THIS week we have a story from the pen of British Ace, Captain John E. Doyle, D.F.C. Born in 1893, Captain Doyle was a successful fighter pilot in WWI with 9 confirmed victories with 56 & 60 Squadrons. Near the end of the war, he was shot down and taken prisoner where they amputated his leg. After the war, he wrote three books, one of which was an autobiography, and 31 short stories for magazines like War Stories, The Scout, Popular Flying, The Aeroplane, Flying, Boys’ Ace Library, Mine, Modern Wonder and Air Stories.

Doyle wrote a half dozen stories for the British version of Air Stories featuring one Montgomery de Courcy Montmorency Hardcastle, M.C. In Scotland he was usually referred to as “His Lordship,” for he was the fourteenth Viscount Arbroath as well as the sixth Baron Cupar. Out in France he was just “Monty” behind his back, or “The Major,” or “Sir” to his face. Unfortunately, the powers that were did not approve of squadron commanders crossing the lines without their express permission. A major’s job should keep him on the ground, they ruled, looking after his unit. So Monty would have to come up with excuses to leave the base to take care of the Huns and relieve the boredom of command.

Our Monocled Major follows his own squadron’s flight as a straggler when they take on Von Vorbei and his Circus in “Stragglers Beware!” from the February 1936 issue.

The Commander of Jagdstaffel “43” had Evolved a Safe and Simple Method of Eliminating the R.F.C. in General and the Squadron of Major Montgomery Montmorency Hardcastle in Particular. But “Monty” was also a Man of Ideas and the Succulent Bait in his Trap for Fokkers was not Exactly what it Seemed!

• Download “Stragglers Beware!” February 1936, Air Stories UK)

THIS May we are once again celebrating the genius that is C.B. Mayshark! Mayshark took over the covers duties on Flying Aces from Paul Bissell with the December 1934 issue and would continue to provide covers for the next year and a half until the June 1936 issue. While Bissell’s covers were frequently depictions of great moments in combat aviation from the Great War, Mayshark’s covers were often depictions of future aviation battles and planes, like January 1936’s thrilling story behind its cover is a tribute to Pan American as it spans the Pacific!

Pan American Spans the Pacific

MAN has fulfilled one of the most ambitious dreams of modern transportation! He has conquered the Pacific. Giant, four-engined Pan-American flying boats now ply in regular passenger and mail flights from California to China, with intermediate stops at Hawaii, Midway, Wake, Guam, and the Philippines. People are flying across the world’s vastest body of water in some 60 hours of flying time, whereas hardly yesterday such a journey consumed the greater part of a month.

To be sure, people now make this momentous flight for the novelty of it. But tomorrow the whole matter will be routine. It will be accepted in the same manner as the rising generation takes airplanes and radio for granted.

It’s possible that the passengers who make the inaugural flights in the clipper ships will be under the delusion that they are pioneers of some sort who possess in abundance that fortitude required to undertake hazardous adventures. Unfortunately, however, they’ll be wrong if they think so, for the real pioneering will have been long since completed when they board the speedy aircraft that will link the Occident with the Orient. In fact, there will be no hazardous elements whatsoever attached to their venture—the real pioneers have seen to it that the line offers the maximum of security.

“Still, we might satisfy the ego of the initial passenger by making a concession. We might, with a stretch of the imagination, term him an armchair adventurer. And when we say “armchair adventurer,” we mean just that. For as the huge China Clipper streaks across the Pacific skies, our friend will be slouched comfortably in an upholstered chair, tilted so that the maximum restfulness is assured. From this point of vantage, he can gaze out of the windows at toy objects thousands of feet below—ships. Or he can read his favorite magazine or book, play a hand of bridge, write a letter, doze off for a nap, or . . . . oh, well, he can do any one of a dozen pleasant things. Be assured that Pan-American has it all figured out.

And our hero doesn’t have to worry about navigation, radio communication, gas consumption, engine control, wind velocity, or any other of the hundred and one things which are checked constantly. There is a first-rate pilot, co-pilot, and radio operator in the control cabin attending to all of these things for him. And those men are the finest of their profession in the world. They have seen years of experience on the extensive routes of Pan-American in the Caribbean and in Latin and South America. They have intensive schooling in flight and theory behind them.

