Eugene M. Frandzen painted the covers of The Lone Eagle from its first issue in September 1933 until the June 1937 issue when Rudolph Belarski took over with the August issue of that year. At the start of the run, Frandzen painted covers of general air action much like his Sky Fighters covers. Here, for the May 1934 cover, Frandzen has a couple British S.E.5As in a battle of wits with a pair of German Fokker D.8s!

The Story of the Cover

FEATURED on this month’s cover are two types of ships that were swapping lead during the last year of the war. The ship in the foreground and the one in the background losing its right wing are Fokker D.8s. The British planes, the one skidding over the Fokker with the cracked wing and the one coming up to attack the leading Fokker, are S.E.5As.

The Fokker D.8 was Mr. Fokker’s last contribution to the numerous fighting and experimental line of ships he designed for the Central Powers during the little argument “Over There.” This parasol monoplane was a sleek stream-lined Job of pretty proportions. In its flying tests it went through every stunting maneuver with speed and precision. It outflew all competitive planes submitted by other manufacturers and the Aces from the front who tried out the plane all clamored for one to use against the Allies.

Why They Shed Their Wings

As the D.8 had withstood all the flying tests and sand bag tests Fokker knew that he had a good plane: but the German scientific testing organization discovered that Fokker had omitted certain bracing of the rear spar near the wing tirs which they always specified for a biplane. Fokker argued that the monoplane wing did not need this bracing. The scientific boys were not to be swayed from their decision so the extra bracing was installed, and thereby lies the reason for several of these speedy ships which actually saw service at the front shedding their wings in a dogfight. It caused the wing to take more load at its wing tips than in the middle part, torsion causing the wing to collapse when unduly strained.

Although the D.8 didn’t show up at the front till 1918 you would have heard plenty about it if the ships had not been grounded during the controversy between Fokker and the Big Bugs of the German testing division. When Fokker was finally allowed to build the wing as in his original design the plane withstood all strains, but by the time delivery was made at the front the war was over.

The British S.E.5A was also a product of the last year of the World War, It was speedy and could be depended on to give a good account of itself against any of the German scouts, including the Fokker D.8.

Those two S.E.5’s on the cover have tangled with two D.8’s that have attacked two Allied sausage balloons, successfully igniting one. The archie guns opened up from the ground but the flitting monoplanes seem to anticipate the arrival of the bursting shells and are not harmed. The shells from the ground did not get them, but two prowling S.E.5A’s swooped down and the fight was on. The British pilots had never swapped lead with the fleet little monoplanes of this type and were at a disadvantage as the German pilots knew most of the S.E.5A’s tricks.

A Burst of Vickers Lead

The planes howl down the sky lanes, twisting, writhing in and out of each others ring-sights. Suddenly a burst of Vickers lead laces the foremost Fokker.

The German pilot stiffens, slumps. His stick is pulled back and his left foot shoved forward on the rudder bar, A dead man is driving his plane up into the heavens on his last ride. Unnerved at seeing his partner killed the second German pilot goes haywire with his sticks, skids under an S.E.5A and touches his wing tip against a speeding wheel. The Englishman’s axle sheers off the pi op on the sleek monoplane. Horrified the Allied pilot sees his left wings buckling, cracking. If that back strut holds till he can nurse his ship into a favorable glide he may get down. But the Fokker D.8 is doomed. Its ticket reads: One way. To earth. No stopovers.

The Lone Eagle, May 1934 by Eugene M. Frandzen
(The Story of The Cover Page)

THIS week we have a story from the pen of a prolific pulp author James Perley Hughes! Hughes was a frequent contributor to various genres of pulps, but he seemed to gravitate toward the air-war spy type stories. And this week’s tale is a prime example—two excellent combat pilots, Sandy Patton and his wingman George Bridges, find themselves transferred to the NIght Owls, a bat patrol that ferries spies over the lines, after a drunken boast. They soon find trouble and intrigue on both sides of the lines from their very first mission when they must fly to QX-31 to extract some agents—a location from which few pilots have ever returned! From the August 1931 issue of Sky Birds, it’s James Perley Hughes’ “The Secret of QX-31!”

