WE’RE celebrating the works of Canada’s very own Harold F. Cruickshank this month. Mr. Cruickshank launched his career writing stories based loosely on his war experiences. As tastes turned from straight out battle field stories to air war stories, Cruickshank shifted his setting from the trenches to the cockpit. With stories appearing in such titles as War Birds, War Aces, Sky Birds, Airplane Stories, Flying Aces, and Sky Fighters.

For Harry Steeger’s trio of Popular Publication’s titles—Battle Aces, Dare-Devil Aces and Battle Birds—Mr. Cruickshank developed continuing characters that ran generally in short novelettes each month. The first was Captain Bill Hennedy, a.k.a The Sky Wolf, in the pages of Battle Aces. Starting in the magazine’s fourth issue in January 1931, The Sky Wolf would appear just over a dozen times before flying through the pages of G-8 and his Battle Aces and Dare-Devil Aces for another dozen or so adventures.

Hennedy was ably assisted by his famous Yank Wolf Brood! “Red” Kelly was the Sky Wolf’s deputy leader; he along with Pat Maguire and Stan Glover formed a trio of pilots who had no equal in the whole of France. Filling out the Wolf Flight were wolf cubs Jim Evans and Hank Daly—able to hold their own with any German Ace that dared take them on. Together, The Sky Wolf and his Brood were the scourge of any and all German Aces who dared attack the Allied forces.

Here we present The Sky Wolf’s premier outing as he and his brood try to save a stranded garrison! From the January 1931 issue of Battle Aces, it’s “The Sky Wolf’s Brood!”

It was the “Sky Wolf’s” daring scheme—this plan to rescue that stranded garrison of wounded infantrymen. And now unmindful of his blood-drenched face, he was leading his brood straight down into the enemy stronghold—for here was a skipper and a brood that didn’t know when they were dead!

• Download “The Sky Wolf’s Brood” (January 1931, Battle Aces)

Here is a listing of Harold F. Cruickshank’s SKY WOLF stories.

title	magazine	date	vol	no
1931
The Sky Wolf’s Brood	Battle Aces	Jan	1	4
The Sky Wolf Returns	Battle Aces	Jul	3	2
Fangs of the Wolf Brood	Battle Aces	Nov	4	2
1932
The Wolf Brood Strikes	Battle Aces	Jan	4	4
The Wolf Brand	Battle Aces	Mar	5	2
Sky Wolf’s Cub	Battle Aces	Apr	5	3
The Brood at Bay	Battle Aces	May	5	4
The Wolf Terror	Battle Aces	Jun	6	1
Snarl of the Sky Wolf	Battle Aces	Jul	6	2
Wolf Brood Hell	Battle Aces	Aug	6	3
The Flying Torpedo	Battle Aces	Sep	6	4
Sky Wolf’s Trap	Battle Aces	Oct	7	1
Staffel of Hell	Battle Aces	Nov	7	2
1934
Return of the Sky Wolf	G-8 and his Battle Aces	Feb	2	1
The Silver Spad	G-8 and his Battle Aces	Apr	2	3
The Outlaw Patrol	G-8 and his Battle Aces	Jun	3	1
Drome of the Living Dead	Dare-Devil Aces	Nov	8	4
1935
Legion of Death	Dare-Devil Aces	Jan	9	2
The Torpedo Eagle	Dare-Devil Aces	May	10	2
The Iron Devils	Dare-Devil Aces	Aug	11	1
The Jackal Patrol	Dare-Devil Aces	Nov	11	4
1937
Hell Trap	Dare-Devil Aces	Mar	12	4
1938
The Sky Wolf Returns	Dare-Devil Aces	Jun	19	3
The Hell Raider	Dare-Devil Aces	Oct	20	3
1943
Fangs of the Sky Wolf	Dare-Devil Aces	May	31	2

THROUGH the dark night sky, streaking swiftly with their Hisso engines thundering, is the greatest trio of aces on the Western Front—the famous and inseparable “Three Mosquitoes,” the mightiest flying combination that had ever blazed its way through overwhelming odds and laughed to tell of it! Flying in a V formation—at point was Captain Kirby, impetuous young leader of the great trio; on his right was little Lieutenant “Shorty” Carn, the mild-eyed, corpulent little Mosquito and lanky Lieutenant Travis, eldest and wisest of the Mosquitoes on his left!

Were back with the third of three Three Mosquitoes stories we’re presenting this month. The Three Mosquitoes disband! The darker side of notoriety rears it’s ugly head—is Kirby a “Glory Grabber” taking all the glory and sharing none of the credit—easily picking off the other’s adversaries out from under them? Does he take Shorty Carn and Lanky Travis for granted? Yes, that inseparable threesome have it out and go their own ways! Each sinking the lowest a man can go without the others—and just as the big German offensive is about to kick off! Can the Kirby, Carn and Travis fix their “Broken Wings” or is this it for the intrepid trio? In what is probably their darkest tale, from the pages of the January 1931 issue of War Birds!

No greater engine of winged destruction ever rode the red winds of the Front than The Three Mosquitoes—then came a Boche flamer and a face in the dark to confront them with the greatest mystery of their career.

• Download “Broken Wings” (January 1931, War Birds)

If you enjoyed this tale of our intrepid trio, check out some of the other stories of The Three Mosquitoes we have posted by clicking the Three Mosquitoes tag or check out one of the three volumes we’ve published on our books page! And come back next Friday or another exciting tale.

THIS November we’re celebrating William E. Barrett’s Birthday with four of his pulp stories—one each Friday.

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 another tale of sausage men—those brave individuals who risked their lives dangling in a basket below a balloon to help the artillery get an accurate range for their guns. And that basket is mighty small when you’re a non-commissioned officer hanging under the bag with Cecil Granville Terence Dwight-DeLacey! Cecil Granville had been hatched on a parade ground. His buttons shone with a holy radiance and he saw no reason why the buttons of the world should not shine with equal luster. Nor did Cecil Granville take kindly to men who slouched or drank or forgot salutes or who assumed comfortable positions. In short, Cecil Granville was the type of officer best calculated to make any branch of the service unattractive to the poor devils he outranked. Jimmy Carr, the noncom in the basket with him, was his entire command and Jimmy got all the grief which would have been heavy if distributed over an entire company. But events transpire that lead Carr to prove that not all Cecil Granville’s beliefs are true!

Rank counted for little when officer and man glared at each other in the basket of that drifting Sausage. Then came fog and Fokker to prove that courage is owned by no man.

From the January 1931 War Aces, it’s William E. Barrett’s “Non-Commissioned!”

• Download “Non-Commissioned” (January 1931, War Aces)