We’ll be premiering our two new books for 2026 at PulpFest as we usually do. And this year we have two more series volumes you can pick up for your aviation library!

First up we have a second volume of the further exploits of that madcap crew of a Handley Page bomber:

The Casket Crew Comes Back
by ARCH WHITEHOUSE

The Casket Crew’s unspoken code was a simple one: “One for all, and all for one!” Their loyalty was forged in a blazing, withering hell of bullets and steel and dynamite. It was fused and toughened in the cold wind of Death that breathed whenever they flew. On the ground their viewpoints were many-sided and conflicting; but when old No.7 hoiked her trucks from the uneven fi eld of the Independent Air Force at Cassel, the six men that rode along were merged into a perfect, frictionless unit of destruction known as The Casket Crew!

Arch Whitehouse ruled the pages of the air war pulps in the 1930’s. He drew upon his own experiences as a tail-gunner in the Royal Air Force to bring his colorful characters to life. The Casket Crew fl ew their Handley Page bomber through adventures in several magazines—Aces, Wings, War Birds and then back to Wings to fight WWII. This volume collects five more of their WWI adventures from the pages of Aces and Wings: Tracer Target (10/32), and Ambassadors from Hell (12/32); and three from Wings Magazine: The Casket Crew Comes Back (4/34), The Casket Crew Fights Back (7/34), and Highway to Hell (9/34). That’s 362 pages of hellbent for leather excitement for only $17!

That’s a great read!

Paired with this is the fourth and final volume of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Mad Marines—The Devildog Squadron—in five more Weird World War stories!

Devildog Squadron: Coils of the Cobra
by DONALD E. KEYHOE

“Cyclone Bill” Garrity and his Mad Marines match their planes—and their wills—against battalions of Boche baddies in the skies of Weird World War I, and the missions have never been madder: A German squadron that can seemingly be in two places at once; A revenge plot four years in the making; A vengeance-seeking villain in a gold mask that marks his victims with the sign of a cobra; Kamikaze falcons and the mystery of encoded hula-girl tatoos; An invisible wall around Paris that reaches into the sky; And 100-foot-long shells that can destroy entire aerodromes in one deadly shot. As the enemies’ coils draw tighter the action gets hotter for the 28th Pursuit Squadron in five thrilling adventures from the pen of Donald Keyoe, later author of The Flying Saucers are Real.

This fourth volume includes the final five adventures of those Mad Marines form Sky Birds Magazine: Satan’s Courier (3/35), Falcons of Fury (4/35), Coils of the Cobra (6/35), The Devil’s Dynamo (7/35), and Shells of Satan (9/35)!

Five great stories! It’s a shame there aren’t any more after this.

In addition to these new books, we’ll have all of our other titles on hand as well as our previous convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk, and 2022’s two book set of Steve Fisher’s Sheridan Doome! So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

We hope we see you there!

Here, Whitehouse tells the tale of Air Mechanic Robert Townley who, through the misfortunes of war, works his way from the belly of a great Handley Page dropping bombs to front gunner and eventually to piloting the whole plane when the pilot is killed. From the September 1929 Flying Aces it’s Arch Whitehouse’s “Bombing Eagles!”

Editor’s Note: This gripping story of Handley Page Bombers is the first of its kind ever written. Arch Whitehouse, the author, is an ex-war Ace whom you all know. He holds an enviable fighting record as a flyer overseas from 1914-1920. At present he is our technical editor of SKY BIRDS and Flying Aces, as well as the editor of Plane Dope and Happy Landings, our well known departments of last minute flying news. He has handled all types of fighting planes on hundreds of perilous flights. This is one of the finest stories we have ever published. We hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we have.

• Download “Bombing Eagles” (September/October 1929, Flying Aces)

As an observer, a loyal member of the Eyes of the Army, Teddy was a knockout. His reports were lengthy affairs crammed with accurate data. He knew every German trench from Dixmude to Cambrai. He could take and read aerial photographs like a wizard.

