Donald E. Keyhoe took up writing while recouperating from an arm injury he sustained in a plane crash in 1922 while serving in with the Marines in Guam. Primarily just to pass the time while convalesing, he found he was good at writing, selling several stories to Weird Tales. Keyhoe’s injury forced him to leave the military in 1923, whereupon he went to work for the National Geodetic Survey and the U.S. Department of Commerce. He kept his hand in aviation, though, by managing a national Good Will Tour of the 48 States by Charles Lindbergh in 1927.

Keyhoe’s first book was about flying Charles Lindbergh around the states on his tour. Published in 1928, Flying with Lindbergh was an instant success. Between the tour and the book, Keyhoe was becoming a household name. So it only makes sense that the newspapers would come calling. Newspapers were constantly looking for ways to boost and maintain their readership. And what better way than to serialize novels of the day. In 1929 Keyhoe wrote a story as modern as the times it was written in. Set against the world of the burgeoning Air Mail service, Dick Trent is a young idealistic flyer on his first day as a Air Mail pilot who soon finds himself involved in a web of love, larceny and murder!

• Download “The Sky Raider” Chapters 1&2 (1929)

Check out the half-page spread The Ottawa Journal gave the first installment of Donald E. Keyhoe’s The Sky Raider when they ran the series starting March 30th, 1929.

And come back on Monday for the next installment and each subsequent Monday, Wednesday and Friday until we reach the exciting conclusion!

After you’ve done your Christmas shopping and eaten your Thanksgiving leftovers, settle down to the first installment of our serialized drama—The Sky Raider! Here is some promotion from back at the time. From the front page of The Ironwood Daily Globe, Ironwood, MI the Monday before the serial started:

    Donald E. Keyhoe, the flying ace, writes from his own remarkable experiences the first thrilling mystery serial of crime in the air, “The Sky Raider.”
    Colonel Lindbergh recognized Keyhoe’s unusual skill and fearlessness by selecting him as his flying aide on his great ‘Round America Tour. Keyhoe is not only a pioneer in the world’s newest adventure the conquest of the air, but he is the first to write a mystery story of the skies.
    Colonel Lindbergh’s flying aide has written a gripping story of romance, adventure, mystery, devotion and death in “The Sky Raider.” Don’t miss the first of many thrills coming to you soon in The Daily Globe.

We’ll be presenting the first two chapters Friday! We’ll follow this with two more chapters every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until we reach the exciting conclusion on New Years Eve!

Ad for Donald E. Keyhoe’s “The Sky Raider” from The Ironwood Daily Globe
(Ironwood, MI; Saturday. August 10, 1929)

Starting next Friday we’re embarking on something new here at Age of Aces. We’re going to be posting a serialized story by Donald E Keyhoe that ran in newspapers back in 1929—The Sky Raider!

Ad for Donald E. Keyhoe’s “The Sky Raider” from The Ottawa Journal
(Ottawa, Ontario; Tuesday, March 26, 1929)

Be sure to come back next Friday for the first installment!

In honor of the release of Strange Operators, this time we’re featuring a novelette by Donald Keyhoe that appeared in the pages of Flying Aces the month before the first Philip Strange story. Keyhoe gives us a precursor of sorts to his Brain-Devil in Arnold Trent—a former Broadway female impersonator who took jibes and enmity from his squadron mates until at the end he flew into Germany and, posing as a countess, rescued a captured fellow pilot. Enjoy!

Ahead of trent lay the 77th—and escape from the mocking fate that pursued him. But one man who knew his secret waited on the tarmac.

• Download “The Hanger of Hate” (July 1931, Flying Aess)

The Strange Enemy of our new book Captain Philip Strange: Strange Enemies, Fraulein Doktor, pops up in the oddest places. Here she is causing trouble in Frederick C Painton’s “Soft Thunder” a year and a half before her first appearance in Donald Keyhoe’s Philip Strange stories.

