Age of Aces » James Perley Hughes http://www.ageofaces.net The Best in Air-War Fiction Fri, 17 Apr 2026 10:00:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.1 en hourly 1 “Luck in the Blue” by James Perley Hughes http://www.ageofaces.net/2023/05/luck-in-the-blue-by-james-perley-hughes/ http://www.ageofaces.net/2023/05/luck-in-the-blue-by-james-perley-hughes/#comments Fri, 19 May 2023 10:00:53 +0000 David http://www.ageofaces.net/?p=11709 TODAY we have a story from the pen of a prolific pulp author James Perley Hughes! Hughes was managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle before turning his hand towards fiction and becoming a frequent contributor to various adventure pulps—but he seemed to gravitate toward the air-war spy type stories.

A spy was loose on the base, but Zoom Hale had bigger problems—his childhood buddy and wing-man Charlie Spellman was in a bad way with a sudden attack of nerves. He had been through and seen enough and Zoom thought his pal was ready to end it all. So when Charlie takes his plane out early the next morning, Zoom dashes off to keep him from doing just that and try to bring him down without killing his best friend in the process!

The whirring air yarn of a man who felt he had to chase his own buddy—who had to sit on his soul to shoot down his pal. Then—a zooming finish but unexpected and thrilling!

]]> http://www.ageofaces.net/2023/05/luck-in-the-blue-by-james-perley-hughes/feed/ 0 “Hard-Boiled and Handsome” by James Perley Hughes http://www.ageofaces.net/2020/12/hard-boiled-and-handsome-by-james-perley-hughes/ http://www.ageofaces.net/2020/12/hard-boiled-and-handsome-by-james-perley-hughes/#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2020 11:00:50 +0000 David http://www.ageofaces.net/?p=9702 TODAY 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.

Skag, Dinty and Mugs Miller liked to “groom” the fresh recruits to the Game-Cock Squadron. They were case-hardened comedians and had given Major Crossley all kinds of trouble by their weird ideas of what made a joke. The quiet, bashful fledgling was usually let off with a short hazing, but the fresh fish were tormented until the three were satiated. Orders against this hazing had been issued time and again, but they were difficult to enforce. It was time someone taught them a lesson, and who better than someone straight from the school at Issoudun!

If you didn’t like somebody in the Game-Cock Squadron, you just arranged for him to fight a duel with von Steuben, famous German ace. It sounded easy—until those three tough boys from South Boston tried it on a certain replacement!

]]> http://www.ageofaces.net/2020/12/hard-boiled-and-handsome-by-james-perley-hughes/feed/ 0 “The Secret of QX-31″ by James Perley Hughes http://www.ageofaces.net/2018/07/the-secret-of-qx-31-by-james-perley-hughes/ http://www.ageofaces.net/2018/07/the-secret-of-qx-31-by-james-perley-hughes/#comments Fri, 20 Jul 2018 10:00:25 +0000 David http://www.ageofaces.net/?p=7604 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.

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