However, Teddy was stricken with the same weakness, that seemed to beset many observers at the front during the dizzy days of 1917 and 1918. In the gunnery schools he had been taught the art of firing at moving targets with the aid of his ring sight and wind vane. The theory and practice, in school, had been religiously digested by our Teddy, but out at the front where excitement plays a big part in the game, he had forgotten all about laying off for direction, speed of machines, angles of approach and all that data.

When an enemy bus appeared in sight, it was Teddy’s idea to point the muzzle of the gun at the black-crossed vulture, pull the trigger and move the muzzzle so that the tracers appeared to be eating their way dead into the enemy cockpit. Thus, Teddy’s tracers were directed at the enemy machines but his armorpiercing and regular ammunition was perhaps being fired yards ahead or behind and recklessly wasted. Unless the aerial target was within a few yards of the Lewis gun muzzle, such firing and aiming was useless.

An amazing, hair-raising story of a spectacular air battle and an observer who was bitten by a most peculiar bug. It brought him nothing but trouble until, in the thick of the fight something happened that wasn’t on the program—

• Download “Hunted Vultures” (March 1929, Sky Birds)

We’re taking a break from Donald Keyhoe whose stories we’ve been reprinting religiously practically every year since 2011—for just this year to start up two new series character collections. Have no fear, Keyhoe’s Devildog Squadron will return next year.

If you were here at Christmas, then you’re familiar with Arch Whitehouse’s Casket Crew. We uploaded the six stories Whitehouse ran in the British version of Air Stories featuring the crew over the holidays. Here we bring you the first volume of their run in Aces magazine.

The Casket Crew
by ARCH WHITEHOUSE

One-Oh-Nine Squadron of the Independent Air Force was the craziest bomber squadron on the Western Front and Handley Page No.11 was the reason why. It was flown by The Casket Crew: Lieutenant Graham Townsend, the mad Englishman, pilot of No.11; Lieutenant Phil Armitage, equally crazy American, the reserve pilot and bombing officer; Corporal Andy McGregor, wearing his Black Watch kilts, aerial gunner; with Sergeant Michael Ryan, silent fighting Irishman on the toggle board and Corporal Harry Marks, dizzy Australian, manning the rear gun-turret. There was enough insanity scrawled across the log book of No.11 to make the wildest fiction seem tame in comparison!

The extraordinarily prolific Arch Whitehouse drew upon his own experiences as a tail-gunner in the Royal Air Force to bring to life the colorful aces that flew through his stories. His characters for Flying Aces and Sky Birds were extremely popular with readers of the 1930’s and ’40s. The Casket Crew was his only series outside those magazines, running in the pages of Aces and Wings. This exciting collection features five crazy exploits from Aces Magazine: Lost Wings (8/31), Terror Turret (2/32), Handley Hate (5/32), The Flying Fortress (6/32), and Thunder Patrol (9/32).

Paired with this is the first volume of Alexis Rossoff’s Hell-Cat Squadron! We’ve posted a couple Hell-Cat stories from War Birds, but the series was rebooted when it moved to Flying Aces so that seemed like a good place to start.

The Hell-Cat Squadron: Cyclops of the Skies
by ALEXIS ROSSOFF

The order came direct from G.H.Q.: “Send one undesirable pilot of your organization to Alons. Arrange pilot’s departure from your drome so that he will reach destination not earlier than second hour nor later than third hour after noon, twenty-eighth day this month.” Never was an order complied with more promptly as thirty cursing, rebelious undesirables found themselves thrown together in the doomed, scorched region known by all as Hell’s Half Acre. There, under the command of “Iron” Mike Hilton, himself ostrasized for questioning his superiors, they became the Hell-Cats!

