THIS week we have another exciting air adventure from the pen of F.H. Griggs, Jr. Griggs is a rather enigmatic figure with just two stories to his name from those issues indexed by Fiction Mags.

The “Ace-In-The-Hole” Gang is a trio of pilots who came together when they realized they had similarities in their styles of attack and in their disposition. Each of the three men had in his make-up, a strong sense of duty, a responsibility for being in the thick of things, and as time went on the love between them defied death itself. Their fame had spread all along the western front. The trio worked as an independent flight, and were able to stop and refuel at any drome as need be. They were treated as celebrities with the red carpet rolled out for them wherever they alighted.

From the pages of the November 1928 Flying Aces, F.H. Griggs, Jr. tells the tale of “The “Ace-In-The-Hole” Gang’s” final flight.

Captain Billy’s lust to kill should have been satisfied before he ran into a flight of five Fokkers, but he had a debt to pay—and the story of how he paid in full will remain with you as an unforgetable memory as long as you live!

• Download “The “Ace-In-The-Hole” Gang” (November 1928, Flying Aces)

THIS week we have a story from the prolific pen of Eustace L. Adams. Born in 1891, Adams was an editor and author who served in the American Ambulance Service and the US Naval Service during The Great War. His aviation themed stories started appearing in 1928 in the various war and aviation pulps—Air Trails, Flying Aces, War Stories, Wings, War Birds, Sky Birds, Under Fire, Air Stories and Argosy. He is probably best remembered for the dozen or so airplane boys adventure books he wrote for the Andy Lane series.

Ensigns Peter B. Hemmingway and Jack Lewis had been attached to the little unit of American naval aviators near Havre for a month now, and they craved action. So far as they had been concerned, the war had not been much more thrilling than their training course, back in the States. All their thrills had come secondhand. Some of the other fliers had seen action and the station had several scalps to its credit, but the two boys had been out of luck, for as faithful as they had been on their patrols they had not had a single chance to pull their release ring and drop the ugly bomb which hung suspended from the fuselage between the twin pontoons. Perhaps today their luck would turn and their chance would come—

From the November 1928 number of Under Fire, it’s Eustace L. Adams’ “Give Her The Gun!”

A hydroplane stranded—an approaching submarine—a rescuing destroyer—and dead men tell no tales.

• Download “Give Her The Gun” (November 1928, Under Fire)

THIS week we have one of the few stories from Fred Denton Moon. Moon was born in Athens, Georgia in 1905 and was a freelance writer. A former staff member of The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine, he was the first editor of the Journal’s wire photo service as well as former city editor of the Journal. He was member of Sigma Delta Chi and a retired member of the Georgia Department of Labor.

Galactic Central lists just a handful of stories by Moon in their various directories:

title	magazine	date	vol	no
1928
The Cloud Busters	Flying Aces	November	1	3
1929
The Unclaimed Necklace	The Underworld Magazine	February	5	1
The Phantom Fokker	Sky Birds	March	1	3
The Buzzard Feeder	The Golden West Magazine	April	5	3
Tortured Skies	Flying Aces	June	3	2
Lieutenant Goose-Egg	Eagles of the Air	November	1	2
The Aerial Aim	Flying Aces	November	4	3
1930
The Bear Facts	The Dragnet Magazine	January	4	4
Front Page Stuff	Prize Air Pilot Stories	January	1	2
Gimme a Cigaret!	Thrilling Stories	January	1	2
The Rattler of No Fang	Western Trails	June	6	1

 
Moon died in 1982 at the age of 76.

His first published pulp tale is one of an overly harsh C.O., hated by his men who get no respect for making due with the Army’s worst equipment, who proves his mettle when he joins a bombing raid over enemy lines. From the pages of the November 1928 Flying Aces, it’s Fred Denton Moon’s “The Cloud Busters!”

