INTRODUCING war ace and flying author Thomas Alfred Belcher Ditton or Major T.A.B. Ditton as he credited himself on the stories he had published. His pulp career was brief. Ditton only had 17 stories published from 1929 through 1936 in magazines like Sky Birds, Flying Aces, War Aces, Bill Barnes Air Adventures, Thrilling Adventures and Top Notch. Sky Birds did cover Ditton in one of their half a dozen “Flying Into View” features which profiled a different famous birdman or well known character in the world of flying each month. We’ll start with that; then list his pulp bibliography; and follow it up with three of his stories.

Flying Into View
introducing MAJOR T.A.B. DITTON, R.A.F.

“. . . HE WENT DOWN end over end and crashed behind the German lines, leaving the three other Albatrosses to finish me off, now that I’d used up my last few bullets on him,” continued “Tabs” Ditton, as he ordered more coffee.

“There was nothing that I could do,” he went on, “but do my best to out-stunt ’em and get back to my drome with a whole crate. I sure did stunt that Dolphin, but just a bit too much. With the snarling hun ships swarming all over me I kicked the rudder over and threw her into a vertical bank with the power full on. There was a sudden lurch, a snapping, splintering cra-a-a-a-a-ack, and the two left wings just folded up and over the center section! The bus went into a sickening spin at once, and after a few turns the broken wings came off and went turning and twisting down off to one side. I shed ’em at four thousand feet and I sure covered that in short order.

“All the way down I cut the engine in and out and wrestled with the controls, hoping to get what there was left of the bus out of the spin. I’d unhooked my safety belt so that I would have a chance at least of getting clear when she hit, if I was still interested in getting clear.

“Well, we spun down to about two hundred feet and then the bus came out of the spin for a few seconds. Then when we got down to about a hundred she came out again and slid down on one wing. The men on the ground that saw me said I was thrown clear when she hit, and landed about fifty feet off to one side. I went out for a while and came to in a hospital all snarled up in bandages. I was out in about two weeks and back in the air even if my left eye wasn’t so good,” concluded “Tabs.”

Major T.A.B. Ditton, as he is officially known, was with the R.F.C., which later became the R.A.F., from 1916 until the end of the war. He is officially credited with thirteen German planes, about the same number unofficially, and that besides balloons. He also has several decorations for his skill and bravery in the air.

“Tabs,” as he was known to the men of his outfit, learned to fly on Maurice-Farmans, or “short horns.” He says that they had so many guy wires that the only way they could be tested to see if they were rigged right was to put a canary in the pilot’s seat. If the canary could fly out through the snarl of wires and struts the ship wasn’t rigged right. From those he went on Avros, S.E.5s, Sop. Camels and D.H.5s. He also had flights in bombing crates to make his training complete. Camels were his special hobby, even if they were tricky boats to push around upstairs.

One time one of the “higher ups” decided that the pilots at his drome had not had enough stunting to keep them in trim, so he was ordered up for a few wingovers. Before he went up he had another officer move the planes out of one of the permanent hangars and open the doors on both sides.

After a few rolls and loops he dove his little Sop. Pup down in a screaming dive straight through the hangar and out the other side. He said he landed with his chest all puffed out and was at once put under arrest for reckless flying. The officer who had requested the stunting practice, however, managed to get him off. But needless to say that sort of stunts was barred in the future.

AFTER LUNCH was over “Tabs” and I caught a train for his home in Greenwich Village, where he turns out the stories you men are clamoring for. Here, with his feet parked on a footstool made from the prop of that same Dolphin whose wings he shed, he showed me snapshots of overseas days and told me some of his narrow escapes. This one he says was a joke on himself.

He was setting a Camel down when her wheels caught on a stump. The tail rose up in a high arc and came down with a terrific crun-n-n-n-nch where the plane’s nose should be. “Tabs,” hanging head down from his safety belt, took account of all his bones and found that at least he was all there and not hurt. He was trying to unhook his belt, which was held tightly because of his weight pulling on it, when an “Ack-emma” came running up to see if he was killed, or only banged up. After being assured that “Tabs” was O.K., the Ack-emma reached up under the fuselage and unhooked the safety belt for the suspended pilot. Now for the tragic part of the story! Ditton had forgotten by this time to hold onto the sides of the fuselage, so that when the safety belt snap was released he dropped about two feet and landed on his head. Just his tough luck, after cracking up a ship without getting a mark.

Another almost fatal flight was in a Camel that had been rigged up for instruction work. The main gas tank had been removed and another pilot cockpit and set of controls had been put in where the gas tank had been located. So many young pilots were killed soloing in Camels that it had been thought best to rig up dual controls in a few ships to enable the instructors to ride along with students and help ’em.

