Eugene M. Frandzen painted the covers of The Lone Eagle from its first issue in September 1933 until the June 1937 issue when he would share duties with Rudolph Belarski. At the start of the run, Frandzen painted covers of general air action much like his Sky Fighters covers, shifting to covers featuring famous aces at the end of 1935. For the May 1936 issue, Frandzen gives us a Nieuport 28 and Pfalz D3 locked in combat!

The Story of the Cover

SOME planes had famous ancestors whose reputations had to be upheld. The Nieuport line was of the French aristocracy of war planes. The early Nieuport scouts were named “avions de chasse.” They were to the world war what the cavaliers clad in shining armour riding prancing Arabian horses were to the Middle Ages. The end of the war saw the Nieuport 28C1, a single-seater fighter, which made those American pilots speak of this plane with affection almost twenty years after the war.

The Germans had the Pfalz line of single-seater planes whose ancestry was not so clear. The early Pfalz D3 in fact had so many characteristics of the Nieuport of its time that it has not been free from the slur of being a copy. The Pfalz D13 of 1918 tried to save the family name by having a design all its own.

A Brilliant Ace

Frank L. Baylies was a member of the old Lafayette Escadrille. He was invited to join the Stork squadron of French veteran fighters. This young American airman was a brilliant star in a firmament of older aces. Baylies had twelve official victories credited to his skill in less than six months. The courageous qualities that endeared him to his comrades led him into an ambush on June 17, 1918. Flying well in German territory he attacked three enemy ships but a fourth German plane lurking above unseen came down on Baylies from the rear. Baylies’ plane fell in German territory.

The details of his last fight are clouded in the mystery of war, but the memory of one of America’s most intrepid airmen lives as a shining glory.

Prisoners of war were not always treated as “enemies” on our side of the lines. Usually they were steered to a liquid-soaked plank on which sundry bottles, glasses and other necessary drinking paraphenalia reposed.

Cognac and vintage wines skidded over appreciative palates. Any differences of opinion went by the board. After that. Max, Fritz or Oscar was merely on the wrong side of the argument, but he was a flyer and deserved a square deal before being thrown into clank for the duration of the war.

Such a situation arose one day when a wobbling German plane was forced down adjacent to a Yank drome. He was in one piece and thirsty. He sang a good bass to “Sweet Adeline.” He held his liquor like a gentleman and he could run like Nurmi.

He demonstrated this fact by grabbing the only .45 automatic in the crowd and sprinting across the flying field, hopping into a Nieuport 28 and getting off the field fifty yards ahead of a Yank who was testing a captured Pfalz D13 which had a trick Fokker tail in its rear section. Neither of the ships had ammo.

Duelling in Darkness

Both aviators had side arms, A cockeyed duel ensued as darkness began to fall. Two powerful planes heeled with pea shooters. They blazed at each other industriously. They did not see three cruising Allied planes rushing at them, nor did they see three German planes until the half dozen ships broke in on their private scrap with a bang. The German pilot in the Nieuport shrugged his shoulders and snuggled in among the Allied planes. The Yank took his lead and flipped his Pfalz among the Germans. Both foursomes veered off and headed for their own lines. The two revolver dueling airmen raised imaginary glasses to their lips; toasted each other, then as dusk crept deeper over the blurred formations, cut out and headed for their own lines.

As they passed each other at combined speeds of about 280 miles per hour, they let go a final parting shot from their pea shooters, a friendly salute till they could get a few assorted machine-guns anchored on the top cowling and go after this business of killing each other in a really serious manner.

The Lone Eagle, May 1936 by Eugene M. Frandzen
(The Story of The Cover Page)

FREQUENT visitors to this site know that we’ve been featuring Terry Gilkison’s Famous Sky Fighters feature from the pages of Sky Fighters. Gilkison had a number of these features in various pulp magazines—Clues, Thrilling Adventures, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Western, and Popular Western. Starting in the February 1936 issue of Lone Eagle, Gilkison started the war-air quiz feature Sky Writers. Each month there would be four questions based on the Aces and events of The Great War. If you’ve been following his Famous Sky Fighters, these questions should be a snap!

Here’s the quiz from the May 1936 issue of Lone Eagle.

If you get stumped or just want to check your answers, click here!