Up to the hangars of the Night Owls, that squadron whose history was as dark as the night skies through which they winged, came those two Yanks, leaving behind them the free reckless battles with the Boche in sun-flooded skies. For there, shadowy ships swept through the night to strange and unknown destinations, and the muffled figures in their cockpits sometimes did not return. There, men had numbers instead of names—and victory meant to a pilot only that he and his ship came back.

• Download “The Secret of QX-31″ (August 1931, Sky 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 May 1934 installment, from the pages of Sky Fighters, features Capt. Elliott White Springs, Major Edward Mannock and the three flying McCudden brothers!

Next time in “Famous Sky Fighters,” Terry Gilkison features Captain Albert Ball and Lieutenant Jan Thieffry! Don’t miss it!

THE unstoppable Donald E. Keyhoe 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. Still in Spain, Richard Knight heads back into war-torn Spain in an effort to retrieve the Green Madonna—only to find The Hawk has kidnapped Benita Navarre!

Through those blood-red skies that hung like the hand of Doom over war-wracked Spain, there swooped a winged, incarnate devil—a greedy ghoul men called “The Hawk.” Sparing neither Rebel nor Loyalist, this eerie fiend struck without warning. Wretched Iberia herself was his victim; ruthlessly he pounced upon her, and from her defenseless form his merciless talons tore priceless treasures. And now those bony claws clutched the gleaming “Green Madonna”—sought to wrench from that brilliant jewel a secret known only to Death.

• Download “Wings of the Emerald” (September 1937, Flying Aces)

Eugene M. Frandzen painted the covers of Sky Fighters from its first issue in 1932 until he moved on from the pulps in 1939. At this point in the run, the covers were about the planes featured on the cover more than the story depicted. Mr. Frandzen features the trusty Sopwith 1½ Strutter whose pilot has been injured in a battle with a couple of German Rumpler C1’s on the January 1936 cover!

The Ships on the Cover

THE British Sopwith 1½ Strutter was one of those ships that rated so high early in the war that all the Allied governments were scrambling to get them for their own air forces. T.O.M. Sopwith began making planes that did things back in 1912. His seaplane scout won the Schneider Cup at Monoca. His “Bat boat” was so good that the Germans bought them before the war.

The amphibian “bat boat” had wheels which could be raised or lowered long before the days of modern retractable landing gear. Then came the Sop Tabloid which so revolutionized airplane design in 1913 that it became the grandpa of all fighting scout machines of the war. All the best features of former Sopwith models had been incorporated in the Tabloid.

In 1915 the Sop 1½ Strutters came out with the goods. They carried a synchronized gun firing through the propeller. The gun and the plane were a Sopwith team as the Sopwith Aviation Co. developed the synchronization gear which made the teamwork possible. The 1½ Strutter was a two-seater, although they manufactured a singe seat version later.

The name 1½ Strutter came from the peculiar bracing job. The top wing was in two parts joined to a center section. To support these, short struts ran from the top of the fuselage at an angle to quite a distance out on the top wing.

Another Two-Seater

The Rumpler C1 was a two-seater also. It wasn’t much of an original idea in design as it was so directly related to the old Taube which the Rumpler Co. had manufactured under license from its originator, the Austrian Etrich. The C1 had the backswept fish-like tail of the Taube monoplanes. An exposed radiator hung in the breezes at the center part of the leading edge of the top wing.

One day back in 1916 these two-seaters, the Sop and the Rumpler got in a scrap. That is where we find them on the cover. Two Rumplers have ganged up on the Sop, which wouldn’t place the 1½ Strutter in such a bad position as it was a much superior ship and welcomed a chance to show off to the challenging Germans. The Britishers were cocky and allowed the German observer to get in a burst.

The pilot of the land 1½ Strutter suddenly groaned in an agonized breath. The observer busy swinging his Lewis on the German ship couldn’t hear the startled cry from the front pit. The ship lurched and nearly threw the amazed gunner from his cockpit. He turned his head. “What the—” he shouted and was suddenly silent. The pilot was bent over the instrument panel. With no dual controls the ship seemed doomed. There was only one thing to do.

“Hold Her Steady!”