Siberian-born, Russian war veteran Alexis Rossoff started writing air and war fiction stories in the late 1920’s as his eyesight slowly faded away. The adventures in this volume are from 1931 to 1932. After a successful operation to restore his vision in the mid thirties, Rossoff, a self-professed boxing nut, switched from primarily writing air war fiction to writing sports stories. This action-packed tome compiles six thrilling adventures from the pages of Flying Aces Magazine: Hell-Cat Harvest (1/31), The Old Man’s Whiskers (2/31), The Hell-Cat’s Kittens (3/31), The Cyclops of the Skies (6/31), Rusty Rides the Thunderbolt (12/31), and The Black Moth (1/32).

In addition to these new books, we’ll have all of our other titles on hand as well as our previous convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk, and 2022’s two book set of Steve Fisher’s Sheridan Doome! So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

We hope we see you there!

Hawker, Ball, Rhys-Davids, McCudden, Mannock—and now Mackenzie—lost. The news of Mackenzie’s disastrous loss spred quickly—youthful Major Mackenzie, the colorful British ace of Scottish ancestry, had captured the imagination of every soldier in the British trenches. They dubbed him “The Mad Major” because of his amazingly daring exploits in “ground strafing” German trenches. Lost.

Enter the Coffin Crew! Somehow The Coffin Crew turns their disastrous landing behind enemy lines to their benefit when Andy McGregor’s curiosity is peaked as the Crew try to head back across the lines unmolested.

From the pages of the January 1938 number of the British Air Stories, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s final Coffin Crew tale—”Traitor’s Tune!”

It was a Strange Clue that First Linked a Lonely Graveyard behind the Enemy’s Lines with the Mysterious Disappearance of Britain’s Greatest Air Fighters, and Led that Crazy Band of Night Bombers, the Coffin Crew, upon the Most Desperate Adventure of their Madcap Fighting Career!

• Download “Traitor’s Tune” (January 1938, Air Stories)

When it was all over, the members of the Coffin Crew realized that Corporal Andy McGregor had had good reason for his actions, and of the three things that happened any one might have provided the clue to his strange behavior. First, there was a letter postmarked Monymusk which Lieutenant Townsend remembered was a small town near Aberdeen. Secondly, Andy had shown unusual interest in an American regiment that was heading for the front line and the special interest Andy had taken in the arrival of a new officer, an American Air Corps captain. But the Coffin Crew did not remember these trifling events when Andy went “barmy”!

From the pages of the March 1937 number of the British Air Stories, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew in “Tartan Flight!”

Into the Very Shadow of Death Flew the Coffin Crew, the Craziest Band of Warriors in the Independent Air Force, to Discover the Secret of that Sinister Mound of the Dead, Hill 60, and its Strange Effect upon Corporal Andy McGregor, Aerial Gunner!

• Download “Tartan Flight” (March 1937, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by Friday for one last mad cap romp through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!

To Sergeant Ryan there was one square mile of enemy territory that must remain inviolate—yet Fate made it the objective of the most daring raid of that crazy band of bombers, the Coffin Crew! From the pages of the July 1936 issue of the British Air Stories magazine, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s “Bomber’s Luck!”

A Raid, whatever its Objective, was All Part of the Game to that Crazy Band of Bombers, the Coffin Crew of the Independent Air Force—until Fate Decreed that the Hand of Sergeant Ryan should be the One to Loose Death and Destruction upon the One Square Mile of Enemy Territory that, to Him, Must Ever Remain Inviolate!

• Download “Bomber’s Luck” (July 1936, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by next week for another mad cap romp, or two, through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!

The Crew were through! Armitage had been reassigned to a Camel unit that was to counter whatever it was that was downing troopships in the channel and leaving no one alive on board. But when even Armitage goes missing—that’s all the Crew can take. Thankfully Armitage is not dead, he’s merely put his foot in the middle of the whole diabolical mystery! From the pages of the August 1935 number of the British Air Stories, Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew and the “Black Camels!”

A Black Plague stalked the Channel turning Troopships into Transports of the Dead. And, in France, five Black Camels were Detailed for a Secret Mission that was Destined to give that Crazy Band of Warriors, the Coffin Crew, the Adventure of their Lives!

