AN OVERWHELMING majority of Oppenheim’s pulp output were aviation stories, many featuring our intrepid trio, The Three Mosquitoes. In 1933, when the Mosquitoes were winding down their adventures in Popular Publications aviation magazines, Oppenheim tried his hand at a new genre that was very popular at the time—detective fiction. Over the next fourteen years oppenheim would produce eighteen detective stories for the some of the leading magazines in the field—Dime Detective and Dime Mystery Magazines, Popular Detective, Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Mystery, Black Book Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Strange Detective Mysteries and Phantom Detective—as well as even ghost writing a Phantom Detective story (”Murder Calls the Phantom” March 1941).

We’ve covered Dime Detective Magazine’s “Honest” Glen Kelsey and Thrilling Detective’s Dave Rogers, State Trooper…

This brings us to Jonathan Drake, Ace Manhunter, from the pages of Black Book Detective! Drake appeared in three consecutive issues of the Black Book, but the three stories were written by three different authors. Oppenheim wrote the first of the three stories which introduced the character. Drake was a world-renown criminologist frequently called in to work with the police on their toughest, most baffling cases! The details of these cases were recorded in huge black loose-leaf volumes—his Black Book of Crime!

Drake had been educated in both this country and abroad and possessed a working knowledge of many branches of science, medicine and the arts. He had been thoroughly trained in all types of physical combat and possessed an extensive knowledge of firearms—and an expert marksman with every type of lethal weapon,

Drake lived in what had once been a millionaire’s mansion on upper Fifth Avenue—and transformed into a complete miniature investigation bureau! There was an immense library whose walls were lined with bookshelves that extended from floor to ceiling with practically every bit of literature that had been devoted to the study of criminology. A teletype machine connected directly with police headquarters sat on one desk constantly ticking out all of the vital and routing information that was sent out by the teletype operators at Centre Street.

In another room on the lower floor of the house was a complete file of descriptions, fingerprints and photographs of most known criminals. While in a third room was a morgue of newspaper clippings dealing with all of the important crimes that had been committed during the past twenty years. The entire fourth floor of the house had been transformed into a complete laboratory where Jonathan Drake used all of the most modern methods in tracking down various clues!

Drake was the type of man who liked to surrounded himself with a staff of capable assistants. Men both old and young who had been trained to work under his direction, and who were always on call when he felt their services were needed, but it was upon young Tommy Lowell that Drake depended the most. Though just twenty-one, Tommy had been with the detective ever since Drake had started his career. At that time he had been an orphan newsboy of eleven who had become a friend of Drake.

The criminologist had legally adopted the boy, given him a good education, and Tommy Lowell had developed into an excellent assistant. Red-headed, freckled-faced, he was bright and quick-witted and learned swiftly. Now the two of them lived in the big house on upper Fifth Avenue with two servants who took care of the place. Here they devoted their time to a never ceasing war against crime!

The Death Chair Murders

OPPENHEIM jumps right in and gets the plot going with a grisley electrocution before introducing our hero (a page long descriptive that is repeated word for word in the second story by Donald Stuart (aka Gerald Verner)). When a second victim is found by a manhole still hooked to the city’s electrical grid and burning, Drake tries to find a connection between the two. This leads to four other men—all six had worked a number of years ago for the Triconi mob and now a shadowy Executioner seem to be exacting revenge for the mob—at least that’s how things appear. Will Drake be able to discern the motive behind the murders, unmask The Executioner, and save the lives of the other four men? Find out in Ralph Oppenheim’s “The Death Chair Murders” from the pages of the November 1938 Black Book Detective!

Cold Hands of Horror Reach Out for the Innocent Victims of a Specialist in Slaughter—and Jonathan Drake, New York’s Ace Manhunter, Speeds into Action! A Gripping Complete Book-length Novel of a Grim Executioner’s Vengeance Voltage!

• Download “The Death Chair Murders” (November 1938, Black Book Detective)

More from The Black Book of Crime

THE Black Book of Crime records the sensational, successful cases of Jonathan Drake—New York’s ace manhunter—who brings the latest scientific discoveries, plus his physical strength and consummate skill, to bear upon the lurking crimes that fester beneath the surface of the vast metropolis.

When Jonathan Drake arrived at Backwaters he was not looking forward to his visit with any degree of anticipation. He had no prevision of the tragic events that would take place—but he disliked the average week end house party. This, however, did not turn out to be an average week end house party. From the moment he entered the estate of Montague Hammond, theatrical producer, he was gripped with a strange sense of foreboding. There was death in the warm summer air, bitter hate in the glance of the week end guests when they looked at each other. Then—murder!

Venita Shayne, most beautiful of actresses, one of Hammond’s guests, was the first victim. She was found in the study—in a swivel chair by a writing table, one arm hanging limply at her side, the other, bare to the elbow, flung out across a blotting-pad. On the edge of the desk rested the platinum head, twisted half-sideways. When Drake examined the corpse, he was horrified. The eyes were wide and staring and suffused with blood; the fair skin blotched and mottled and of a horrible liver color. One glance was sufficient to tell him the truth—Venita Shayne—beautiful no longer—was dead!

