“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 to vex not only the Germans, but the Americans—the Ninth Pursuit Squadron in particular—as well. Yes it’s the marvel from Boonetown, Iowa himself—Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham!

When Phineas’ joke on Colonel Guilfoyle gets the Old Man in trouble, he concocts an elaborate plan to try and get Garrity and the Ninth Pursuit Squadron off the hook. From the July 1931 Flying Aces, it’s Joe Archibald’s “Bargains fro Blois!”

It was a dastardly trick! On account of it, Colonel Guilfoyle, G.H.Q.’s weightiest chair-warmer, threatened to bust the Old Man. Somehow connected with it was the Old Man’s promise to make a spark plug-cleaner out of Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham. And we don’t blame either of them–do you?

• Download “Bargains for Blois” (July 1931, Flying Aces)

THIS Holiday Season we’re delving into a pair of scrapbooks that were created in the late 20’s and early 30’s by an industrious youth, Robert A. O’Neil, with a keen interest in all things aviation. The books contain clippings, photos and articles from various aviation pulps as well as other magazines. What has been assembled is a treasure trove of information on planes and aces of WWI.

Like many in the late 20’s and early 30’s, Robert O’Neil was fascinated with aviation and as such, a large part of both volumes of his scrapbooks is taken up with a cataloging of the many different types of planes. But amongst all the planes and air race flyers and info on Aces are some surprising items. Robert was also fond of including cut-outs from covers of all kinds of aviation themed magazines.

Here are a few along with the full covers Robert excised them from:

AIR TRAILS August 1931

POPULAR AVIATION September 1931

MODEL AIRPLANE NEWS OCTOBER 1931

SKY BIRDS August 1931

SKY BIRDS MARCH 1932

SKY BIRDS APRIL 1932

NATIONAL GLIDER and AIRPLANE NEWS July 1931

BATTLE STORIES August 1931

FLYING ACES August 1931

BATTLE STORIES May 1931

ACES August 1931

THIS Holiday Season we’re delving into a pair of scrapbooks that were created in the late 20’s and early 30’s by an industrious youth, Robert A. O’Neil, with a keen interest in all things aviation. The books contain clippings, photos and articles from various aviation pulps as well as other magazines. What has been assembled is a treasure trove of information on planes and aces of WWI.

Like many in the late 20’s and early 30’s, Robert O’Neil was fascinated with aviation and as such, a large part of both volumes of his scrapbooks is taken up with a cataloging of the many different types of planes. But amongst all the planes and air race flyers and info on Aces are some surprising items.

Turning the page, we find another letter removed from its envelope and scrapbooked in. . .

Opening it, we find a letter from “Sarge” on the official Popular Publications letterhead. Sarge was the assumed character and nom de plum of Eugene A. Clancy that he used for answering letters sent into Battle Aces magazine’s letters column, The Hot Airdrome.

SARGE AND THE HOT AIRDROME

SARGE was a grizzled old war bird often found downing Iotas at Mike’s Place with his distinguished friend Colonel Houseboat, one of the most important unofficial diplomats of two continents when not in the “hanger” answering the reader’s questions and spinning tall tales of his misadventures. Those misadventures start to take on a life of their own from month to month and often involve the likes of Clarence Hip Lee, the well-known Chinese diplomat and representative of the great Chinese general One Lung Gut, Abdul Benny Smid, the former ex-sultan of Morocco, Issac O’Connor, the Swedish ace, and sometimes the authors of the stories from the magazine!

Battle Aces’ letters column, The Hot Airdrome, was the meeting place for The Iota Club. It was a club that was easy to join—one need only need to send in the coupon at the end of the letters column that asked you to list which stories you’d like to see more of as well as your name and address. Sarge had a secretary he often referred to as a “Blonde Jane” who assisted him in sorting through the coupons and pasting them down in the Iota Club Book. She was of Norwegian decent and was not of fan of Sarge’s terse language or his ham-handed advances.

