I could find a lot more information about Jimmie Allen in his hometown paper, the Medford Mail Tribune in Medford, Oregon. They’d seemed to have a write up in the paper any time he sold a story. (see below for notice of “The Flying Fool”) And there was a big write-up about Jimmie in the feature column “Oregon Folks” in the big city paper the Oregon Journal in 1932. Here’s what he said:

    “I was born near Medford on March 20. 1906.” said Mr. Allen. “I attended grammar school at Medford for three years and attended high school for four years, after which I put In a fifth year in high school to do a little extra work. Though my name is Albert C. Allen, I have always been called Jim. My friends consider me a crank along the lines of conversation, for I hate to see waste of any sort and it absolutely hurts me to see the needless destruction of our natural resources, for man, in spite of all hl- ingenuity, cannot replace nature. My father. Albert Cooper Allen, is the author of a number of books and of numerous stories. My father was born In Nashville, Tenn in 1875, served in the Spanish-American war and came to Oregon in the spring of 1904. Like my father. I enjoy writing. I write under the name of James Albert Allen. You may have noticed some of my short stories in the national magazines. Right now and for as long as I can remember, my hobby has been gasoline engines. I not only enjoy driving a car. but I like to care for one. I have a yen for motorboats, but I lack the wherewithal to acquire a racing motorboat. I enjoy the thrill of hearing the roar of a powerful engine, but my Interest in airplanes is confined to their motive power. I am having too much fun on the ground to go up into the air Just yet. For years I played basketball in the high school. The out-of-door life is not a hobby with me—it’s my life and my religion. About the first regular Job I ever held down was that of boatman at the Rocky Point resort in Klamath county. I was paid $35 a month and tips.

    “On July 10. 1929. I was married to Eva Mae Jester at Harriman Lodge, on Klamath lake. We have named our son Albert C. Allen 111.”

Jimmie’s first—and most likely only—aviation story is “The Flying Fool” from the June 1929 Sky Birds! It features Casey Mack, mail pilot for Benning Pacific Airways. Mack is more familiarly known as “Bugs” because he was supposed to take apparently insane chances when it came to flying. But the flying fraternity misjudged him. It dubbed him Bugs because it misunderstood him and it construed his ability as luck. Mack switches routes with another pilot who has the mountain route when he complains about how treacherous it is in the bad weather.

When an ace puts his crate through the reckless, daredevil stunts that Lucky Bugs Mack did, and always comes out O.K., he’s got to have something more than luck on his side. This one did!

• Download “The Flying Fool” (June 1929, Sky Birds)

The newspaper reading citizens of Medford, Oregon are notified of Jimmie’s latest published story page 3 of the June 9th, 1929 edition of the Medford Mail Tribune:

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:

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)

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 top executives of a gold mine are trying to freeze out their own shareholders by looting their own mine so they don’t have to pay out dividends and then passing the gold off as coming from their unproductive and shareholder-free holdings. And although they’ve hired the villainous Hawk Breed to do the dirty work, when Rusty Wade gets involved, you know he’ll get to the bottom of it—which is right at the top!

From the pages of the May 1929 Air Trails, it’s our old pal Rusty Wade in Frank Richardson Pierce’s “Talons of the Hawk!”

Merciless and deadly was the air highwayman who held up his victims on the lonely Northern trails!

• Download “Talons of the Hawk” (May 1929, Air Trails)

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.

You’d think that once Tip Top News decided to acquire the Weekly News Reel, there wouldn’t be any more shenanigans when Nick and Art set out to get footage of the latest calamities—but you’d be wrong! Turns out, when you move up the ladder of success, there’s just a bigger more unscrupulous outfit making sure you don’t succeed. Maybe you expect that from the other outfit, but not from one of your own. Why that would be “Cloud Treason!”

From the February 1929 Wings, it’s Nick Royce in Frederick C. Davis’ “Cloud Treason!”

Nick Royce, sky-eatin’ newsreel pilot, is back again! And in tumbling skies he rides alone to bring traitor ships to showdown!

• Download “Cloud Treason” (February 1929, Wings)

Andy Hart in his D.H.6 turns hand-springs across the sky in this battle-scarred, fast-moving, quick-shooting novelette of air thrills above the Fields of Flanders. This story is based on actual happenings of the Great War so the location has been disguised as Dieppe.

• Download “Devils of Dieppe” (January 1929, Flying Aces)

William’s “Devils of Dieppe” caused a stir with one reader which eventually led to the whole deal being revealed. “Devils of Dieppe” was published in the January 1929 issue of Flying Aces. A concerned reader had his letter published in the April 1929 issue’s Tailspins column.

“Ace’s” response followed Al’s Letter.

However, three months later in the July issue, the truth comes out in Ace William’s actual response to Al Thomas’ letter.

The roar of propellers—the whistling of wind through the wires—the insane chatter of guns—furious breath-taking battle in the clouds! Fighting in the sky-lanes over the scarred fields of Flanders was a thrill to Hellbird—but Hellbird was grounded for disobeying orders! Could any ace with that moniker stay out of a fight?

• Download “Hell Birds” (August 1929, Flying Aces)

Here, Caffrey tells a simple and short tale of a flight leader, low on gas, trying to bring his green recruits, also low on gas, home without running into any enemy planes. From the February 1929 Flying Aces, it’s Andrew A. Caffrey’s “The Shadow of Death!”

Lost in the fog on their first flight over enemy lines, two Yank flyers thought to be unreliable, prove what manner of men they are in the Shadow of Flying Death!

• Download “The Shadow of Death” (February 1929, Flying Aces)

Buck Kent and Lou Parrish arrive at the Crissville Field for an air show only to find another couple of pilots had arrived earlier claiming they were Buck Kent and his pal Lou Parrish! In an effort to get to the bottom of the whole mystery, Buck and his pal say they’re someone else to give the faux Buck and Lou some “Sky Room” in order to see what they’re after. From the September 1929 Air Trails, it’s Raoul Whitfield’s Buck Kent in “Sky Room!”

They crowded “Buck” Kent—and learned what it was to dare the anger of a master pilot!

• Download “Sky Room” (September 1929, Air Trails)