We’ve posted a number of Frederick C. Painton’s stories in this space already including a few of his Dirty Dozen-esque Squadron of the Dead stories. He’s a great writer with a background in newspapers as this short autobiography from the April 1942 issue of Blue Book Magazine attests:

Click to enlarge in a new window.

Unfortunately he died of a heart attack on a Guam airfield while covering the Pacific war.

He was just a kid who played Tennis to those two hard-boiled soldiers—but there was stuff in his make-up that kept him battling in the flaming skies. It was a grim game they played—they stuck to the rules and played like sports, but they knew that the loser would find flying death. And then into their game kited a kid who seemed soft—but there is lightning with even soft thunder.

• Download “Soft Thunder” (December 1932, Sky Fighters)

If you have been following our dispatches then you already know that we lost our good friend Sid Bradd recently. Sid’s passing has left a void here at Age of Aces that just can’t be filled. And with Pulpfest 2012 happening so soon after his death, we were looking for a proper way to honor his memory.

Sid was blessed with an incredible loving family, and we decided that the best thing we could do would be to express our feelings in person to his wife Johanne. We called her, and as luck (or fate) would have it, she extended an invitation for us to visit her on Sunday during our return from Pulpfest. Most years, the last day of Pulpfest is kind of depressing, knowing that it will be another year before you can get together again with your fellow pulpsters. But this year, for Chris, David, and I, Sunday would be the highlight of our trip.

We made it to the Bradd’s home by late afternoon. Johanne met us at the door, along with her and Sid’s daughter Andrea. We presented them with a copy of our latest book. It was the last one Sid assisted us on, and we dedicated it to him. They were very proud of Sid’s abilities and talents as an aviation expert and historian, and we wanted them to know how much we appreciated his contributions to our work here. It was very moving to see their reactions when reading our dedication. It was clear how much it meant to them to know that Sid would be remembered by all of us here in the pulp community.

Johanne and Andrea brought us upstairs to Sid’s incredible aviation library where we sat and reminisced for a while. Johanne told us a funny story about his unabashed collecting habits. While on their honeymoon, he convinced her that he needed to stop at a bookstore. When he came out he had a couple pulps in his hand. When she expressed disbelief that he would interrupt their honeymoon to buy new pulps, he looked at her mischievously and said, “These aren’t new, they are just in better condition than the copies I already have!”

Johanne also told us how Sid crossed paths with some of the legends of both aviation and aviation pulps. He had met people such as Henry Steeger, Robert Hogan, Donald Keyhoe, and Charles Lindbergh. Johanne related a story about Lindbergh and Keyhoe that provided the most surreal moment of the day.

Before he became an author, Keyhoe was a military pilot. He was appointed to fly Lindbergh on his tour around the country after his famous solo flight across the Atlantic. Keyhoe published a book about his adventures on this tour called Flying With Lindbergh. Over the years Sid had used his friendly charm to strike up conversations with many people. On one occasion—many years after the Lindbergh tour—while Keyhoe was giving a speech, he sat behind Lindbergh in the audience.  Afterwards he got Keyhoe to inscribe his copy of Flying With Lindbergh.

His library contained many such books signed by some of the most notable names in aviation like Lindbergh and Earhart. One of the things Andrea wanted to convey to us was how meticulous Sid was with his collection and how much care he took when reading one of his books. She reached onto a shelf, grabbed a random book, and opened it. We were all stunned to see the title of the book she had pulled down. It was Flying With Lindbergh, and the page she had opened it to was the one that Keyhoe had signed. Andrea said that Sid must have guided her hand to that book. I totally agree with her!

Johanne related another touching story to us. Because Sid’s life revolved so much around aviation, he had a deep interest in all of it’s legends and mysteries. So while speaking about their father at his funeral, one of Sid’s daughters remarked that he would now finally know what had happened to Amelia Earhart, Lindbergh’s baby, and Flight 19.

