WE’RE back with a third of three stories featuring D. Campbell’s The Three Wasps—stories plagiarized right from The Three Mosquitoes! So instead of the young impetuous leader Kirby of the Mosquitoes, we have the young and impetuous Gary heading up the Wasps. Similarly, Campbell changed “Shorty” Carn to “Shorty” Keen complete with briar pipe and eldest and wisest Travis to Cooper. This time we have their first of five appearances in Harold Hersey’s Eagles of the Air, a short lived pulp that didn’t even run a year. From October 1929 to August 1930, Eagles of the Air had nine issues; The Wasps ran in five of them.

Oppenheim gave us a real nail-biter when he first wrote it—Campbell’s version is just as nail-biting. Important, time-sensitive information needed for an Allied offensive against the Boche has been hidden in the crotch of a forked tree down a dirt path in the woods on Field 23. Intelligence operatives have been unable to retrieve this information. As a last ditch effort, they figure a lone flyer may be able to land on the field, retrieve the information, and get out before the Germans in the area could stop them. Gary is this flyer. Landing in the midst of German troops and retrieving the info is the easy part, keeping his two pals—Cooper and Keen from tagging along is the hard part!

Death rumbled in the guns of the waiting German infantry—but death meant nothing to Gary. He swooped down on the scene and rode his quarry to the kill!

• Download “Dangerous Business” (November 1929, Eagles of the Air)

Editor’s Note: Although Campbell does try to make this one more his own by changing Field 21 to 23, he is already starting to get sloppy as he neglected to change “Mosquitoes” to “Wasps” in several instances. These have been highlighted in red when they occur.

And compare this to Oppenheim’s original version of the story with The Three Mosquitoes!

Stacked Cards

It was Intelligence stuff, and Kirby could not even tell his two buddies. He took off alone—for Germany—and how was he to know that the cards were stacked against him? Another of Oppenheim’s breathless thrillers.

• Download “Stacked Cards” (July 1928, War Birds)

THIS week we have another exciting air adventure with Rusty Wade from the pen of Frank Richardson Pierce. Pierce is probably best remembered for his prolific career in the Western Pulps. Writing under his own name as well as two pen names—Erle Stanly Pierce and Seth Ranger—Pierce’s career spanned fifty years and produced over 1,500 short stories, with over a thousand of these appearing in the pages of Argosy and the Saturday Evening Post.

This time around, Rusty is faced with a choice—fly to Seattle to help his good friend Bid McCord win a government contract to develop long lasting airplane motors, or head off into the Alaskan wilds to save his nemesis, Hawk Breed, who’s had a bad accident and needs prompt medical assistance. From the pages of the November 1929 Air Trails, it’s Frank Richardson Pierce’s “The Boomerang Pilot!”

With disaster staring him in the face, “Rusty” Wade hurls defiance at the high gods of the air.

• Download “The Boomerang Pilot” (November 1929, Air Trails)

THIS week we have another of Raoul Whitfield’s ‘Buck’ Kent stories from the pages of Air Trails magazine. Whitfield is primarily known for his hardboiled crime fiction published in the pages of Black Mask, but he was equally adept at lighter fair that might run in the pages of Breezy Stories. ‘Buck’ Kent, along with his pal Lou Parrish, is an adventurous pilot for hire. These stories, although more in the juvenile fiction vein, do feature some elements of his harder prose.

In the November 1929 issue of Air Trails, ‘Buck’ and his pal Lou have been called in to help rescue some errant Movie men lost in the woods as a raging wild fire bares down on them! Can Buck and Lou find them before the fire does? Find out in “Flaming Skies!”

A groundling’s life and an airman’s code—Fate held the whip and “Buck” Kent fought for both.

• Download “Flaming Skies” (November 1929, Air Trails)

Since we’re deep into the dog days of summer, we thought we’d give you a shaggy dog story from the pen of Joe Archibald. Instead of our usual Phineas Pinkham mirthquake we have the story of Muggins, a scottish Irish terrier, that finds himself taken in by a squadron fighting a loosing battle with the Germans and turns their luck around!

What a buddy for a fighting, daredevil pilot! Yet this dog was air-wise, every inch of him—and he proved it through the snarling menace of a thousand flaming Jerry tracers.

• Download “The Sky Terrier” (November 1929, Flying Aces)