• Download “Black Camels” (August 1935, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by next week for another mad cap romp through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!

Arch Whitehouse: An Early Bird Looks Back

The Record Magazine, Hackensack, New Jersey • 17 April 1965, p38-39

MONTVALE’S MAGNOLIA AVENUE is a rural, winding road, and the modest yellow house at No.63 looks like many other suburban homes.

So it’s not surprising that when Arch Whitehouse, the owner, steps into the brisk air for an afternoon constitutional that his neighbors may look up and say:

“Well, there goes that nice Mr. Whitehouse out for his afternoon walk. Retired gentleman, I guess. It’s nice that he can still get around so well.

When the mailman leaves a 2-foot pile of books on the Whitehouse doorstep, a neighbor may shake his head and silently question, “I wonder if he reads all those books?”

Possibly a few people in Montvale know the answer to the Whitehouse mystery, but the man himself is quite certain that the majority of those who have made note of his presence are content with the thought that he’s no more than a retired businessman.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Though now in his 70th year, Arch Whitehouse is busier than many men half his age. In the past 10 years he has written 25 books. Before that, he authored more than a thousand short stories and articles.

A flier with the British Royal Flying Corps in World War I, Whitehouse ranks today as probably the leading aviation writer in the world. He is regarded as THE expert on World War I flying.

But his writing has run the gamut of the military field.

He went on a North Atlantic cruise aboard the atomic submarine Skipjack while writing “Subs and Submariners”.

He made two trips to the Mediterranean with the Sixth Fleet, and made 11 catapult takeoffs from, and arrester-gear landings on aircraft carriers to write “Squadrons of the Sea”.

He inspected every type of tank that has ever been built, and rode in many of the modern tank tests to write “TANK — History of Armored Warfare”.

He flew on practically every type plane available in the U.S. Air Force, including 2-seater jet fighters, to tell the story of the Tactical Air Command. He also went to McMurdo Sound, Antartica, to cover T.A.C. cargo operations at the South Pole.

He went to Puerto Rico with the Navy and Marines to write his recent “Amphibious Operations”.

Some years Whitehouse averages 60,000 miles of flying to get material for his books.

In addition to his technical books, short stories, and articles, Whitehouse has written juvenile and motion-picture scripts. Two of his stories — “Spitfire Squadron” and “‘H’ For Arry” were sold to the movies. He has illustrated some of his own volumes, also.

Among Whitehouse’s recent books — he contracts for several at a time — is “The Fledgling,” an autobiography.

Whitehouse was born in England in 1895. He was brought to the United States when he was 9 years old. He attended grade schools in Newark and Livingston. He was taken out of school, however, and worked in a Newark bookshop, a shoe factory, and in the Edison Laboratory before the outbreak of World War I.

In 1914, he worked his way to England on a cattleboat and enlisted in the British army. After a spell in the infantry, be requested and received a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps, and served as an aerial gunner with No. 22 squadron from March 1917 to Jan. 18, 1918. He then became the pilot of a Sopwith Camel with the home-defense squadron until the Armistice.

During his days as a gunner, he flew more than 1,300 hours over enemy lines. He destroyed 16 enemy planes and six kite balloons, but since he was not the pilot he received no personal credit. His kills were chalked up to his squadron.

During those clays. Whitehouse swapped bullets with many of the German aces, including the best of them all, Baron von Richthofen. The Red Knight, as von Richthofen was to become known, claimed 80 victories. One of these, No.42 to be exact, is disputed by Whitehouse.

In his “Years of the Sky Kings”, Whitehouse writes:

“Let us consider victory No.42, scored on April 13, 1917. In his report, von Richthofen stated that this flight took place at 12:45 P.M. betwen Monchy and Feuchy. The plane, a Vickers 2-seater, was downed behind British lines. In this report, we have at least one example of a Richthofen victory that was no victory at all.

“I was the gunner aboard that 2-seater. It was a F.E.2b, not a Vickers, but the Germans often made this mistake since both planes were almost identical. We were not shot down by Baron von Richthofen.”