Venita may have been the first to die—but she was by no means the last during that week end of horror! And it took all the wit and daring of Jonathan Drake to combat the diabolical killer that hovered over Hammond’s estate on invisible wings of menace!

Every page of THE WEEK END MURDERS is crowded with suspense, action and thrills. It’s one of the most baffling of all the cases chronicled in the Black Book of Crime!

WHEN Jonathan Drake arrived aboard the Griffholm in New York Harbor, he was expecting nothing more than a routine job of investigation into the business of a Winter Olympic Star Sports Group. He had no idea that before he reached the upper deck he would be faced with the fiendish murder of the piquant and attractive Scandinavian skating star, Svana Hanson.

She was found just inside the deck window of her cabin, with a knife buried deep in her heart. Evidence showed that the knife had been thrown from a sports deck on which scores of people were congregated. Some of them still engaged in a last game before docking, others lining the rails for a first glimpse of New York. The trail of bloody death moved along through the streets of New York, stalked the covered runways of Madison Square Garden, and then made a final rendezvous at Lake Placid’s winter sports center!

Every page of THE WINTER KING KILLINGS is crowded with glamorous action and spine-chilling thrills. It’s one of the most baffling of all cases chronicled in Jonathan Drake’s Black Book of Crime. You’ll grip the sides of your chair as you follow a sensational series of events to their breath-taking conclusion in THE WINTER KING KILLINGS!

Hero Wanted—Apply Within

BLACK BOOK MAGAZINE first hit the newsstands with the June 1933 issue. For the next six years, it tried different approaches to success. Issue one began with a featured novel and several backup short stories. The following year it started promoting “three new complete novels” in each magazine, but abandoned that approach after four issues. It then tried shorter novelets, combined with short stories. By April 1935, the magazine went on an extended hiatus to return in January 1936 with a “weird menace” approach with scantily-clad women in peril or skulls and severed heads on the covers before going on a break again.

The magazine returned in March 1938 and returned to form with hard crime. It now had one main novel length story and several support stories. In an effort to get readers to return month after every other month, Black Book decided to feature a continuing character in the main novel. First up—A.J. Raffels, the gentleman thief, a character created by E.W. Hornung. the brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle. The Raffels stories, written by Philip Atkey under the pseudonym Berry Perowne, had been running in Thrilling Detective for the past two years in America and in the pages of The Thriller in England the previous few years before that. Sadly, Raffels only lasted two issues in the pages of Black Book Magazine. (Fear not, he would go on to run occasionally in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine until 1983!)

It’s go big or go home, so next Black Book went with a super sleuth character—Jonathan Drake, Ace Manhunter! Ned Pines had three writers—Ralph Oppenheim, Donald Stuart (aka Gerald Verner), and Charles S. Strong—each write a novel using the character. They’d run them three consecutive issues and judge the results as they always did by reader reaction.

When you have read it, please drop us a line and tell us what you think of it. The readers of this magazine are, you know, its real editors—for your comments, suggestions and opinions, as expressed in your letters, fix our policies. So remember—the more letters, the better the magazine—and let’s have your views on Jonathan Drake and THE DEATH CHAIR MURDERS. Thanks!

I guess readers hadn’t quite embraced the Ace Manhunter as the editors had hoped and in the “Off The Record” column in the March 1939 issue, the editors were already promoting Rick LeRoy, famous globe-trotting detective by Barry Perowne for the next issue. Perowne’s LeRoy had previously appeared in the pages of The Thriller.

He lasted one issue, and it was in the issue after that, July 1939, that fate met destiny and Norman A. Daniels, writing as G. Wayman Jones, introduced readers to The Black Bat who captured the reader’s imaginations and would go on to appear in every subsequent issue until the end in 1953!

Next week: It’s Dime Mystery Magazines’ Daniel Craig, the bystander!

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!

We’re back with the third and final of three Ralph Oppenheim’s Three Mosquitoes stories we’re featuring this March for Mosquito Month! And this one’s a doozy! Allied intelligence had learned that the Germans had built a great seaplane, destined to turn the whole tide of the naval war. This seaplane was not only a compact fighting and raiding ship, but it could make remarkable speed and cover remarkable distance. It was even rumored that the Germans proposed to send a whole fleet of these new planes across the Atlantic, with the object of raiding the American coast!

Many had been sent and tried to destroy the Reutz Aircraft Factory where said seaplane was being built and developed but were unsuccessful. Our intrepid Trio has been sent in a huge bomber alone, in an effort to get through and take out the plant. But when they are shot down 45 miles behind enemy lines—it’s Travis who comes up with a plan that will take them into the heart of the beast, through enemy jaws, to complete their mission and take out the plant! Read all about it in Ralph Oppenheim’s “Through Enemy Jaws” from the December 1929 issue of Sky Riders!

Into that maelstrom of screaming lead and crashing shells went the Three Mosquitoes, the dare-devils whom nothing could stop. Into that nest of spies and intrigue they dove, on the most treacherous mission they had ever had. Would the demonic, mysterious enemy seaplane gain through? The lives of millions hung breathlessly in the balance!