STARTING in the October 1933 issue of Sky Fighters and running almost 5 years, Terry Gilkison’s “Famous Sky Fighters” was a staple of the magazine. Each month Gilkison would illustrate in a two page spread different Aces that rose to fame during the Great War.

Although Gilkison was probably better known for his syndicated newspaper work, he also provided black and white story interior illustrations for pulp magazines. 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 Publications—there was “Famous Soldiers of Fortune” and later “Adventure Thrills” in Thrilling Adventures, Famous Crimes” in Thrilling Detective, and the fully illustrated air adventure stories of Buck Barton “The Flying Devil” in The Lone Eagle! 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.

The May 1936 installment, from the pages of Sky Fighters, features Captain Francis Quigley, Major Baron von Schleich, and Lt. John A. MacReady among others!

Next time in “Famous Sky Fighters”, Terry Gilkison features Canadian Col. William Bishop, Colonel Frank P. Lahm, and observation Ace William Erwin! Don’t miss it!

Eugene M. Frandzen painted the covers of Sky Fighters from its first issue in 1932 until he moved on from the pulps in 1939. At this point in the run, the covers were about the planes featured on the cover more than the story depicted. Mr. Frandzen features A.E.G. on the May 1936 cover!

The Ships on the Cover

BEFORE the World War airplanes were more scoffed at than praised as a possible military weapon. Capitalists invariably put an extra knot in their purse strings when approached by optimistic promoters or inventors.

Firms that did any manufacturing to speak of were those who built airplanes as a side line, having large established plants already at their disposal. Such was the Allgemeine Elektricitats Gesellschaft, A.E.G. for short. This firm was one of Germany’s big electrical manufacturers. Their first entry into aircraft was naturally engines. They secured the option for building Wright motors and made some of their own design. Later when they branched into airplane design and manufacture they stuck rigidly to military planes principally of metal construction and some armour plating.

The ship on the cover smacking the water, is an A.E.G. of 1917 and ‘18 vintage. It has armour plating protecting the under-part of the fuselage and sides of the cockpits. But the A.E.G. firm was up against a tough proposition. Heavy armour plate protected the pilots perfectly but the engines were not fine enough to carry this added weight satisfactorily. Light armour had very little satisfactory results, but could be lifted okay. Therefore the pilots kidded themselves that they were pretty safe from enemy bullets with the light armour till a few rounds of Allied ammunition tore through and made more jagged wounds than a clean sharp bullet.

Used for Trench Strafing

A Benz 200 h.p. motor was up front and managed to yank the ship along at around 100 m.p.h. with favorable wind conditions. Primarily used for trench strafing it was fairly successful if protected by fast scouts, but for any other type of work it couldn’t take any first prizes.

The German lines ran from a chicken wire fence backed up against Switzerland all the way to the North Sea. Now any place along that line the A.E.G. could have got in some good licks. But when it stuck its nose straight out over the water and ambitiously went about a little job of work in conjunction with a German submarine it just didn’t make the grade.

An Allied Freighter in Sight

Through a series of prisms a clear image of an Allied freighter loomed before the periscope observer in the submerged submarine. He ran his periscope up another foot, got a better view and barked the information into the stifling air. The commanding officer leaped to the instrument. He grinned in anticipation, as he saw thr flag of the merchantman. “Verdammter Amerikaner.”

Terse orders snapped to the crew. Engines whirred into added power, down to within a foot of the water came the protruding periscope. The sleek underwater raider slipped through the water toward its victim. Ten torpedo tubes were available to sink the plodding ship carrying supplies to the American forces. Grins wreathed the faces of the crew as they learned the freighter’s nationality. The U-Boat steadied, slowed up, pointed its nose then it flattened out. A shudder raced through the ship as a torpedo was shot by compressed air out through its tube. Another shudder of greater volume caught the undersea craft. A detonation shook the boat. A wreath of smoke hovered over the freighter’s 3-inch gun. It had made a direct hit.

hen the torpedo smashed into the Yank vessel. It listed and began to sink. Up came the sub, its wireless calling for help. The message picked up on the German shore was given to the A.E.G. crew. Up soared the plane, the only one available. “Kill all survivors of the freighter,” were their orders.

Wildcat, Do Your Stuff!

One Yank in the bow of the freighter’s lifeboat was a crack shot with anything from a bean shooter to a siege gun. He unhurriedly unlimbered a machine-gun. “Wildcat,” he crooned to his pet gun of guns, “do your stuff.”