Whitehouse went on to explain that his plane, piloted by Captain Bush, was returning from a photography patrol, when attacked by German planes over German lines. The propeller of the British plane was eventually shot away by antiaircraft fire. As the plane dove for a crash landing behind British lines, Whitehouse noted that they were pursued by two German planes, one of them red, and piloted, as he was learn later, by the Baron.

After returning to the United States in October, 1919, Whitehouse found the competition for work rather stiff. He tried his hand at selling rat poison, magazine advertising space, and automobiles. He spent some time in an insurance office.

In 1920 he married Ruth Terhune of Rutherford. Today they have a son and two grandchildren.

In 1922, he applied for a job as sports cartoonist on a Passaic newspaper. He was hired, though he had no prior experience. A year later, he moved to the Elizabeth Daily Journal as sports editor.

When Charles Lindbergh made his solo flight to Paris in 1927, Whitehouse wrote a column about it. A friend who read it suggested he try writing for one of the aviation pulp magazines. He submitted a story, and received a check for $100. The editor was impressed by the authenticity of the story, and hired Whitehouse to check the facts in other stories being submitted.

At the same time, he found a waiting market for his own fiction, and eventually quit the newspaper job to devote his full time to this work.

The start of World War II signaled a new phase in Whitehouse’s career. He became an accredited war correspondent, and served in the North Atlantic and Great Britain. He was also in on the Normandy invasion.

He returned to the States in 1945, and spent 2 years as a film writer before tearing up a 7-year contract, and returning East.

His first book, a juvenile, “The Real Book of Airplanes”, appeared in 1955. He has written juveniles also on General Pershing, Billy Mitchell, and wartime courier pigeons, and has agreed to do a long series of books fictionalizing the exploits of the Lafayette Escadrille.

Five volumes of his aviation short stories have appeared so far. Other recent or forthcoming books are “Adventures in Military Intelligence”, “The Early Birds—Wonders and History of Early Flight”, “Frank Luke—The Arizona Balloon Buster”, and a novel, “Squadron 44”.

Commenting on the continued popularity of World War I books, Arch credits much of it to nostalgia. “You’ll find a similar nostalgia catching up with the veterans of World War II,” he said. “For a few years they just want to forget it all. Then one day there seems to be that urge to recapture the past.”

And when they do, you can be sure Arch Whitehouse will be around to help them.

• Download “Arch Whitehouse: An Early Bird Looks Back” (17 April 1965, The Record Magazine, Hackensack, NJ)

Be sure to drop by Friday for another mad cap romp through hell skies with Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew!

For more than a week old No.11 had been welcoming her new neighbours with T.N.T. and fulminite. For seven days they had been dealing out nightly headaches to Baron Harald von Wusthoff and his Gotha Griffons. Fed up with the nightly barrage and inability to get his Gothas in the air, the Baron engineers the capture of the Crew’s pilot and leader Graham Townsend and subsequent use as a hostage to keep the Coffin Crew at bay.

To the Coffin Crew:
      This should stop you from bombing our field any more. Your pilot will be held as hostage to ensure that fact. He will be staked out on the ground everytime your ’planes come across—so drop your bombs at your own risk, gentlemen. Perhaps now we can contend in the air on terms that are more equal.
                                          (Signed) The Golhas 33rd,
                                          Von Wusthoff, Commanding.

From the pages of the June 1935 number of the British Air Stories, it’s Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Crew in “Hostage of the Gothas!”

When Treachery robbed the Coffin Crew of their Dare-devil Leader, that Crazy Band of Bombers carried their Hate through the Valley of Death into the very Lair of the Gotha Griffons. And in the Air, a Handley clashed with a Gotha in a Duel for which the Forfeit was a Flaming Death!

• Download “Hostage of the Gothas” (June 1935, Air Stories)

Be sure to drop by next week for another mad cap romp through hell skies with the Coffin Crew!