THIS week we have a story by Lloyd Leonard Howard from the pages of Street & Smith’s short lived Over The Top magazine. Over The Top was a magazine featuring war stories by the likes of Arthur Guy Empey, George Bruce, Raoul Whitfield among others. One of those others being Lloyd Leonard Howard who had stories in about a dozen of the 21 issues. Several of them featured a pilot by the name of Lieutenant Buck Manley and his pal Lieutenant “Stubby” Davis. Stubby doesn’t appear in this first story where Buck, separated from his flight in enemy hell skies, tries to get back to his home base—or at least friendlier skies—before his plane and his luck can go no further!

From the October 1928 issue of Over The Top, it’s Lloyd Leonard Howard’s “Buck Manley Goes Home!”

His motor going bad, ground machine guns barking at him and enemy planes swooping down. Buck had only headwork and grim courage to rely upon.

• Download “Buck Manley Goes Home” (October 1928, Over The Top)

THROUGH the dark night sky, streaking swiftly with their Hisso engines thundering, is the greatest trio of aces on the Western Front—the famous and inseparable “Three Mosquitoes,” the mightiest flying combination that had ever blazed its way through overwhelming odds and laughed to tell of it! Flying in a V formation—at point was Captain Kirby, impetuous young leader of the great trio; on his right was little Lieutenant “Shorty” Carn, the mild-eyed, corpulent little Mosquito and lanky Lieutenant Travis, eldest and wisest of the Mosquitoes on his left!

Yes! The Three Mosquitoes—the unseasonably warm weather has brought the Mosquitoes out of hibernation to help get through the cold winter months, at Age of Aces dot net it’s our fourth annualMosquito Month! We’ll be featuring that wiley trio in three early tales from the Western Front. To start things off we have a tale featuring Travis from 1928. There are no secrets between The Three Mosquitoes—if that’s the case, then what’s Travis been doing on his early morning test runs? That’s what the impetuous Kirby and his pal Shorty want to find out. And they get more than a proverbial worm when they’re up with the “Early Birds.” From War Novels, October 1928—

These three fearless flyers had sworn never to have any secrets, never to do anything alone. Yet here was one of them sneaking off on mysterious before-dawn flights. Why? Where? The best yet of the gripping “Three Mosquitoes” yarns.

• Download “Early Birds” (October 1928, War Novels)

If you enjoyed this tale of our intrepid trio, check out some of the other stories of The Three Mosquitoes we have posted by clicking the Three Mosquitoes tag or check out one of the three volumes we’ve published on our books page! And come back next Friday or another exciting tale.