He waited till the German plane had hailed them with bullets. And then at just the right moment “Wildcat” started spitting.

One burst was enough. It tore jagged holes through the thin protecting armour. The German pilot sagged, the plane nosed down and smacked the water. Armour plate in addition to the heavy Benz pulled the crate down into Davy Jones’ checkroom in fifteen seconds.

The Yank patted “Wildcat” affectionately. He looked longingly back at the spot where his 3-inch gun had sunk with the freighter.

“Cheer up,” chided one of his companions, “we’ll take up a purse and buy you a Skoda howitzer for your next birthday.”

Sky Fighters, May 1936 by Eugene M. Frandzen
(The Ships on The Cover Page)

AS PART of our Mayshark Month posts we have a rare story C.B. Mayshark had in the May 1936 issue of Dare-Devil Aces! Known for his great covers and interior illustrations, Mayshark was apparently jut as adept with the typewriter. He gives us a crackin’ yarn of hell skies. A young observation photographer that’s a whiz with the camera unfortunately freezes when the bullets start flying by. His pilot has been able to successfully cover for the kid, until a figure from the kid’s past gets wind of his affliction and sets about to bring him down!

The Kid had an eye like a hungry eagle, and could snap a picture of a mosquito doing handsprings. But alone in the clouds with the Spandaus whistling past, the Kid’s guts froze in a lump. “Yellow I am,” he cursed himself. “And I wish that I could die.” Still one man keeps his faith with the Kid and vows to bring him through—leads him on to a smashing show down, as a boy becomes a man!

• Download “The Camera Kid” (May 1936, Dare-Devil Aces)

“Haw-w-w-w-w!” That sound can only mean one thing—that Bachelor of Artifice, Knight of Calamity and an alumnus of Doctor Merlin’s Camelot College for Conjurors is back to vex not only the Germans, but the Americans—the Ninth Pursuit Squadron in particular—as well. Yes it’s the marvel from Boonetown, Iowa himself—Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham!

Wing made a whopper in 1918! They sent America’s leading ace into the same sector with Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham, who certainly had not been a shrinking violet in the fight to save the Democrats. Morever, the war correspondents were instructed to ballyhoo the aforementioned ace at the slightest provocation. He was to be built up as the foremost Boche obliterator wearing the colors of Uncle Sam, despite the fact that Phineas Pinkham had snagged a flock of honest-to-goodness aces out of the hostile pack with the finesse of a gambler in a gold rush mining camp. Something had to happen. When two champion mauling bull elks find themselves in the same woods, all the lesser wild life move out until the battle is over!

The Yank Brass Hats made a great mistake in leading an Ace when the Boonetown Joker was still in the deck. And matters got worse when the Krauts opened up with a mile-high variety of the old shell game. Only on that last play, the Heinies forgot to look under the shell!

• Download “Smells, Spells, and Shells” (May 1936, Flying Aces)

AMIDST all the great pulp thrills and features in Sky Fighters, they ran a true story feature collected by Ace Williams wherein famous War Aces would tell actual true accounts of thrilling moments in their fighting lives! This time we have the founder of the LaFayette Escadrille—Lieutenant Norman Prince!

Born to the purple on August 31, 1887, scion of one of the blue-blooded families In old Boston, was Norman Pslnce, the founder of the famous LaFayette Escadrille. Educated at Groton and Harvard for a career in business with his wealthy family, he hazarded his promising future and used his wealth and family prestige in overcoming obstacle’s to form a squadron of American aviators for battle at the front. With him in the beginning were Thaw, Chapman, Rockwell, McConnell, Hall and Cowdin. These Americans with Prince made up the roster of the original squadron sent up to the front at Luxeuil in May, 1910.

Later on it became known as the Escadrille de Lafayette and 325 fighting pilots flew under its proud banner before the war came to an end. Prince’s career on the front was short but meteoric. Before he was killed, however, on October 15, of the same year, he had engaged in 122 aerial combats and won every award possible for his many acts of bravery and heroism. The story below is taken from the records of a French war correspondent.