The observer shouted “Hold her steady!” He swung out of his pit and muscled slowly up over the turtleback and grabbed a center section strut as the ship shuddered from the enemy’s fire. It rocked and swayed dangerously. Holding onto the fuselage the observer got on the left wing and inched his way to his comrade’s side. German bullets had put both the plucky pilot’s arms out of commission. He was trying to fly the plane with his legs and feet alone. His face was chalk-like, his teeth clamped tight in pain. The observer grabbed the stick and pulled up the nose. Then, as the Rumplers came in for the kill, their guns churning a drizzle of slugs into the Allied ship, he shoved the slick against the firewall. The Sop nosed over.

As the gap widened between the diving Sop and the surprised German pilots, the British anti-aircraft gunners on the ground below who had been waiting for just such a break smacked upward a curtain of screaming steel. The Rumplers’ pilots quickly turned back across their own lines.

The 1½ Strutter pulled drunkenly out 
of her dive, wobbled and did a bellyflop 
in an abandoned potato patch behind the 
lines. It took two to land her, a pilot and 
a backseat driver who said little but did
much.

Sky Fighters, January 1936 by Eugene M. Frandzen
(The Ships on The Cover Page)

“HAW-W-W-W-W!” That sound can only mean one thing—it’s time to ring out the old year and ring in the new with that Bachelor of Artifice, Knight of Calamity and an alumnus of Doctor Merlin’s Camelot College for Conjurors—Phineas Pinkham.

According to Hoyle, the old authority on the pasteboards of ruination, there should only be one joker in a deck. But the fickle femme known as Fate does not deal her cards according to Mr. Hoyle. She sent the Rittmeister Gottfried von Bull over to Bar-Le-Duc one early morning in June 1918 with a particularly insulting missive for Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham. Phineas, Public Joker Number One, sat in front of his hut, after a blistering early patrol, striving to teach a certain canine named Rollo to say its prayers. In view of Rollo’s apparent age it was fitting that the Boonetown Spad pusher should prepare the subject for dog heaven. Add one Monk Flannigan—the Boonetown miracle man’s nemesis—to the mix and you’re holding a hand with little chance of winning. No holds are barred in another rollicking Phineas Pinkham Roar! From the July 1933 Flying Aces, it’s “Scratch-as-Scratch-Can!”

A flank movement by Flanagan started it. Then von Bull horned in. But Phineas knew that a man’s best friend is his pooch. And though it isn’t news when a dog bites a man, it certainly was when Napoleon, Josephine, Danton, and Dubarry sunk their incisors in poor Rollo.

• Download “Scratch-as-Scratch-Can” (July 1936, Flying Aces)

AMIDST all the great pulp thrills and features in Sky Fighters, they ran a true story feature collected by Ace Williams wherein famous War Aces would tell actual true accounts of thrilling moments in their fighting lives! This time we have Austrian flyer—Captain Linke Crawford!

Captain Crawford was one of the most brilliant and scintillating of all the flying aces. Most everyone knows that Captains Brumoninski and Linke were the ranking Austrian flyers and carried on a duel for top honors all through the war with first one, then the other, on top. But what most informed people do not know, is that Captain Crawford and Captain Linke were one and the same person! Son of an English father and an Austrian mother, Linke Crawford was born and raised in gay Vienna. When he began to win fame as a fighting pilot he had dropped the Crawford part of his name and was known as Captain Linke. although he was listed on the army rolls as Captain Crawford. He fell victim finally under the guns of Colonel Barker, famous Canadian ace. Up to that time, however, he had scored 27 victories and won all the awards possible from his country. The story below is taken from the archives of the Austrian Imperial Air Corps in Vienna.

BRINGING THEM DOWN ALIVE

by Captain Linke Crawford • Sky Fighters, July 1936

OUR Intelligence had given us word that a crack British squadron under command of one of the most famous Canadian aces was being sent overland to Italy to operate against the Austrian Imperial Air Corps.

“Very well,” I said to the high staff officer who so informed me. “I shall watch for them and try for the initial victory. It might take some of the stiffness out of their British necks to see one of their ace pilots get it in the neck the first crack out of the box.”

