The Strange Enemy of our new book Captain Philip Strange: Strange Enemies, Fraulein Doktor, pops up in the oddest places. Here she is causing trouble in Frederick C Painton’s “Soft Thunder” a year and a half before her first appearance in Donald Keyhoe’s Philip Strange stories.

We’ve posted a number of Frederick C. Painton’s stories in this space already including a few of his Dirty Dozen-esque Squadron of the Dead stories. He’s a great writer with a background in newspapers as this short autobiography from the April 1942 issue of Blue Book Magazine attests:

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Unfortunately he died of a heart attack on a Guam airfield while covering the Pacific war.

He was just a kid who played Tennis to those two hard-boiled soldiers—but there was stuff in his make-up that kept him battling in the flaming skies. It was a grim game they played—they stuck to the rules and played like sports, but they knew that the loser would find flying death. And then into their game kited a kid who seemed soft—but there is lightning with even soft thunder.

• Download “Soft Thunder” (December 1932, Sky Fighters)

Here is a smashing complete novelette of strange wings over the Italian front!
Ships were being blown to shambles in pairs—two or four at time, never three or five or just one—and none knew why. Until Jack Lannigan came. Find out why in William E. Barrett’s intriguing novelette “Double Death.”

William E. Barrett wrote a number of aviation themed stories for the air pulps in the 1930s. His nine Iron Ace stories which ran in Sky Birds in the mid ’30s have been collected in one volume and available from our books page. Barrett would later become famous as the author of “Lilies of the Field” and “The Left Hand of God” amung other books.

• Download “Double Death” (December 1932, Sky Fighters)

Arthur J. Burks was a Marine during WWI and went on to become a prolific writer for the pulps in the 20’s and 30’s. In this story, which mixes air war and sports, he tells the tale of middleweight boxing champion Larry Drago, who carries a grudge match with a German boxer into the skies over France.

• Download “Mark of the Killer” (July 1939, Sky Fighters)

The hero of our Age of Aces book “Sky Devil: Hell’s Skipper” returns to action once again in another WWII adventure. Bill Dawe had to change his name and lie about his age to join the RAF’s fight against Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Now, with his son a member, The Sky Devil’s Brood must take on a deadly mission to escort a supply convoy from England to Italy, This is the second of four WWII Sky Devil stories from Harold F. Cruickshank.

• Download “Sky Route to Hell” (Spring 1946, Sky Fighters)

The hero of our Age of Aces book Sky Devil: Hell’s Skipper returns to action in WWII. Bill Dawe had to change his name and lie about his age to join the RAF’s fight against Hitler’s Luftwaffe. But little did he know that the most important mission of his life was soon to come. He must rescue his own son from the clutches of the S.S. This is the first of four WWII Sky Devil stories from Harold F. Cruickshank.

• Download “Sky Devil and Son” (January 1943, Sky Fighters)

Here is the second of The Three Mosquitoes stories that were set in pre-WWII China. There isn’t much actual Air War in this one but there is still plenty of action as the Mosquitoes try to rescue a Chinese warlord’s son from the invading Japanese.

• Download “Blood on the Sun” (November 1938, Sky Fighters)

The Three Mosquitoes spent most of their time in Europe fighting the Kaiser’s worst in WWI. But this and one other of their exploits took place in pre-WWII China where they helped fight the invading Japanese. Author Ralph Oppenheim managed to update the trio for these stories and still keep the spirit of the Mosquitoes intact. An odd fact, Oppenheim wrote all these air tales having never flown.

• Download “Stars for China” (January 1939, Sky Fighters)

A Bancroft and Leadbeater Adventure.
It wasn’t that anything untoward had happened that made Todd Bancroft and Larry Leadbeater cringe. Practically nothing had happened, and you can‟t take a punch at nothing…

• Download “Savoias Out of Sapporo” (January 1940, Sky Fighters)