But there are other and more important elements which enter into the picture. The officials of Pan-American didn’t decide overnight to establish a transpacific air route. It is much more involved than that. As far back as early 1931, the project was outlined and experimentation launched. Juan Trippe, president of Pan-American Airways; Andre Priester, the line’s chief engineer, and Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh together conceived the idea of the Pacific run and directed the actual work. There were many angles to be considered—route, type of ship, fueling bases, servicing stations, ad infinitum. By the merest chance, the islands which were the most logical stepping stones for such a flight are in the possession of the United States.

And so the work of fitting out the island stations was started. On March 27, 1934, the steamer North Haven steamed out from the Golden Gate with enough equipment on board to establish five air bases—and the bases were built and in running order in four months’ time. One of the islands—Wake—heretofore has been devoid of human life. Radio and power equipment as well as food and knock-down houses had to be transported and set up. But the work progressed step by step, with the result that in a few months’ time a complete island air depot existed on a speck of rock and coral which had never before supported human beings.

At the same time that the route was being studied and laid out, the problem of the type of ship to fly over it was being considered. A large part of the Pan-American equipment consists of Sikorskys and it was logical that a new Sikorsky be built for the Pacific route. About a year ago the S-42 was completed and given her trial runs over the already established Caribbean routes. When it was decided that the new ship possessed the requirements for a trans-Pacifie run, it was brought to the West Coast and on April 15 a crew headed by Captain Edwin C. Musick took her off the water at San Francisco and headed her for Honolulu, 2,400 miles away. Several test flights over the Pacific were made in the new Sikorsky, and so thorough had been the planning and laboratory work that even these first trips were accomplished exactly according to schedule.

But when regular mail and passenger flights commence, a ship other than the Sikorsky will be put into service. Early in October, Pan-American accepted delivery from the Glen L. Martin Co. of the largest flying boat ever to be built in this country. The ship has been christened the China Clipper and it is this new huge, four-motored flying boat that’will see service on the new route.

AND so it can be seen that if our friend lounging in a comfortable armchair tilted back at the angle which most serves his convenience and gazing out of the windows of the streaking China Clipper has any fears, they are only imaginary. But very likely he will still insist that what he is doing parallels the feats of the pioneers in the early 1800’s. And that’s okay with us and probably with the officials of Pan-American, too.

The real story of the trans-Pacific conquest, to our way of thinking, centers upon the formidable work accomplished in laying the foundations of the line. The real heroes are the squads of men who struggled in the face of many hardships to construct the island stations in order that those who now fly the long route may enjoy the securities and conveniences which are one with modern transportation.

Flying Aces, February 1936 by C.B. Mayshark
Pan American Spans the Pacific: Thrilling Story Behind This Month’s Cover

STARTING in the October 1933 issue of Sky Fighters and running almost 5 years, Terry Gilkison’s “Famous Sky Fighters” was a staple of the magazine. Each month Gilkison would illustrate in a two page spread different Aces that rose to fame during the Great War.

Although Gilkison was probably better known for his syndicated newspaper work, he also provided black and white story interior illustrations for pulp magazines. His work appeared in Clues, Thrilling Adventures, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Western, and Popular Western. Gilkison provided similar features in a few other Thrilling Publications—there was “Famous Soldiers of Fortune” and later “Adventure Thrills” in Thrilling Adventures, Famous Crimes” in Thrilling Detective, and the fully illustrated air adventure stories of Buck Barton “The Flying Devil” in The Lone Eagle! He signed most of this work with only his initials “T.G.” to maintain a low profile and preserve his reputation as a syndicated newspaper cartoon artist.

The February 1936 installment, from the pages of Sky Fighters, features Lt. Edward Roberts, Lt. Col. Robert Rockwell, Major Byford McCudden, and Rittmeister Carl Bolle!

Next time in “Famous Sky Fighters”, Terry Gilkison features Lt. Alan McLeod, Lt. Heinrich Gonterman, Captains Jimmy McCudden, Frank Hunter,and John Towers and Adolph Pegoud! Don’t miss it!