From the outset, the Iota Club seem to be on it’s way to becoming a real card carrying club like other pulp clubs. Sarge would reference that he’d give the readers full particulars about the new Iota Club in the next issue (October 1930) or that he was working on getting cards—they “weren’t quite ready yet” in January 1931, but would be sent out when they were. But these teases were never followed up on and the Iota Club remained a place where—as they state at the start of the column—”the readers of BATTLE ACES gather every month to tell each other and the editor to go to hell—on wings.”

Sarge’s load of tall tales and abuse were doubled up when Popular Publications started up Dare-Devil Aces in February of 1932. Dare-Devil Aces’ letters page, The Hot Air Club, was more of the same with Sarge dishing up over there as well as he did at the Hot Airdrome. Eventhough Battle Aces folded with the December 1932 issue (to be reborn ten months later as G-8 and his Battle Aces) Sarge wasn’t idle, as The Bull Flight Club took off that month in Battle Birds.

Like all good things, The Bull Flight Club closed its hanger doors when Battle Birds ended in June 1934 and Nosedive Ginsberg took over the bull sessions over at the Hot Air Club in April 1936.

EUGENE A. CLANCY

EUGENE A. CLANCY, born in 1882, was a New York City native and graduate of St. Francis Xavier College. He started getting his stories published in 1910 in publications like Harper’s Magazine, Short Stories, Munsey’s Magazine, Lippincott’s Magazine, Snappy Stories, The Parisienne Monthly, Top-Notch, People’s Story Magazine, and Complete Story Magazine to name but a few. It’s estimated he wrote some 1500 stories over his career.

By 1926 he started editing various aviation and war magazines for Dell—War Stories, War Novels, War Birds, and Navy Stories, before Henry Steeger brought him along when he left to start Popular Publications where he put him in charge of Battle Aces right from the get go with the October 1930 issue. From there his editing duties increased with the addition of Dare-Devil Aces in February 1932 and later Battle Birds in December 1932.

During the Second World War he served as executive secretary of the Quincy Council of Social Agencies in Massachusetts. After the war he held the position of South Side correspondent for the Boston Herald-Traveler until he passed away on March 29th, 1952 at the age of 69.

A LETTER FROM SARGE

EUGENE CLANCY replies to Robert’s request to get a copy of the June 1931 issue of Battle Aces and possibly pictures of war planes in combat. Dated July 23rd, 1931:

Dear Robert:

    This is to acknowledge receipt of forty cents in stamps for the June issue of BATTLE ACES, which was sent out under separate cover by first class mail and you should have received it by this time.

    The best way for you to get framed pictures of war planes in combat would be to write to the Signal Corps in Washington for the pictures and then have them framed. The Signal Corps has a fairly complete list of photographs which they will send upon request and you can have them framed at any art dealer’s for about seventy five cents a piece.

    Now lissen’ Bozo—no wise cracks about the blond jane. You lay off or I’ll fly over your drome and drop a load of TNT on your neck.

    Hope you get as much kick out of reading the magazine as we do out of putting it together.

                              Yours for happy landings,

                              THE SARGE

Clancy signed the letter simply as “Gene.”

   

THIS week we present another cover by Arnold Lorne Hicks! Hicks worked in the pulps primarily from the late ’20’s to the mid 30’s, producing covers for such magazines as North-West Stories, Navy Stories, Police Stories, Detective Dragnet, Sky Birds, Golden West, Western Trails, Love Adventures, and a couple covers for Flying Aces!

Creased!

AN ALLIED scout was struck by one of the bombs from the Allied machine it was escorting! It actually happened because the scout pilot, in fighting an enemy ship that was bent on destroying the bomber, got out of formation and flew into the danger zone below his own bombers. What really saved him was the fact that the bomb, set with a delayed-time detonation—so that it would fall well into the hangars before explosion—did not explode until it had fallen more than 600 feet below the battered scout. There was a time when seconds counted!

“Out of Formation!”
Flying Aces, July 1931 by Arnold Lorne Hicks

THIS November we’re celebrating William E. Barrett’s Birthday. Before he became renown for such classics as The Left Hand of God and Lilies of The Field, Barrett honed his craft across the pages of the pulp magazines—and nowhere more so than in War Birds and it’s companion magazine War Aces where he contributed smashing novels and novelettes, True tales of the Aces of the Great War, encyclopedic articles on the great war planes as well as other factual features. Here at Age of Aces Books he’s best known for his nine Iron Ace stories which ran in Sky Birds in the mid ’30s!

