Flying Aces didn’t always have a story behind their covers in the early years. Only one of the three Blakeslee covers had a bit of a write-up on it—the August issue—which he have previously posted here. It’s just great to see all three covers together!

June 1930

July 1930

August 1930

From the January 1951 issue of Pecos Kid Western it’s “The Roaring Towns: Weaverville, California!”

THE ROARING TOWNS: Weaverville, California
by Frederick Blakeslee and Jhan Robbins (Pecos Kid Western, January 1951)

From the September 1950 issue of Pecos Kid Western it’s “The Roaring Towns: Soya, Texas!”

THE ROARING TOWNS: Soya, Texas
by Frederick Blakeslee and Jhan Robbins (Pecos Kid Western, September 1950)

Similar to his “Adventures Into The Unknown” feature that ran in several mystery magazines, “The Roaring Towns” was a two page feature focusing on a different Wild West frontier town each time. Blakeslee teamed with writer Jhan Robbins for the “The Roaring Towns.” Robbins was a Brooklyn-born writer who became an editor for pulp magazines like Big Book Western and Dime Mystery after WWII. With his wife June Stumpe he became a widely known for writing articles—one being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize—and later biographies.

Pecos Kid Western only ran for five issues, and, sadly, “The Roaring Towns” for only the first three of those. The first installment centers on boomtown of Jackson, Nevada which sprung up in 1871 with the discovery of silver. Over the next year, forty thousand prospectors mined more than five million dollars of silver out of dem thar hills.

THE ROARING TOWNS: Jackson, Nevada
by Frederick Blakeslee and Jhan Robbins (Pecos Kid Western, July 1950)

The Story Behind the Cover

BRITISH against German—S.E.5 against Fokker—that’s the struggle depicted in this month’s cover. The S.E.5 has taken a long dive and is raking the Fokker from wing tip to cockpit. In this particular bit of action, the German was wounded in the legs, and with great difficulty escaped to his own lines.

Planes of the S.E.5 type appeared in France during the winter of 1917-1918. The German Fokker D7 was the only ship at the Front superior to the S.E.5—and our cover shows that the Fokker did not always win!

“S.E.5 vs Fokker D7″
Flying Aces, August 1930 by Frederick Blakeslee

The image in question is the one Mr. Blakeslee did for “The Sixgun Buzzard,” the Smoke Wade story from the April 1933 issue of Battle Birds (as well as the lead story in our third volume of The Adventures of Smoke Wade)

As you can see, the printed version has a lot of plate edges on it outlining areas in an unseemly manor. Although the original is much cleaner in this regard, it has unfortunately suffered some damage at some point.

The Sixgun Buzzard by Frederick Blakeslee, Conte crayon, ink, and pen on paper.
16″ x 10½”

Like many in the late 20’s and early 30’s, Robert O’Neil was fascinated with aviation and as such, a large part of both volumes of his scrapbooks is taken up with a cataloging of the many different types of planes.

Another great feature from the pulps Robert chose to include in his scrapbooks were Frederick Blakeslee’s 3 plan views of planes that he rendered for Battle Aces.

Rather than giving each its own page, Robert chose to glue one down along the top edge and then slot a few others beneath it, loose on the page. He had the first four on the first page, three on the second and just two on the third, although he appears to have gotten the September issue as well.

German Fokker D-7 Dec ‘32	British S.E.5-A Jan ‘33	Pfalz Scout type DXII Feb ‘33
Bristol Fighter type F2B Mar ‘33	German Friedrichshafen Bomber Apr ‘33	Sopwith “Snipe” May ‘33
Halberstadt C4 Jun ‘33	Westland Wagtail Jul ‘33	Halberstadt C2 Aug ‘33

Like many in the late 20’s and early 30’s, Robert O’Neil was fascinated with aviation and as such, a large part of both volumes of his scrapbooks is taken up with a cataloging of the many different types of planes. In addition to Flying Aces’ “War Planes Album” and Sky Birds’ “Model Planes of All Nations”, Robert also featured Frederick Blakeslee’s magnificent Battle Aces covers.

The second scrapbook which features the March 1932 Battle Aces cover as it’s cover, starts off with a collection of Blakeslee’s covers. each speed features a full fresh-off-the-newsstand cover and the story behind the cover lovingly typed on the facing page. I don’t know why he didn’t just clip out the story page from the issue instead, although he did clip out Blakeslee’s pen and ink rendering of the featured cover plane on several pages of those images collaged together.

He does not have all the Blakeslee Battle Aces covers, but he does have a majority of them.

He included the picture of O.B. Myers with the write-up for the November 1931 cover which tells how O.B. got his D.S.C.

