ORTH is back! Silent Orth had made an enviable record, in the face of one of the worst beginnings—a beginning which had been so filled with boasting that his wingmates hadn’t been able to stand it. But Orth hadn’t thought of all his talk as boasting, because he had invariably made good on it. However, someone had brought home to him the fact that brave, efficient men were usually modest and really silent, and he had shut his mouth like a trap from that moment on.

Acclaimed the greatest of Allied fliers on both sides of the lines, Silent Orth had reached the end of his rope. The Germans knew it, all those who could see what was transpiring. And especially did Franz Kohl know it, as he sat on Orth’s tail in a bullet-swift Albatros and hammered relentlessly away at the battered and broken Spad of the American ace. The Americans on the ground who could see knew it and held their breaths, and their hearts were tight with sorrow. The Americans in the air who were held back from helping him by literal walls of wings, knew it. Everybody knew that Orth was doomed—with one solitary exception—Silent Orth! And he would not give up until one, or both of them, were dead! From the pages of the February 1935 Sky Fighters, it’s “Blackbird!”

Orth Was a Fighter that Just Wouldn’t Stay Dead—Not While a Single Hun Still Rode the Sky!

• Download “Blackbird” (February 1935, Sky Fighters)