Eugene M. Frandzen painted the covers of Sky Fighters from its first issue in 1932 until he moved on from the pulps in 1939. At this point in the run, the covers were about the planes featured on the cover more than the story depicted. Mr. Frandzen features a battle between a De Haviland Pusher and a German D.F.W. C4 on the February 1936 cover!

The Ships on the Cover

THE De Haviland planes will always be remembered in the United States by the number of D.H.s this country ordered on such a grand scale when we entered the war. The early D.H.s are not given the credit they deserve because Capt. Geoffrey De Haviland might never have had a chance to build later models if his early one had not been so good. It combatted the Fokker menace back in 1916 when the Germans had things their own way in the air. When these D.H. Pusher biplanes came along the Allied airmen began to take heart. At last they had a machine that could outfly the Fokker which was the scourge of the Front. The D.H. Pusher was similar to the earlier F.E.s but much superior in speed. They had only two bays of struts and were simplified considerably in the tail boom construction.

The British airmen in the bucket seat of the D.H. Pusher on the cover had confidence in their machine when it proudly paraded its course through the skies. They had a speedy ship with a front gun to blaze the Germans from the air when those hitherto superior, overconfident airmen darted across Allied territory for a looksee at all the preparations being made on the ground.

On this occasion they met not one of Mr. Fokker’s products but a German D.F.W. C4 (Deutsche Flugzeug Werke). This two-seater carried a 200 h.p. Benz motor. The C4 had radiators on the sides of the fuselage directly in the slipstream which made it possible to use a small radiator to run a big engine, by which trick the Germans gained efficiency. The wings were not swept back but had dihedral.

Funny-Looking, But—

Funny-looking crates, those old flying bird cages, but some pilots who flew them still brag about them and swear that it was a wonderful sensation to fly a pusher. Of course, there was the uncomfortable feeling of having a heavy engine nestling behind your seat to squash you flatter than a pancake in a crackup.

When the tractors replaced the pushers all but a few aviation experts predicted that pushers would never more waddle through the air. But along toward the end of the war the British Vickers Co. came out with a single-seater Pusher with two front guns. It was powered with a better engine than the old Pushers used and could tick off over 120 miles per hour low down; and low down was the place it did its job, right over the German trenches. It was built for ground strafing and it was a honey to fly. Again the anti-pusher crowd said “It’s a freak, a last try using an obsolete principle. There ain’t no such thing as a good pusher.”

That old Vickers Vampire was just about 
the swan song of the pushers for many 
years. And then, nearly fifteen years after
 the end of the World War the French 
Hanriot Company brought out one of the
speediest, slickest-looking fighters of the
 year, the Hanriot H-110-C1. And believe it
 or not, it was a PUSHER that could slice
 through the air at the very nice speed of
 220 m.p.h.

Lightning-Quick Action

The German D.F.W. on the cover had a pilot who had knocked down several of the earlier slower moving pushers. He saw an easy kill and got careless. One moment the D.H. Pusher was in front of him. The next it had pulled a lightning-like maneuver which no ship other than a tractor had hitherto been capable of Lewis slugs cracked and rattled into the German ship, knocking the front gun’s firing mechanism cock-eyed. Then the stream of lead slid back and ripped a section of canvas from the observer’s pit. That worthy never got in a shot, his hands were too high in the air clawing at the clouds.

The British gunner pointed towards the Allied rear lines. The German pilot nodded his head and slanted his ship down, swearing solemnly that if he ever escaped and got into the air again he’d be mighty careful to keep out of the way of pushers.

Sky Fighters, February 1936 by Eugene M. Frandzen
(The Ships on The Cover Page)

AMIDST all the great pulp thrills and features in Sky Fighters, they ran a true story feature collected by Ace Williams wherein famous War Aces would tell actual true accounts of thrilling moments in their fighting lives! This time we have Canadian Air Ace Major Andrew McKeever!

