sun, seemed to have more influence on the reawakening of springtime in the wilderness.

* * *

Now and then, alas, they, too, became victims of Nature’s fickleness. When sharp temperatures would tighten up the ice, and fierce blizzards slant down on a formation of huddled ducks or geese, the effect was very depressing on human beings. We felt that Nature had deceived us, cheated us. But as I look back visualizing those periods of uncertainty, I think it was all for the best. When the true spring came with startling suddenness, as surely it will return this year, it was doubly welcome. The better always seems much better after we have tasted and accepted the bitter.

Parting with March and its legerdemain should be an occasion for rejoicing. With the dawning of April we may in earnest begin to apply the age-worn cliche: “Spring is just around the corner!”