J.W. Scott’s Sky Devils, Pt4
WE’RE back with Scott’s final Sky Devils cover! Scott painted covers for practically every genre of pulp—sports, western, detective, science fiction and aviation. Most notable of his aviation covers are the ones he did for Western Fiction Publishing’s Sky Devils, which only ran for seven issues. Scott was very adept at capturing people, so his aviation covers center on the pilots and gunners in the planes rather than the planes themselves for the most part. The issues contained no stories for these covers like other titles we’ve featured, but Scott’s magnificent work was just too good to not share! And besides, he captures the action so well, you can imagine the story that goes with the cover he’s painted.
The cover of the final issue of Sky Devils, the February 1940 issue, reused the painting Scott had done for the first issue back in 1938. Here is that final cover followed by how it was on the first issue!
Sky Devils, February 1940 by J.W. Scott
Sky Devils, March 1938 by J.W. Scott
Check out David Saunder’s page for J.W. Scott at his excellent Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists site for more great examples of Scott’s work!
“Wolf Worship” by Harold F. Cruickshank
WE’RE celebrating the works of 
Canada’s very own Harold F. Cruickshank this month. One of the most successful series of animal wilderness stories Cruickshank produced was the “White Phantom” series which primarily ran in the pages of Thrilling Adventures and West magazines.
Olak, the White Phantom, is an extraordinary wolf. He is large, handsome and is an albino. Because of his unusual coloring, the superstitious natives, Indians, think of him as allied with the spirit world and as such influences their hunting, the weather elements, famine conditions and so forth.
In the January 1940 issue of Thrilling Adventures, Tuc Cramer’s brother-in-law Tan goes searching for his lost friend Sa, son of Olak, the great White Phantom wolf king of Nahanni. Along the way he finds himself in the next valley over where the strange tribe there worships Olak-Achak—and about to be sacrificed to the spirit of the White Phantom!
Tan, the Indian Youth, Follows the Trail of the Son of the White Phantom!
As a bonus, here’s an article Cruickshank wrote about writing his animal stories that ran in the pages of the October 1944 issue of Writer’s Digest!
“Sky Writers, October 1940″ by Terry Gilkison
FREQUENT visitors to this site know that we’ve been featuring Terry Gilkison’s Famous Sky Fighters feature from the pages of Sky Fighters. Gilkison had a number of these features in various pulp magazines—Clues, Thrilling Adventures, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Western, and Popular Western. Starting in the February 1936 issue of Lone Eagle, Gilkison started the war-air quiz feature Sky Writers. Each month there would be four questions based on the Aces and events of The Great War. If you’ve been following his Famous Sky Fighters, these questions should be a snap!
Here’s the quiz from the October 1940 issue of Lone Eagle.
If you get stumped or just want to check your answers, click here!
“A Torch for the Damned” by Harold F. Cruickshank
SKY DEVIL
flew through the Hell Skies of 29 adventures in the pages of Dare-Devil Aces from 1932-1935. Cruickshank returned to the savior of the Western Front in six subsequent stories several years later. The first two were in the pages of Sky Devils (June 1939) and Fighting Aces (March 1940). The other four ran in Sky Fighters (1943-1946); and like Oppenheim had done with his Three Mosquitoes, so Cruickshank did with Sky Devil—he moved him to the Second World War where Bill Dawe changes his name to get into the air service and flys along side his son!
Here we have Sky Devil’s second appearance after his run in Dare-Devil Aces in the premiere issue of Popular’s new air anthology title Fighting Aces! In what is probably an unpublished story found in the files from the original run five years earlier, Bill Dawe—America’s Sky Devil—and his Brood had been ordered to Paris, to take part in a general allied army show that was being put on for the sole purpose of stepping up the morale of the French citizenry. Unfortunately, mock warfare turns into the real thing!
Captain Bill Dawe—you’ll like the guy—the way he fights in an open sky, the thrust of his jaw—the beat of his heart inside of his shirt! A fighting eagle brings his brood to rest, and lights the skies of the Western Front with a blazing torch for the damned!