Andrew Edward McKeever was one of the many daring young sky fighters that came from Canada to add fame and lustre to the deeds and exploits of the Royal Air Force, He put in almost a full year in the infantry before he was transferred for flying training. He joined the R.F.C. in December, 1916, was commissioned a lieutenant and sent over to the 11th Observation Squadron in France on May 16th, 1917.

As a two-seater fighter he was without a peer. Beginning his career of victories just as he turned 19, this brilliant young man brought down his first enemy aircraft a month after he went to the front. When the war ended he was credited with 30 official victories, more than any other two-seater pilot in any other army.

He won the British D.S.O. and M.C, and the French conferred upon him the Croix de Guerre. He survived the war without ever receiving so much as a scratch in sky battles, only to be killed in an automobile accident in his home town on Christmas Day in 1918. The story below is his own account of a battle with 9 Huns 60 miles behind the enemy lines.

TWO HUNS WITH ONE BURST

by Major Andrew McKeever • Sky Fighters, February 1936

IT WAS soupy weather when my observer and I took off. There was a drizzling rain and the clouds over the trenches were almost on the ground. But H.Q. had ordered a picture of an ammunition dump 60 miles behind the lines. I volunteered to get it, and took advantage of the soupy weather in sneaking into Hunland. All the way in we saw no Huns. And we saw none at the dump. I flew above the clouds all the way by compass, and nearing what I thought should be my destination I dropped down through a hole in the clouds to get my picture. Odd as it sounds, I was right over the ammunition dump. Flying without sight of the ground I had hit the target of my flight right on the bull’s-eye.

The pictures were easy to get. My observer snapped them at 500 feet altitude, then we turned back for the long trip home, only to be met by 9 Huns, who had apparently been waiting for us. Two of them were painted a brilliant red. The other seven were black. They lost no time attacking when we turned for our own lines.

“Shall I run for it, or shall we try to fight them off?” I yelled back through the phones at my observer. “They’ve got the speed on us,” he shot back. “We can’t run. We have got to fight!”

His own guns were stuttering even before he finished, and tracer from the leading Hun attacker, a red Pfalz, was clipping through my upper center section. I lifted the Bristol’s nose and aimed for the Hun’s belly as he shot over me. I had time for just one short burst. But it was enough for that Pfalz. It went over and nosed into the ground, bursting in flames when it crashed. Gilbert, my observer, kept the Huns from sitting on my tail as I split-aired and dove for the other red Pfalz. A black Fokker cut across behind the Pfalz just as I fired. The Pfalz pilot wilted if his seat. My burst almost tore his head off. His ship went down, spinning erratically.

But the strangest thing was that the Fokker behind him fell apart in the sky at the same instant. One wing came off and fluttered down slowly. The fuselage and other wing sank like a plummet. That single burst of mine had passed through the Pfalz pilot’s head and sheared the Fokker’s wing off.

Gilbert, meanwhile had got one of the Fokkers, trying to attack from the rear. But two more pounced in on him, while I dived for one below me. There was terrific clatter and I looked over my shoulder toward the back pit. I couldn’t see Gilbert. I turned back again to get my sights on the Fokker and spray out a burst. It never came out of the nose dive it was in, just hurled on into the ground. I looked back again, and was relieved to see Gilbert standing in the back pit. But he was pointing at his Lewis guns. They were useless. A Spandau burst had wrecked them completely.

I swung around again and went for a persistent Fokker who was trying to get at me from below. I got my sights on him and pressed the trips. But it was no go! My guns didn’t answer. I reached up to clear what I thought was a jam. But it was worse than a jam. The whole breech had been shot away. My own gun had been rendered useless while I was staring at Gilbert’s.

We couldn’t fight any longer, so I ran for it. We hedge hopped in and out of the clouds all the 60 miles back, with those four Fokkers hi-tailing after us. But the clouds served in good stead. The Fokkers followed me right to the drome, and didn’t leave until I sat down.

Death whispered in our ears all the way back, but my old Bristol had just enough speed to keep one jump ahead of the grim spectre. It was my hardest and longest fight . . . and closest shave. I don’t want any more like it. And for once Gilbert agreed with me.