Similarly, he includes Wilbert Wallace White’s picture with Blakeslee’s cover about White. (January 1932)

Covers he includes are:

Jan ‘32	Feb ‘32	Mar ‘32
Apr ‘32	May ‘31	Jun ‘31
Jun ‘32	Jul ‘32	Jul ‘31
Aug ‘31	Sep ‘31	Oct ‘31
Nov ‘31	Dec ‘31	Dec ‘32

THERE’S a real story behind this month’s cover, fellows. I’ll try to tell you not only of the planes you see depicted there, but about some of the troubles that confront me. You see, these covers are prepared far in advance, for there are a lot of pretty complex operations that must be performed before they are ready for the news stands. And therein lies our trouble.

Last month my friend Norman Witcomb had a feature in which he told you all about the Fairey “Fantome.” Well, I didn’t know about that until this cover bad been completed. I had planned to tell you all the details concerning this ship, but I now see that Norman has already completed that task. I’ll refresh your memory, anyway, and I don’t suppose you’ll mind seeing it in colors and in a battle scene.

The “Fantome” is ship number 2 and is now in production in Belgium, where it is known as the “Feroge.” It carts four machine guns about the clouds and one 20 m.m. cannon which fires through the airscrew boss. The crate is powered by an 860 h.p. engine and can do 250 m.p.h. at 12,000.

Ship number 1 is a Fairey “Gordan.” It’s a medium range two-seater day bomber. An Armstrong-Siddeley “Panther” drives it along. The engine develops 525 h.p., and the fourteen cylinder, radial job is air-cooled. Data on its performance is lacking.

Frederick Blakeslee.

“The Story Behind The Cover: The Fairey Fantome” by Frederick Blakeslee
(August 1937, Dare-Devil Aces)

As an added bonus, we present Norman Witcomb’s breif write-up on the Fairey Fantome that Mr. Blakeslee references from the July 1937 issue of Dare-Devil Aces.

Fighting Faireys

THE Fairey firm is one of the oldest in the aircraft industry. It has furnished planes for the R.A.F. for as long as that service has existed. It also turns out the equipment for the Belgian Royal Air Service. For this purpose, Fairey has a factory in Belgium.

Shown above, are two of the latest products of this famous firm. One, the Fairey “Battle,” is a veritable masterpiece. It is designed as a medium bomber, the fastest of its kind in the world. The ship is pulled through the air at about 300 m.p.h.! This is done, of course, by another sweet job, the Rolls-Royce “Merlin” of 1,065 h.p. This motor was so successful that it caused the plane to perform beyond the fondest expectations of its designers. The “Battle” is metal-covered and is equipped with all latest devices, such as flaps, two-way radio, special high-flying equipment, and what not. The armament is secret, but two heavy guns can be seen in the wings. The British government, knowing a good thing when they see one, has ordered several hundred of these planes.

The single-seater fighter below, is the Fairey “Fantome” which has been adopted by the Belgian government as a highspeed fighter. It has a “Hisso” Cannon engine of 860 h.p. and the pilot can open her up to more than 250 m.p.h.! It is a sturdy biplane of rugged construction, and is also completely equipped with radio, etc.

The Belgian Air Force, while small, is well equipped with modern aircraft. No doubt she is anxious not to be caught defenseless again, should serious trouble break out around her borders.

THIS month’s cover, as your practiced eyes can probably see, gives the spotlight to German aircraft, and to the Henschel aeroplane in particular. The five black figures represent a variety of Henschels, but the Hawkers which appear on the cover itself, have not been included. This is because most of you fellows know enough about Hawkers, already, to fly them or draw them in your sleep.

It’s too bad that we haven’t more information on ship number one, the Henschel dive-bomber. It’s really quite a crate. The German authorities have been careful about this plane and there are no available figures. However, we do know this much: This ship can really dive vertically, nose pointed directly at the earth, at any speed the motor is able to attain. And it can be pulled out of the most furious of dives without danger of breaking apart.

Planes numbers two and three are the short Henschel patrol jobs, while number four is a general purpose Henschel. But we still have one ship left, number five, and on this one, at least, we have some fairly good dope. Here it is: This last Henschel is a two-sealer, general purpose monoplane with one Siemens SAM. 22 nine-cylinder, radial air-cooled engine, which gives it a speed of 167.6 at ground level and a cruising speed of 146 m.p.h. This job lands at 51 m.p.h. Its service ceiling is 21,648 ft. and it has a range of 373 miles. Later, if I discover anything new on Germany’s Henschels, I’ll be glad to pass it along.

Fred Blakeslee

“The Story Behind The Cover” by Frederick Blakeslee
(July 1937, Dare-Devil Aces)