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)