Among those factual features was “Is That a Fact?” which ran frequently in the pages of War Birds. It was an aviation themed version of a Ripley’s Believe It or Not kind of feature with hard to believe they’re true facts. Although started by Barrett, the feature was taken over by noted cartoonist Victor “Vic Vac” Vaccarezza in 1932.

The July 1931 installment, from the pages of War Birds, features Richthofen’s famous tri-plane, armor plating in planes and Zeppelin helmsman Muhler’s improbable fall!

Next Monday Barrett features a seaplane that got stuck in a wireless mast; a British pilot with 22 victories to his name, but is not considered to be a Ace; and an early version of the parachute!

Editor’s Note: Every month the cover of BATTLE ACES depicts a scene from a real combat actually fought in the War and a real event in the life of a great ace. The series is being painted exclusively for this magazine by Frederick M. Blakeslee, well-known artist and authority on aircraft and was started especially for all of you readers who wrote in asking for photographs of war planes. In this way not only do you get pictures of the ships—authentic to the last detail—but you see them in color. Also you can follow famous airmen on many of their most amazing adventures and feel the same thrills of battle they felt. Be sure to save these covers if you, want your collection of this fine series to be complete.

IN THIS month’s cover a B.E. has penetrated deep into enemy territory on a reconnaissance trip. While harassing troops it is sighted by a patrol of Pfaltz Scouts. The Jerries dive immediately, surrounding the lone Allied ship in a trap of wings and spitting Spandaus. Valiantly the observer hammers away at his guns and has already succeeded in knocking one of the Boche out of control when fire breaks out in the front cockpit. Leaving the observer to stave off the attackers with his blazing Vickers, the pilot straddles out onto the lower wing and continues to fly the ship from there, controlling it from the side of the fuselage.

The incident is taken from an actual combat fought in the latter part of the war. The observer was Lieutenant H.W. Hammond, R.F.C., who was awarded a bar to his previously won Military Cross for his part in the fight.

With his pilot, Lieutenant Hammond had flown over the lines and was well into Boche territory when eight German fighting planes dived down on them. The unequal combat began with a savage burst of steel and flame. Knowing their only hope lay in getting back across the lines as swiftly as possible, the pilot held the nose of the ship toward home while the observer blazed away at the swarm of Jerries. By skillfully directed fire from his guns, Hammond succeeded in shooting three of the black-crossed wings down out of control. But he himself was wounded in half a dozen places and it looked as if the remaining Boches would be finishing them off any second.

Then that horror of all airmen—fire—broke out. The front cockpit became a blazing holacaust that threatened the lives of both men. Climbing over onto the lower wing, the pilot calmly continued to fly the ship from there, manipulating the joystick from the side of the fuselage! In a long turning side-slip to the right, which blew the flames away from the observer and himself, they started earthward.

They crashed in No-Man’s-Land, where they were rescued by infantry.

The B.E. was a reconnaissance plane which proved very successful, also, in destroying Zeppelins. The name, B.E., at first indicated Bleriot Experimental, Monsieur Bleriot being credited with having originated the “tractor” type machine. But later on it took the meaning of British Experimental. It was developed in several series. A later type was numbered B.E.2, B.E.2b, B.E.2d and B.E.2e, the two last being built in very large quantities. The general type was also made along different lines, as the B.E.3, B.E.4, etc., up to B.E.12.

The observer for a reconnissance plane had a two-fold job; to photograph, and, if necessary, to fight. The ship was not exactly the cold meat that one might expect; it was equal in combat to two Scouts but was always their prey if outnumbered.

“The B.E. Fighters” by Frederick M. Blakeslee (Battle Aces, July 1931)

 
Next month, the cover design illustrates another type of reconnaissance plane, the R.E. 8, in a stirring incident that commemorates a deed of outstanding daring.

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)