Starting in the May 1932 issue of Flying Aces and running almost 4 years, Eugene Frandzen’s “Lives of the Aces in Pictures” was a staple of the magazine. Each month Frandzen would feature a different Ace that rose to fame during the Great War. This time around we have one of the great American Aces—Major Charles J. Biddle!

Major Biddle was one of that small number of American aviators who had actually had front line battle experience when his own country entered the war. Even before there were any indication of his own country taking part, he sailed for France and enlisted in the French Army, where he was eventually transferred for aviation tralning. When the La Fayette Escadrille was formed, he wan invited to become a member. In that organization he won his commission as a Lieutenant in recognition of his ability and courage.

When General Pershing formed the American Air Service and put Colonel William Mitchell in command of the air squadrons on the front, the able Colonel promoted Biddle to major and save him command of the 13th Pursuit Squadron, which he formed, organized and took to the front to make a distinguished record.

Though not supposed to lead his men in battle, he always did so. Just before the armistice, he left the 13th Squadron to become commander of the 4th Pursuit Group. By wars end he had amassed 7 victories and been awarded the Legion of Honor, Croix de Guerre, Distinguished Service Cross and Order of Leopold II.

After the war, Biddle wrote a book entitled The Way of the Eagle (1919) and joined the family law firm in 1924—becoming a partner by 1925 and a major force within the firm through the fifties.

He died in 1972 at “Andalusia”—the family estate on the Delaware River in lower Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania.

• Download “Lives of the Aces in Pictures – Part 44: Major Charles J. Biddle” (February 1936, Flying Aces)

As a bonus—

• Download “The Way of the Eagle” (June 1919)

“Haw-w-w-w-w!” That sound can only mean one thing—that Bachelor of Artifice, Knight of Calamity and an alumnus of Doctor Merlin’s Camelot College for Conjurors is back and this time the marvel from Boonetown is caught between two woman and finds himself the guest of honor at a T.N.T. party! From the February 1936 issue of Flying Aces it’s “T.N.T. Party” (with Phineas serving the lemon!).

Now that the great Mata Hari had been filed away via a shooting squad, the guerre would be a lot easier for the Allies. Phineas knew that. But the Boonetown Bamboozler didn’t know that his John Henry was on the flight schedule for a high altitude solo trip—one without his Spad.

• Download “T.N.T. Party” (February 1936, Flying Aces)

Frederick Blakeslee painted all the covers for the entire run of Dare-Devil Aces. And each of those covers had a story behind it. On the February 1936 cover of Dare-Devil Aces, Mr. Blakeslee brings to our attention a plane that sounds like it’s straight out of the pages of G-8 and his Battle Aces or Captain Philip Strange—The Vickers Vampire!

NEARLY every reader has heard the merits of the Spad, Camel, S.E.5 and Fokker DVII drummed into their ears by fiction writers. Authors, of course, write about the ships with which they are most familiar. The authors of the stories in this magazine were war fliers, and as the United States did not have combat ships in France, the Americans used the French ships, mostly Spads. That is why, in the majority of stories, the Spad figures so prominently and since the Germans had practically washed out the Phalz and Albatross in favor of the Fokker DVII by the time the American aviators became effective at the Front, naturally the DVII figures largely in these stories, since they were the ships the authors fought against.

However, we have painted on this month’s cover a little ship that happens to be a pet of ours, and I think you will agree that she’s a beauty. We recommend to authors the Vickers “Vampire”, which is, by the way, rather a sinister name. This ship is rarely heard of in fiction. It was a trench strafer and the first ship to make a name for itself in France.

Its low altitude speed was 121 m.p.h., which made it a pretty speedy target for the dreaded ground machine guns. Machine guns on the ground, however, were more dreaded than those of enemy planes. It also took a high order of courage to attempt it.

The “Vampire” was a pusher, driven by a four-bladed propeller. It was an attempt to solve the forward field of fire. The pilot was out in front of the top wing with the motor behind and machine guns in front, a nasty bus to crash, but then, aren’t they all?

“The Vickers Vampire: The Story Behind The Cover” by Frederick Blakeslee
(February 1936, Dare-Devil Aces)