Hades had spewed up and was spreading all over the map of France. Count von Stratton’s flying circus was the worst bunch of hornets that had ever stung to death the group of able flyers under the disliked Commandant Legarrin—but the Commandant was an old devil who knew his viewpoint so well he tried to stop the war all by himself.

• Download “The Cloud Busters” (November 1928, Flying Aces)

THIS week we have another of Raoul Whitfield’s ‘Buck’ Kent stories from the pages of Air Trails magazine. Whitfield is primarily known for his hardboiled crime fiction published in the pages of Black Mask, but he was equally adept at lighter fair that might run in the pages of Breezy Stories. ‘Buck’ Kent, along with his pal Lou Parrish, is an adventurous pilot for hire. These stories, although more in the juvenile fiction vein, do feature some elements of his harder prose.

In the November 1928 issue of Air Trails, ‘Buck’ is flying down to the boarder to meet up with his buddy Lou, the two will then travel on to Mexicali. Unfortunately, the brother of a bank robber Buck had stopped earlier is out for revenge and his reward money. It all goes down “Above the Lines!”

Bullets meant little when his pal’s life was at stake! Another sure-fire story of Buck Kent, the free-lance airman!

• Download “Above The Lines” (November 1928, Air Trails)

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!

We’re back with the third and final of three Ralph Oppenheim’s Three Mosquitoes stories we’re featuring this March for Mosquito Month! And this one’s a doozy! The Boche have some new super-gun that has been ranging the Allied munitions factory, getting closer every time. Kirby, Carn and Travis are tasked with finding the unfindable gun and putting it out of commission before it does indeed hit the munitions factory! It’s another rip-roaring nail-biter from the pages of the November 8th, 1928 issue of War Stories—The Three Mosquitoes must “Get That Gun!”

Intelligence was desperate. The huge Tarniers munition plant, 130 miles from the German lines, was being shelled. What mysterious gun could shoot that deadly H.E. so far? Then orders came for the famous “Three Mosquitoes” to tackle the job—clear the mystery, wreck that gun. A dramatic, thrilling yarn.

• Download “Get That Gun!” (November 8th, 1928, War Stories)

SINCE we’ve been featuring Frederick C. Painton’s letters he wrote home while serving with the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI, this week we feature a short tale Painton had in the pages of War Stories. It’s the tale of the Schmidt brothers—one had left home in 1912 and eventually found himself in the German Navy having risen the ranks to become their most feared submarine captain. The other brother remained at home and signed up when America entered the war, putting his talents to use for the US Navy listening for subs never thinking he would one day be hunting down his own beloved brother!

The German sub U-74 was out to ruin Mediterranean shipping, and its commander, the “Fox,” was famous for his cleverness. It was up to Carney to stop him—Carney and his listener at the hydrophones—and it meant close, quick work. Dolph Schmidt was that listener, and he knew things—but said nothing.

From the November 8th, 1928 issue of War Stories, it’s Frederick C. Painton’s “In The Dark of The Sea!”

• Download “In The Dark of The Sea” (8 November 1928, War Stories)

THIS week we have a story from the pen of a prolific pulp author and venerated newspaper man—Frederick C. Painton.
Painton gives us his take on the cowboy war bird. In it, the cowboy in question is the mesquite Midget, Billy Sanders, from Jim Sills’ Bar-Bee Ranch. An old hand at rounding up the Boche in the air, he finds Jim Sills’ boy Harv now in his squadron. The two come up against Boche air ace von Steffen who seems to have a charmed life and cannot be touched, but when he shoots down yung Harv, the Midget is left with no choice than to break his sky-jinx!

From the pages of the November 1928 issue of Triple X Magazine—so called because it featured air, western and war stories each month—it’s Frederick C. Painton’s “Sky Herdin’ Heinie!”

They called the German ace a Sky-Jinx and said his plane couldn’t be shot down. But Midget, the cowboy-flier, didn’t believe in jinxes and he swore to kill the man who had shot down his friend and old range buddy.

• Download “Sky Herdin’ Heinie” (November 1928, Triple X Magazine)