SOLO TO DOUAI

by Sous-Lieutenant Norman Prince • Sky Fighters, May 1936

A HIDDEN Boche artillery emplacement was holding up the French advance on the captured fortress of Douai. The General des Armees became frantic. His cavalry scouts had failed. Infantry patrols had learned nothing. The Boches had command of the air. But locating the hidden emplacement was imperative. Though the weather was far from auspicious, the General demanded that the avions de chasse break through the Boche net and discover the hidden guns so that our 75s could destroy them.

It was a grim, desperate order. The sky was on the ground in spots. It was rain and sunshine alternately, and the wind blew in whirling tempests across our front . . . very bad weather for flying. And much, more worse for reconnaissance. Twenty-four avions took off on that desperate mission, 4 from our squadron; the rest from other squadrons nearby, including the famous Storks.

Little Hope of Returning

I had few hopes of returning when I lifted wings into the air on that bleak day. But one thing I vowed: no Boche in the sky or on the earth was going to force me to turn back until I had won through to Douai. I did not fear death. I feared only that I would not be able to accomplish the mission; that no one of us would.

The first half hour it was a battle against wind and weather. My frail avion tossed up and down like a cork. For a few minutes I saw my comrades on either side of me, then they gradually faded into the dismal sky and I found myself alone in a dripping, grey-black void. My thoughts were somber and the whirling rotary engine seemed to sob out a sinister cadence: “Solo to Douai! Solo to Douai!”

I caught myself mouthing it aloud in rhythm with the moaning exhausts where I was rudely awakened from my lethargy by the stitching, ripping sound of Boche bullets tearing into the fuselage at my back. Instinctively I whirled off in an abrupt virage and saw black spots that were enemy planes dotting the grey sky all around me . . . and the fortress of Douai was immediately beneath!

Enemy Avions

I took in everything with a single, darting glance. My Lewis coughed sharply as I spiraled down through the converging black specks. Some of those black specks puffed and mushroomed . . . shrapnel bursts! Others grew wings and blue smoke spouted over engine nacelles . . . enemy avions!

How many I did not know. There was not time to count. I circled, dived, zoomed; firing my piece when Boche shapes slid by in my sights. I got one I know, for I saw the avion sway and fall away in a lazy zig-zag glide with black smoke pluming from the cockpit.

But that was not important. More important was the blinding flash of firing guns just below me . . . the hidden gun emplacement! There it was in a wooded copse beyond and to one side of the fortress of Douai.

There was no need of me tarrying longer over Douai! Back I whirled with my avion not more than 500 meters off the ground. Bullets from sky and earth rained around me like hail.

Ages passed, it seemed, before our trench lines loomed beneath me. But finally they showed, then my own airdrome, the green turf glistening like an emerald in the sudden sunshine.

I set down safely to find that of the 24 who tried to reach Douai, I was the only one to succeed. And I had returned with what the General ordered. Fate had favored me, but I know that she shan’t always do so. Some day I shall not return.

Frederick Blakeslee painted all the covers for the entire run of Dare-Devil Aces. And each of those covers had a story behind it. On Dare-Devil Aces’ May 1936 cover, Mr. Blakeslee has painted a flight of Hawker Demons bombing an enemy ammunitions dump!

ON THE cover this month, a squadron of Hawker “Demons” is bombing an enemy ammunition dump. Apparently the raid was a complete surprise, since no resistance was offered. But perhaps the enemy was expecting the raiders to come in from a much higher altitude. Whatever the case, the “Demon” was well suited to carry out a surprise attack.

Besides carrying its supply of bombs, it would give a good account of itself in a dog fight, since it was a two-seater fighter, the same type made famous by the never-to-be-forgotten Bristol Fighter. Speed, combined with a low altitude, probably accounted for the surprise. You see them streaking over their target at the maximum speed of 202 m.p.h. This, of course, is going some, especially when you consider that its “father,” so to speak, the Bristol Fighter, had a top speed of 125 to 130 m.p.h.

Obviously the dump is near the sea and the raid is enjoying the cooperation of the Navy. As you see, the ship in the foreground, banking around, is a fleet fighter —the single-seat Hawker “Nimrod”. This ship is slightly smaller than the “Demon”, but has the same 630 h.p. engine, along with a slightly greater speed of 206 m.p.h. Following the Nimrod is a Fairey “Fox”, almost identical in appearance. These ships have been shooting up the ground with great success, and are thinking about doubling the order.

“The Hawker Demon: The Story Behind The Cover” by Frederick Blakeslee
(May 1936, Dare-Devil Aces)