Well, this particular bus had just been converted, and Ditton was to give her a buzz or two over the field for a tryout. He told the “Ack-emma” to take the safety belt out of the front seat so that it would not get in the way of the stick.

“Tabs” took the bus up a good ways and proceeded to do his stuff with her. A few minutes later he decided to loop her. The loop went O.K. till he tried to level off at the end of the loop. Try as he might he couldn’t get the stick back to neutral to save his neck, so up went the nose into another loop. He cut the motor and of course she stalled. He did his best but the stick refused to go forward an inch. Right and left O.K. But front? Not an inch!

He finally decided to stall and spin and side slip all the way down to the field. When he landed there was quite an audience waiting for an explanation, including several C.O.s. The first thing Ditton did was to look into the front pit, and there, sure enough, was the safety belt looped over the stick. When the plane had gone into the first loop the belt had hung, down, of course, and swung over the end of the stick. When the stick was shoved forward at the end of the loop of course it tightened the belt about the stick in the front pit, and there it was locked for good. That Ack-emma is still running!

Major Ditton is a yery popular author here at the Sky Birds drome. You can read more of his split second air thrills at any time—because he draws all of his yarns from actual personal experience.

Bibliography

title	magazine	date	vol	no
1929
The Desert Hawk	Sky Birds	Sep/Oct	3	1
Aerobatics	Aviation Stories	Oct	1	3
1930
Death Deviation	Flying Aces	Jan	4	4
The Flying Idol	Sky Birds	Jan	3	4
Eagle of the North	Flying Aces	Feb	5	1
Three Points Ahead	Flying Aces	Mar	5	2
Air Wolves	Flying Aces	Apr	5	3
Death Rides High	Flying Aces	May	5	4
Desert Vultures	Sky Birds	May	4	4
Boom Buzzards	Flying Aces	Aug	6	3
1932
Stars in the Sky	War Aces	Apr	9	25
Artillery Guys	Battle Stories	Jul	10	57
1935
Annihilation or a Firing Squad	Dime Adventure	Jun	1	1
Diamonds in the Sky	Bill Barnes	Sep	4	2
Sable Rider	Thrilling Adventures	Nov	15	3
Black Saber	Thrilling Adventures	Dec	16	1
1936
Wings of the Dragon	Top-Notch	Jan	98	1

 
Here are a trio of his stories that ran in the 1930 in the pages of Flying Aces and Sky Birds.

Death Derivation

Murder in the skies. The slain pilot lay slumped in his cockpit—the blue mark of a pistol shot on his forehead. A mysterious killing in the air that will keep you guessing.

• Download “Death Derivation” (January 1930, Flying Aces)

The Flying Idol

Yank flying courage clashes with the treacherous cunning of a swarm of godless yellow devils. A tale of thrills and daring adventure in heathen skies!

• Download “The Flying Idol” (January 1930, Sky Birds)

Death Rides High

Powell was fighting mad. It wasn’t the crashed altimeter that got him—it was the startling discovery he made after that.

• Download “Death Rides High” (May 1930, Flying Aces)

THIS week we have a story from the short-lived Sky Devils magazine by Anthony Field. Anthony Field was a pseudonym used by Anatole Feldman who specialized in gangland fiction—appearing primarily in Harold Hersey’s gang pulps, Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, and Gangland Stories. His best-known creation is Chicago gangster Big Nose Serrano. But he also wrote a number of aviation stories including four stories for Sky Devils featuring Quinn’s Black Sheep Squadron—this is the third of those four stories!

Quinn’s Black Sheep is another of those squadrons populated with other squadron’s troublemakers like Rossoff’s Hell-Cats or Keyhoe’s Jailbird Flight or any number of other examples. It seemed every author had a series with a black sheep squadron.

Captain Jack Quinn, brought in for disciplinary action, manages to convince the General that he could solve a lot of his headaches by hand-picking the problem aces out of other squadrons and forming an essentially independent squadron to take on the Boche. Thus, Quinn’s flight was a crew of hard bitten aces who had been tempered—to a man—in the cauldron of war, having unflinchingly facing Death many times before.

Spies are back at work on the Black Sheep ‘Drome and everyone’s at risk! The Black Sheep pilots seem to have lost their way—wings fly off their planes, pilots take their own lives—one by one, veteran pilots are going West leaving Quinn to try to get to the bottom of things and bust the spy ring wide open before the entire squadron is brought down!

Hate, treachery and those murderous pills were blasting disaster from within the hell-winging Black Sheep, while the Boche blasted from without—and Captain Quinn didn’t like his role as fly . . . to be strangled in this black web of poisonous intrigue!

• Download “Flaming Destiny of the Sky Damned!” (January 1939, Sky Devils)