For more great tales 
of Sky Devil and his Brood by Harold F. Cruickshank, check out our new volume of his collected adventures in Sky Devil: Ace of Devils—Nowhere along the Western Front could you find a more feared crew, both in their element and out. The Sky Devil and his Brood could always be counted on to whip Germany’s best Aces, out-scrap entire squadrons of Boche killers, or tackle not one, but two crazed Barons with an Egyptology fetish! But what happens when they find themselves up in a dirigible fighting a fleet of ghost zeppelins, or down in the English Channel battling ferocious deep water beasts, or even behind enemy lines dealing with a crazed Major Petrie? Plenty, and you can read it all here! Pick up your copy today at all the usual outlets—Adventure House, Mike Chomko Books and Amazon!
“They Had What It Takes – Part 41: “Lon” Yancey” by Alden McWilliams
We have arrived at the final installment of Alden McWilliam’s illustrated biographies he did for Flying Aces Magazine—They Had What It Takes. For this last article he features world famous navigator Captain Lewis Alonzo “Lon” Yancey.
Yancey became interested in aviation and the science of navigation while in the Coast Guard after a stint in the Navy. He quickly became a sought after navigator making his first trans-continental flight as a co-pilot in 1927. In 1929 he and Roger Q. Williams flew from Old Orchard Beach, Maine to Rome (in the picture at left, Yancey is loading provisions on his plane while German aviatrix, Thea Rasche looks on); and the first flight from New York to Bermuda in 1930. In 1938 he flew to New Guinea with Richard Archbold for the American Museum of Natural History.
He unfortunately died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 44 in 1940.
“They Had What It Takes – Part 40: Donald Douglas” by Alden McWilliams
Here we are with the penultimate installment of 
Alden McWilliam’s illustrated biographies he did for Flying Aces Magazine. And this time around we have that giant of American Aviation—Donald Wills Douglas!
Douglas was an influential American aircraft industrialist and engineer who founded his Douglas Aircraft Company in 1921 which would become one of the leaders in the commercial aircraft industry. He went head to head with arch-rival Boeing gaining the early advantage throughout production during WWII, but then sadly fell behind with the advent of the jet age. Douglas retired in 1957 and passed away in 1981 at the age of 88.
He was such a big figure in Aeronautics that Popular Science also ran an illustrated feature on his life and career in their December 1940 issue. Illustrated by B.W. Schlatter.
“They Had What It Takes – Part 39: Tony Fokker” by Alden McWilliams
With the 39th installment of Alden McWilliams’ “They Had What It Takes” in Flying Aces, he chronicles the man who is maybe the greatest aircraft designer of all time—The Flying Dutchman himself, Anthony Fokker!
Fokker was training as an automotive mechanic in Germany when he built his first plane—”The Spider”—in 1910. That plane was subsequently destroyed when his partner flew it into a tree. Fokker built another and managed to gained his piolt’s licence flying it. By 1912 he had started his own Airplane Company and quickly established a reputation for building some of the fastest and most stable planes flying at the time. One of the keys to his success is that he personally tested all the planes he designed and kept the pilot in mind asking their opinions on the planes. He sought out the advice of the men on the flight line and brought in the best engineers he could find.
With the outbreak of WWI, Fokker’s designs were very much in demand and soon the greatest names in German aviation—Voss, Immelmann, Boelke and Richtoffen—were being cursed at while flying his planes.
After the war he returned to his native Holland establishing a company there and later emigrating to America where his tri-motor planes helped establish the fledgling airlines and some of the great airplane records of the 30’s. Fokker unfortunately died at 49 in 1939 from pneumococcal meningitis after having been ill for three weeks.
“They Had What It Takes – Part 38: Grover Loening” by Alden McWilliams
Alden McWilliams continues his look at the great airplane designers in his “They Had What It Takes” feature from Flying Aces. It’s March 1940, and this time we have Grover Loening.
Grover Loening was a noted American aircraft manufacturer, who got his start as an assistant engineer to Orville Wright before starting his own company. He was known for test flying his own planes and at one time employed Leroy Grumman, William T. Schwendler, and Jake Swirbul who left to form Grumman. Of his many accomplishments, Loening was appointed chief aero-engineer for the Army Signal Corps in World War I and was chief consultant to the War Production Board, NACA and Grummand during the Second World War.