The Chance Soon Comes

My chance came very soon afterwards. While on patrol with my staffel we encountered the British formation flying over a narrow defile in the mountains. They were just under a bank of overhanging clouds. I sized up the situation immediately. One enemy flyer was straggling somewhat, slightly beneath and behind the others. Before their squadron leader had caught sight of me I had dived from the sun and cut off the straggler from his mates. My first burst was wide of the mark, but I zoomed up again quickly, Immelmanned, and went at him again, both guns blazing.

The enemy pilot turned and dived to get away from my fire. I laughed. I knew that narrow defile, every twist and turn of it. My quarry had dived right into it. I followed behind him, keeping just on top. My mates up above engaged with the rest or the enemy formation. I kept herding and pressing my quarry down.

Forced Landing

When he was down to 100 meters I knew I had him. Steep mountains hemmed him in on three sides. I guarded the only exit. The Britisher decided to run for it. I held steady and pressed my triggers. The fusillade of machine-gun bullets poured into his nose. I saw debris slash off and whip back in his slipstream. He banked. His motor stopped. Down he went to a forced landing.

I set down behind him and stalked over to capture pilot and machine intact. The poor fellow looked scared, then I noted he was just a boy. “Well, I guess you got me, old chappie,” he said and smiled wanly, hopelessly. Holding both hands in the air he stepped down on the ground and came toward me. The next thing I knew his machine burst out in flames. The youngster had completely disarmed me with his sickly smile and presuming salutation. I cursed myself for being tricked by him.

But first blood was ours. The initial victory was mine. I made up my mind then to tackle the British leader next time and make up for my dereliction in allowing the youngster to fire his plane.

(Editor’s note: He did—but came out second best. Barker shot him down in flames two days after this initial victory.)

Eugene M. Frandzen painted the covers of The Lone Eagle from its first issue in September 1933 until the June 1937 issue when Rudolph Belarski took over with the August issue of that year. At the start of the run, Frandzen painted covers of general air action much like his Sky Fighters covers. Here, for the April 1934 cover, Frandzen has a Salmson 2-A 2 in a backseat battle with a Hannover!

The Story of the Cover

THE planes pictured on this month’s cover are the Salmson 2-A 2 and the Hannover (or Hannoveraner). The Salmson was manufactured by the French firm Societe des Moteurs Salmson. It was one of the most reliable observation ships used during the war by the Allies. It was flown extensively by the French and the Americans, and the Italians also used it to good advantage. Its power plant was a Salmson Z9 radial motor developing about 1S00 r.p.ms.

The Hannover was used extensively by the Germans and did its stuff in a reliable manner. It wasn’t as fast as the Salmson zipping by on its back and pouring hot slugs through the muzzles of its twin Lewis guns, but this is one fight where there are no odds in favor of the fastest ship.

How come? Well, this is a back seat battle. Both pilots, the Heinie and the gentleman flipping the rudder and ailerons on the Salmson have run out of ammunition. Therefore it isn’t a matter of getting on the opponent’s tail. It is an even break for the back gunners unless one happens to be the prize trap-shooter of his home town.

At the start of the fight it looked like curtains for the Hannover when the faster Salmson hopped it and another Hannover which can be seen far in the background swirling crazily, a flaming coffin for its two occupants, straight for the hills far below. When both pilots ran out of ammunition the German waved his hand at his foes and kicked his plane around toward home. As far as he was concerned the battle was over and no hard feelings.

The Fight Goes On

But not to be done out of a kill the Salmson pilot tailed the German, being careful to keep out of range of the Parabellum gun in the rear pit of the German ship. Then suddenly the cylinders in the Salmson throbbed, pounded flaming exhaust through nine tubes into the collector ring on the nose of the ship; a streak of flame spurted out of the exhaust stack and the Allied ship dove underneath the German.
Up flipped the two Lewis guns, gloved fingers pressed the triggers. A ragged line of bullet holes appeared just back of the observer in the German ship. The belly fabric was in a shaved part of a split second perforated all the way back to the tail.

The Hannover whipped around—no more hand waving, no more thoughts of running for home. There was only one chance to get out of a difficult situation and that was to stage a back seat fight.