Since you don’t visit the Bradds without having some of Johanne’s great German food, she went down to prepare a little something for us while Andrea finished showing us around the library. It seems Sid had a real passion for collecting in general, not just books. We saw his collections of old toys, old license plates, and old bottles.

Sid was an accomplished painter and there were also many of his aviation paintings hanging in various places around the library. Andrea was also kind enough to show us the unfinished painting Sid was doing for her when he died. It was of the living room of his childhood home as he remembered it. But he was dissatisfied with how he had painted his mother sitting at the piano so he had partially erased her image leaving a ghost-like form behind.

After eating dinner we unfortunately had to get back on the road. And while it was sad saying goodbye to Johanne and Andrea, we felt really good about having spent that time with them. Hopefully we can make that visit a regular stop on our Pulpfest excursion.

Finally, many people have asked us if we knew what would happen to Sid’s library. Happily we learned that it will be finding a good home. While the plans aren’t finalized, they are hoping for it to be the centerpiece of a brand new aviation library and research center at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island in Hawaii.

To get you excited about the new Captain Philip Strange book set to come out soon, we have a story from the fertile mind of Donald E. Keyhoe. This story has everything: An amazing new invention—smashing battles and cold-blooded murder high above New York skyscrapers—take-offs from catapults atop huge city buildings—parachutes coming to earth along the Great White Way. The first story of its kind and you’re sure to enjoy it!

We’ve posted several stories by Donald E. Keyhoe on the site and collected his Vanished Legion stories from Dare-Devil Aces into a volume as well as our new series of his Captain Philip Strange stories that ran for nine years in Flying Aces. The first of which appeared just a year after this story in August 1931.

• Download “The Sky Cop” (July 1930, Flying Aces)

Yes, the first book in our new series, Captain Philip Strange: Strange War is here and just in time for the 80th Anniversary of the publication of his first appearance in Flying Aces Magazine in August of 1931!

We were at the PulpFest in Columbus, Ohio this weekend premiering our new book. Strange War has six exciting stories of “the Phantom Ace of G-2″ with an introduction by Sid Bradd and all beautifully wrapped up in an exciting new design by Chria Kalb. Keyhoe’s Brain-Devil takes on all manner of pterodactyls, flaming fire balls raining down from the sky and demon aces with the help of Tom and Noisy Jay—the twin aces of G-2 affectionately known as the Jay Birds.

The Captain Philip Strange stories ran for nine years—from 1931 through 1939—in the pages of Flying Aces magazine. And we’re already preparing the second volume which will collect the Fraulein Doktor stories—Strange’s former love, now nemesis due to circumstances brought about by the war. (This book will be out later this year.)

Strange War should be available at Amazon very soon—it sometimes takes a day or two for them to add the book to their system. And speaking of PulpFest, for those who couldn’t attend, here are some links to download the various flyers he had out for people to pick up:

• Our General Aviation Titles Flyer
• Captain Philip Strange: Strange War
• The Adventures of The Three Mosquitoes: The Thunderbolt Ace

Age of Aces will be at Pulpfest in Columbus next week where we will be unveiling our latest exciting book—Captain Philip Strange: Strange War by Donald E. Keyhoe.

In Donald E. Keyhoe’s imaginings, the stormy skies of World War I are filled with giant pterodactyls, mystic fireballs and demon aces. But America has it’s own unnatural secret weapon: Captain Philip Strange. A mental marvel from birth, he was so terrifyingly effective that the Allies referred to him as “The Phantom Ace of G-2.” But to the Germans he was “The Brain-Devil,” whose penetrating green eyes were both a legend and a nightmare.

Keyhoe’s Philip Strange stories ran for nine years—from 1931 through 1939—in the pages of Flying Aces magazine. This first volume in our new series contains six exciting tales of terror skies! It also features an introduction by Sid Bradd and is beautifully wrapped up in an exciting new design by Chris Kalb!

