That Frog dentist thought he was pretty funny when he gave Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham laughing gas. Well, as Phineas says, “He who laughs last—laughs last!”

• Download “Nothing But The Tooth” (March 1933, Flying Aces)

Solemnly The Who’s Who of the Kaiser’s Cabinet gathered together and made a momentous decision. Since Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham could not be brought down by force in the air, he must be gotten by tricks on the ground. But we all know tricks were Phineas’ meat––he always had better ones up his sleeve!

From the February 1933 number of Flying Aces! it’s Joe Archibald’s Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham in “Sleuthing Syrup!”

• Download “Sleuthing Syrup” (February 1933, Flying Aces)

You all know Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham—that past master at throwing the bull. But here’s the story of one time when the bull threw Phineas—a bull named Rittmeister von Holstein!

From the January 1933 number of Flying Aces!

• Download “The Bull Flight” (January 1933, Flying Aces)

This week we have Sly MacDonald’s “The Sky Salt” from the March 1933 Flying Ace!

“Sky skimmers”—that was what 1st Class Gunner Weaver of the U.S. Navy called the seaplanes that patrolled the English Channel. But that was before a certain morning when an old freighter met up with a U-boat in the choppy seas off the coast of France.

• Download “The Sky Salt” (March 1933, Flying Aces)

From the December 1933 issue of The Lone Eagle, it’s Terry Gilkison’s The Flying Devil in “The Masked Impersonator!”

Next Time: The Kidnapped Commander!

From the November 1933 issue of The Lone Eagle, it’s Terry Gilkison’s “The Flying Devil!”

Next Time: The Masked Impersonator!

The strip was drawn by Terry Gilkison. Gilkison had achieved some fame by the time the first episode appeared in the September 1933 issue. There were a couple short lived syndicated comic strips—”Home Sweet Home” and “Pinky Dinky”—as well as editorial cartoons syndicated by Autocaster and having his work published in the likes of Life, Judge, and Collier’s Magazine.

Around that same time, Gilkison also started drafting his “Famous Sky Fighters” feature in Sky Fighters; a two page spread illustrating different Aces that rose to fame during the Great War. 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 Publication—there was “Famous Soldiers of Fortune” and later “Adventure Thrills” in Thrilling Adventures and “Famous Crimes” in Thrilling Detective. 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.

Terry Gilkison’s The Flying Devil premiered in the first issue of The Lone Eagle and would run installments in each of the first fifteen issues at which point it abruptly disappeared from the publication. This first adventure introduces us to Buck Barton, a.k.a. The Flying Devil. Barton flys a Spad with a devil on it’s fuselage and wears a flying helmet has been altered with the addition of horns to complete the impression of a flying devil (although the horns would dissapear from his headgear by the fifth adventure). He is presented in this first story as an independent agent working for the allies against the Germans.

From the September 1933 issue of The Lone Eagle, it’s Terry Gilkison’s “The Flying Devil!”

Next Time: Another Buck Barton, Flying Devil Story!

Before he became renown for such classics as The Left Hand of God and Lilies of The Field, Barrett honed his craft across the pages of the pulp magazines—and nowhere more so than in War Birds and it’s companion magazine War Aces where he contributed smashing novels and novelettes, True tales of the Aces of the Great War, encyclopedic articles on the great war planes as well as other factual features. Here at Age of Aces Books he’s best known for his nine Iron Ace stories which ran in Sky Birds in the mid ’30s!

This week we have the fourth and final of our four stories celebrating William E. Barrett’s birthday this month.

His tunic was Bond Street and there was a flair to it that only a tailor with three years of war experience could impart. His breeches were cut wide and were a coral pink. The gloss on his boots could only be attained on a boot costing five pounds—and he carried a swagger stick that was made of cartridge casings, surmounted by a knob that was nothing else but the spark plug out of a crashed German plane.

All in all, the new C.O. was an elegant figure; one to inspire hatred—and a fierce envy in the breast of any pilot. He made the mistake of looking for the hatred and expecting it. He might, if he’d known it, as easily found friendship and liking—

It’s William E. Barrett’s “The C.O.’s Stripes” from the pages of the January 1933 Flying Aces.

There were ribbons on the tunic of that new C.O. that showed he had not felt fear when German lead was singing and death was combing the air—ribbons no coward could have won. Yet now, with nothing in sight below but the pilots of the 19th Pursuit Squadron, their new commander was afraid to land!

• Download “The C.O.’s Stripes” (January 1933, Flying Aces)

Ronald Sexton and his brother, Kenneth, came to the squadron together while we were up near Bar-le-Duc, during the St. Mihiel drive. They had gone to school together, enlisted together, trained side by side and gotten their little gold shoulder bars and wings together. Ronny was a year older, darker, huskier and livelier. Ken was quiet and inclined to be studious. It’s a mystery where Ken got time to do all his reading, because Ronny liked parties, and whenever Ronny went on a binge, Ken went along. They flew together, too. And even when Ronny was shot down and killed, he continued to look after his brother. Kenneth seemed to develop a kind of prescience that the squadron leader found hard to believe and led H.Q. to believe he was a German spy.

Many strange and weird stories have been told about the war. At some of them men have shrugged their shoulders, and lifted a doubting eyebrow. Others, men have believed—because they must. Here is one of the strangest of them all—the story of a squadron, and the blood-chilling Thing that almost drove them mad. It all began one afternoon bach in 1918, when Ronny Sexton crashed at Hill 420, near Exermont, France, and his smoking-hot motor dug him a six-foot grave. A powerful and unusual novel of war skies.

• Download “Patrol of the Dead” (September 1931, Sky Birds)

If you enjoyed this taste of Franklin H. Martin’s writing, you’ll be happy to hear that we’ve collected the five stories Martin had in Aces in the Fall of 1932. We’re calling it Franklin H. Martin’s Aces—the volume includes the Black Hawk of Prussia duology and three other stories!

THIS AD that appeared in the pages of the July 1933 Dare-Devil Aces to promote Ralph Oppenheim’s first foray into the detective fiction genre.

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!