In Opposite Directions

The Salmson pilot kept herding the German toward the Allied lines as much as he could without giving his opponents any chance for a sure shot. Time and again the two planes whipped past each other going in opposite directions. Gun muzzles blasted a few bullets wildly at fleeting shadows of the other ship. A thousand to one chance of doing any damage this way for the combined speed of the planes was over two hundred miles per hour. That is the reason there were so few casualties in the early years of the war when the boys blasted away at each other with shot guns and rifles over the cockpit edges.

And then when there was only a few more rounds of ammunition in his pancake drums the Salmson pilot flipped his ship over on its back and barged straight at the Hannover which dipped quickly underneath. That is the point illustrated on the cover. It is the last blazing exchange of shots between a couple of brave back seat gunners who will be mighty thankful when their respective pilots turn the noses of their ships toward home—and keep them there.

The Lone Eagle, April 1934 by Eugene M. Frandzen
(The Story of The Cover Page)

THIS week we 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.

C Flight’s Ace, Tod Bonder, is heading in for the kill on a German plane when one of the Boche’s own countrymen shoot him down right in front of his eyes. Going down to check the wrecked Fokker on the ground, Tod finds that it was probably the unfortunate pilot’s first patrol. He brings back the pilot’s effects including a good luck tailsman we wore around his neck and his woven blue flight helmet. However, it seems that anyone who wares the blue helmet also meets with unfortunate circumstances. It’s not until Tod himself wares the helmet that he realizes the truth of “The Haunted Helmet!” From The October 1933 issue of War Birds—

Death Handed Her Calling Card to Every Man Who Wore That Hun Helmet—Then Came the Day When Shrieking Spandau Steel Told the Secret!

• Download “The Haunted Helmet” (October 1933, 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 April 1934 installment, from the pages of Sky Fighters, features Major Raoul Lufbery, Lt. von Eschwege, and Paul Lukas!

Next time in “Famous Sky Fighters,” Terry Gilkison features Capt. Elliott White Springs, Major Edward Mannock and the three flying McCudden brothers! Don’t miss it!

Eugene M. Frandzen painted the covers of Sky Fighters from its first issue in 1932 until he moved on from the pulps in 1939. At this point in the run, the covers were about the planes featured on the cover more than the story depicted. For the December 1935 cover, Mr. Frandzen features the Italian S.V.A. bringing loaves of bread to the troops high in the mountain passes!

The Ships on the Cover

BREAD! The mainstay of mankind. And when the army is the mainstay of nations, bread for the army ranks higher than Roman Emperors.

Who said an army fights on its stomach? Someone who did plenty of fighting in the old days and knew his armies. Of what importance were guns, bombs, and shells piled up ready for combat when the human bodies to man these weapons of war have no fuel to stoke the human engine!

The chuck wagon was greeted by loud cheers when it put in its appearance in “any man’s army.” Runners with food supplies strapped to their backs dodged bullets through a maze of communication trenches to get to the front line doughboys. Dogs pulling small carts of food got through to scattered outposts.

The Alpine Heights

Italy has a wonderful northern barrier which nature has seemingly bestowed upon that sunny boot projecting into the Mediterranean. When Italy declared war on the Austrian Empire in May, 1915, she looked hopefully at those lofty Alpine heights to keep her enemy in check.

The Italian advance of early days was halted. The Austrian counter-attack regained their positions but in 1917 when Italy finally declared war on Germany also, the Italians resumed their offensive and captured fourteen fortified mountains.

It is a different problem to fight on mountain sides than on the fields of the lowlands. The ordinary labor of warfare is made a hundredfold more difficult. Dragging heavy guns up rocky mountain sides by sheer nerve-racking will power—pulling shells on sleds over icy passes—stringing communication lines from crag to crag, where one well-placed shell would damage the patient work of days of laying the wires.

The contact, broken in some out of the way pass, impossible to mend without disastrous delay. All these had to be done on the ground. The only savior of these lonely mountain outposts was the new weapon of the world war—the airplane.

Italy, from poor beginnings, progressed Steadily forward in the aviation branch of her service despite her ground army’s advances or retreats. Planes could fly from their bases on flat ground to the besieged mountain country to drop messages keeping the army in touch with headquarters no matter how many communication lines on the ground were destroyed.

