Looking to buy? See our books on amazon.com Get Reading Now! Age of Aces Presents - free pulp PDFs

“The Tail Buster” by Frederick Blakeslee

Link - Posted by David on November 27, 2014 @ 12:00 pm in

Frederick Blakeslee painted all the covers for the entire run of Dare-Devil Aces. And each of those covers had a story behind it. For the December 1933 issue Blakeslee paints the tail of a premeditated crash between a French Herriot and a German Fokker and L.V.G. in “The Tail Buster”…

th_DDA_3312THE COVER painting this month shows, not an accident but a premeditated crash. The Frenchmen—pilot and gunner—had left their drome to put a new Herriot through its paces. As a precaution, however, they loaded up with ammunition—and were glad they did. For as they stunted about over France, two L.V.G.’s attacked them.

A Fokker, flying higher, did not join the attack until one of the L.V.G.’s burst into flames, the victim of French guns. The Fokker then dove, passed under and looped to get on the Frenchman’s tail. By a quick skid, the French pilot brought his ship broadside on and the gunner poured a devastating fire into the Boche.

In the meantime, the second L.V.G. had maneuvered directly under the Frenchman. At the moment the French gunner sent his flaming slugs into the Fokker, tracers came up through the floor of the French machine right between the pilots legs, cutting one of the elevator wires. In a split second the pilot shoved his stick forward and dove.

The pilot of the L.V.G. saw the other ship begin its dive and whipped his tail down, too late. With a crack his rudder disappeared in a cloud of flying fabric and propeller splinters.

The French gunner coolly climbed out on the fuselage and righted the Herriot. Then he and the pilot took stock of the situation. The Germans were headed for the only cleared space dead ahead—and the Frenchman headed for it too. They just made the plowed field.

In the resulting crash the pilot of the Herriot was buried in wreckage; the gunner was hurled clear and perhaps it was fortunate that the field was plowed for he had a comparatively soft landing. He rushed over to the wreckage and began frantically to dig out the pilot, whom he could hear groaning. Presently he was conscious of having help. Two French flyers had joined him. Between them they soon had the unconscious pilot extracted, and right there and then they all got busy and set his dislocated shoulder.

After it was all over and the pilot was conscious and resting, the gunner thought of the German machine. He looked around and saw its wreckage about a hundred yards away but no signs of its crew. Startled, he looked more closely at the two rescuers who were now conversing in perfect French to the pilot. They were dressed in French flying clothes all right. But the gunner put two and two together—and realized that they were the pilot and gunner of the German ship!

When the Boches politely bade farewell and walked away, he made no move. Five minutes later the field was swarming with people. In answer to questions as to where the Germans were all the Frenchman said was—”They have escaped.”

The Story Behind The Cover
“The Tail Buster: The Story Behind The Cover” by Frederick M. Blakeslee (December 1933)

Check back again. We will be presenting more of Blakeslee’s Stories behind his cover illustrations.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

>>RSS feed for comments on this post.   >>TrackBack URL
 


Leave a comment