Grover Loening lived to the ripe old age of 87, passing away in 1976.
“They Had What It Takes – Part 37: Leroy E. Grumman” by Alden McWilliams
In this and the next few installments of 
Alden McWilliam’s “They Had What It Takes,” McWilliams turns his pen to those who designed the planes. First up, from the February 1940 issue of Flying Aces we have Leroy E Grumman (or Leroy R. Grumman as history records him).
Grumman may have started out as a Navy flier, but he went on to become one of the leaders in Aircraft design and beyond. The company he founded in 1930 by mortgaging his house and pooling that money with several other investors would go on to build some of the key planes of WWII—The F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat and the TBF Avenger torpedo bomber. After the war the company continued to supply the Navy with excellent fighter aircraft like the A-6 Intruder in the 1960’s and the F-14 Tomcat of the 1970’s, but sought out new markets as well. They developed the Gulfstream series of corporate Jets and the Apollo program’s Luner Excursion Module (LEM) that landed astronauts on the moon!
Grumman passed away in 1982 at the age of 87, but his company, which had been aquired by Northrop lives on as Northrop Grumman, one of the largest defence contractors in the world.
“They Had What It Takes – Part 36: Billy Bishop” by Alden McWilliams
This week we bring you the thirty-sixth installment of Alden McWilliams’ illustrated tribute to the pioneer fliers of the early days of aviation which he called “They Had What it Takes”. We’re up to the January 1940 issue of Flying Aces where McWilliams featured Canada’s Greatest WWI Ace—Billy Bishop!
William Avery “Billy” Bishop, V.C. has been credited with 72 victories making him the fourth greatest Ace of the First World War. He was made an honorary Air Marshall of the Royal Canadian Air Force and placed in charge of recruitment in 1938 and developed a training program for pilots across Canada during the Second World War. Stress would eventually see him resign his post in the RCAF in 1944, but remained active in aviation, even offering to return to his recruitment role with the RCAF with the outbreak of the Korean War (he was politely refused by the RCAF due to poor health).
Billy passed in his sleep in 1956 while wintering in Palm Beach, Florida and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Owen Sound, Ontario where he was born 62 years earlier.
“Raider Wings” by Arch Whitehouse
Tug Hardwick’s sleek Northrop was beautiful as it hurtled over the shimmering Sulu Sea—beautiful, that is, until its vitals were poisoned with whistling lead! Anyhow, this hot interview was something the Flying-Reporter hadn’t expected. Why, before his story was written it was getting punctuated—with bullets! But bullets or no. Tug was bent on tracking down his man. And he knew he was on the right track when a booming laugh brought forth—a little ship that wasn’t there!
“Rip-Cord Ruse” by Arch Whitehouse
The Griffon is in the air to solve another high flying mystery. When is a good dollar counterfeit? That was only one of the baffling riddles that faced Kerry Keen after he attended that fashionable night club—by request. Sure, bad money is queer, but some things are a lot queerer—getting offered half a million bucks just for putting on a 200-mile air express act, for instance. Certainly, that was one for the book. And as for the silk-hatted man of mystery who had invaded Graylands—well, that was already in the book!
“Balloons For a Breda” by Arch Whitehouse
Only one green balloon was supposed to be floating above the U.S.S. Marblehurst. But somehow the plans had gone haywire—for there were two! Which was the right one? “Coffin” Kirk had to choose—and choose fast. Because three lead-hurling Mitsubishis were roaring down the heavens! Still, none of it fazed “Tank.” He was always ready—even when Kirk deliberately put a Jap Intelligence officer on their own sky trail and presented him with—a bouquet of lavender!
“Savoias Out of Sapporo” by Arch Whitehouse
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…
“Bye Bye Blitzkrieg” by Arch Whitehouse
The Casket Crew blaze into action!
The Casket Crew was trapped—and they knew it! Instinctively, every man aboard first looked over his shoulder and searched that section of dural and oil-spattered steel near him for an answer. Wherever they looked, a blast of German machine-gun fire slapped through the panels and secondary covering from still another angle…