Flying high over such a wide expanse of territory they observed the enemy positions, often saving their own forces from being bottled up by enemy flanking movements.

But as important as any message to the morale of these men high in snow-covered fastnesses was the sight which is shown on the cover picture. Planes bringing the white-clad figures on the mountain side that which they could obtain by no other means—Bread! Big round, crispy loaves of the life-giving food.

The pass through which the guns and ammunition have been hauled was later completely buried under an avalanche, tons of snow and rock blocked the narrow road.

When Men Hunger

Days, weeks, months might elapse before that impassable barrier could be surmounted to transport food to the men cut off from their fellows. But four planes received their orders and cargo. They were in sight of the desperate little group in a few hours time. Sleek S.V.A.’s that could climb high above the loftiest peaks, their powerful Ansaldo engines overcoming the barrier that nature had created against the Italians as well as in their favor.

Shouts of “Bravo” from the snow. Shouts that would warm the heart of an opera star at the Milan Opera House. These cheers were for something better than music when men are hungry. They were for contents of the rope bags falling from the planes, the golden brown loaves of bread.

Sky Fighters, Deecmber 1935 by Eugene M. Frandzen
(The Ships on The Cover Page)

THIS week we have another great story from the pen of Ralph Oppenheim. Best known in these parts for The Three Mosquitoes, he wrote many other stories of the air and several ripping detective yarns. Here Mr. Oppenheim gives us a story of Lieutenant Steve Bentley who was a race car driver before the war like the great Rickenbacker. But unlike Rickenbacker, Lt. Bentley has a problem with take-off. So used to driving race cars, he couldn’t let go of his instincts—he would hold the stick back, keep the tail down, making the speeding plane hug the earth. He could never get it through his head that a Spad didn’t have to go ninety miles an hour to take off, that flying speed was no more than seventy. Once in the air he was as good as they come.

When Bentley finds out his friend has gone out on a suicide mission, he jumps in his plane and goes after him. Here, his proclivity to drive a plane like a race car comes in handy for getting through the German ground defenses and hopefully saving the day! From the December 1933 issue of Sky Fighters it’s “Earthbound Ace!”

An Auto Racer Takes to the Sky and Finds That He Has a Lot to Learn—But . . . .

• Download “Earthbound Ace” (December 1933, Sky Fighters)

MAY may have ended, but we have one last burst of the genius that is C.B. Mayshark! We have the final installment of C.B. Mayshark’s “How The Aces Went West!” It was an informative feature that spotlighted how famous Aces died. For the December 1935 issue of Sky Birds, Mayshark looks at how Major Edward Mannock “Went West!”

“How The Aces Went West: Major Edward Mannock
by C.B. Mayshark (Sky Birds, December 1935)

THIS week we have another exciting air adventure with Rusty Wade from the pen of Frank Richardson Pierce. Pierce is probably best remembered for his prolific career in the Western Pulps. Writing under his own name as well as two pen names—Erle Stanly Pierce and Seth Ranger—Pierce’s career spanned fifty years and produced over 1,500 short stories, with over a thousand of these appearing in the pages of Argosy and the Saturday Evening Post.

This time around, Rusty is faced with a choice—fly to Seattle to help his good friend Bid McCord win a government contract to develop long lasting airplane motors, or head off into the Alaskan wilds to save his nemesis, Hawk Breed, who’s had a bad accident and needs prompt medical assistance. From the pages of the November 1929 Air Trails, it’s Frank Richardson Pierce’s “The Boomerang Pilot!”

With disaster staring him in the face, “Rusty” Wade hurls defiance at the high gods of the air.

• Download “The Boomerang Pilot” (November 1929, Air Trails)

THIS May we’re celebrating the genius that is C.B. Mayshark! Along with his cover duties for Sky Birds and Flying Aces in the mid-thirties, Mayshark also contributed some interior illustrations including a series he started in the April issue of Sky Birds that would run until the final issue that December—How The Aces Went West! It was an informative feature that spotlighted how famous Aces died. For the September 1935 issue of Sky Birds, Mayshark looks at how Lieutenant Frank Luke “Went West!”

“How The Aces Went West: Lieutenant Frank Luke
by C.B. Mayshark (Sky Birds, September 1935)