So stop by our table and meet the crew and check it out or pick up any of our other titles at special Pulpfest discounts. If you can’t make it—keep your eyes on ageofaces.net to find out more about our new book.

“Nine Yank aces had gone forth to hunt that hidden base. And nine had returned—dying—their faces slashed and clawed—their lips muttering a single name, “Silver Face.” Who was this strange enemy? Why did he brand his victims in such a manner? The Allies wondered in terror as Dick Traine took up that grim hell trail—the trail of vanished men.”

Yes, Donald E. Keyhoe’s seven stories of The Vanished Legion from the pages of Dare-Devil Aces have been collected into one volume and is now available to order from Amazon. Surely you remember from History class reading about when the Germans found a way to turn Allied pilots into Dwarfs, in doing so, driving them mad and sending them back to attack their former squadrons or the grizzly green death—a gas that would render its victims dead in seconds, an unsettling learing grin upon their twisted faces or maybe you recall Germany’s plan to render the Allies defenceless with a ray that would block out all sight and sound. This is the history they don’t teach you about in school! So join Dick Train, Monte Prince, Bill Hammond and the rest of the Squadron of Forgotten Men as Colonel Meredith sends them out against some of the most bizarre schemes the Boche ever threw against the Allies in WWI!

Our latest book, Donald E. Keyhoe’s The Vanished Legion, will be coming out soon! The book collects all seven of Keyhoe’s tales of The Squadron of Forgotten Men from the pages of Dare-Devil Aces magazine.

Save for some strange, organ-like trills that had sounded from his radio,  Dick Knight’s flight had been uneventful. But Knight did not know that those weird tones he had heard were the ominous notes of an overture to a drama of death. Nor did he know that just five minutes before, a gaunt Prussian, with feverish eyes on a black clock, had whispered: “Five more minutes! Only five more minutes to wait after all these years!”

• Download “Hell’s Hangar” (July 1938, Flying Aces)

One of our favorite writers here at Age of Aces is Donald E. Keyhoe, but he is as well known for his UFO research as he is for the air war stories he wrote for the pulps. Here is one of his earliest books on the subject, published in 1950.

Keyhoe is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. He flew in active service with the Marine Corps, managed the tour of the historic plane in which Bennett and Byrd made their North Pole flight, was aide to Charles Lindbergh after the famous Paris flight, and was chief of information for the Aeronautics Branch, Department of Commerce.

• Download “The Flying Saucers Are Real” 1950, Fawcett Publications

The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin has a collection of The Mike Wallace Interview shows on line including the one he conducted with Major Donald E. Keyhoe in 1958.

The Mike Wallace Interview:
Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe
(March 8, 1958)

In the November 1936 issue of Flying Aces, Donald E. Keyhoe introduced Richard Knight, ace pilot and secret agent of the U.S. government. Along with his dame-chasing assistant Larry Doyle, he confronts evil-doers around  the world, flying his specially equipped (and heavily armed) blue Northrup.

Down upon the flood-lit Washington Airport came a sleek Douglas transport. And from it ran a strangely costumed girl wielding a glittering dagger in spirited attempts to protect herself from the burly men who sought to stop her. Only the lightning decision of a tall, well-built man in a car on the driveway saved her. That man was Richard Knight. And this surprising incident was destined to send him upon the most startling adventure of his career—an adventure which, wholly unknown to him, had begun more than half a century before he was born.

• Download “Vultures of the Lost Valley” (November 1936, Flying Aces)

Here is another high flying adventure of “Cyclone” Bill Garrity and The Devildog Squadron. For months the grim spectre of that German staffel had stalked up and down the Front, dropping its sinister messages of death upon British and French squadrons. And now at last it struck at the flying Marines. For out of the cloud mists over that Devildog drome a white-winged German plane swooped low, and from it came the threat of doom—a black coffin holding the body of a Devildog pilot.

• Download “The Squadron in Scarlet” (November 1931, Sky Birds)