• Download “Through Enemy Jaws” (December 1929, Sky Riders)

AN OVERWHELMING majority of Oppenheim’s pulp output were aviation stories, many featuring our intrepid trio, The Three Mosquitoes. In 1933, when the Mosquitoes were winding down their adventures in Popular Publications aviation magazines, Oppenheim tried his hand at a new genre that was very popular at the time—detective fiction. Over the next fourteen years oppenheim would produce eighteen detective stories for the some of the leading magazines in the field—Dime Detective and Dime Mystery Magazines, Popular Detective, Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Mystery, Black Book Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Strange Detective Mysteries and Phantom Detective—as well as even ghost writing a Phantom Detective story (”Murder Calls the Phantom” March 1941).

Oppenheim had five stories in the pages of Thrilling Detective—the first two in 1936 and 1937 featured Dave Rogers. Dave Rogers was a motorcycle riding state trooper. In this second of the two published tales, a former state trooper, young Bob Hall, has returned to the station as a Federal Agent investigating a counterfeiting ring that is believed to be operating in the area. Rogers says he’s seen one of the three counterfeiters in the area, but is asked to give Hall a wide berth in his investigation. However, when young Bob Hall turns up frozen solid just a short time after Rogers has seen him speeding by on the other side of town, he throws himself into the case!

From the February 1937 issue of Thrilling Detective, it’s Dave Rogers, State Trooper in Ralph Oppenheim’s “Cold Steel!”

Dave Rogers, State Trooper, Battles Frozen Death in His Fight to Smash a Band of Murdering Counterfeiters!

• Download “Cold Steel” (February 1937, Thrilling Detective)

Next week: It’s Black Book Detective’s Jonathan Drake, Ace Manhunter!

“LET’S GO!” Once more, The Three Mosquitoes familiar battle cry rings out over the western front and the three khaki Spads take to the air, each sporting the famous Mosquito insignia. In the cockpits sat three warriors who were known wherever men flew as the greatest and most hell raising trio of aces ever to blaze their way through overwhelming odds—always in front was Kirby, their impetuous young leader. Flanking him on either side were the mild-eyed and corpulent Shorty Carn, and lanky Travis, the eldest and wisest Mosquito.

We’re back with the second of three tales of Ralph Oppenheim’s Three Mosquitoes we’re featuring this March for Mosquito Month! This one is epic! The “Flying Dutchman” and his Circus have been overwhelming the Allied squadrons up and down the Western Front with their sheer numbers. Needless to say Kirby wants to take out the “Flying Dutchman”—Kellar—and put an end to his Circus. They go up again each other several times with alternating fortunes and develop a mutual admiration and respect for one another. Unfortunately, the Western Front is not big enough for both Aces.

From the April 1928 issue of War Novels!

They were known as the “Three Mosquitoes” Kirby, Carn, and Travis—and they were famous all over the Western Front as the most daring three-plane combination that ever flew over the Boche lines and engaged the enemy planes in deadly combat. Kirby, the leader, was after Kellar, the German ace called the “Flying Dutchman”—and here is the story of what happened—one of the most thrilling and exciting flying yarns ever written! Zoom into her, gang!

• Download “The Sky’s The Limit” (April 1928, War Novels)

And check back next Friday when the inseparable trio will be back with another exciting adventure!

THIS year for Mosquito Month we’re going to focus on some of Ralph Oppenheim’s Detective fiction. An overwhelming majority of Oppenheim’s pulp output were aviation stories, many featuring our intrepid trio, The Three Mosquitoes. In 1933, when the Mosquitoes were winding down their adventures in Popular Publications aviation magazines, Oppenheim tried his hand at a new genre that was very popular at the time—detective fiction. Over the next fourteen years oppenheim would produce eighteen detective stories for the some of the leading magazines in the field—Dime Detective and Dime Mystery Magazines, Popular Detective, Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Mystery, Black Book Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Strange Detective Mysteries and Phantom Detective—as well as even ghost writing a Phantom Detective story (”Murder Calls the Phantom” March 1941).

Throughout all his detective stories, he had a number of detectives that returned in subsequent stories. These are the detective stories we’re going to feature this month. To get things going, we’ll start with the first of Oppenheim’s detective stories—”The Death Lady” featured on the cover! and in the pages of the July 15th, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine!

“The Death Lady” introduces us to “Honest” Glen Kelsey, a private dick who’s built his reputation on the strength of his trustworthiness! “‘Honest Glen Kelsey’—the man you can trust—three years with the Department of Justice, etcetera, etcetera.” His assistant, Mr. Peebles, was the direct antithesis to the young, broad-shouldered Kelsey, whose blue eyes, with their humor wrinkles, showed the lust for adventure—rather he was bald, near-sighted, and very clerkish, with spectacles on his thin nose.

George Cranford visits Kelsey’s office and explains the crux of the case:

“We have become what you might call country gentlemen,” George Cranford explained. “And since we’ve settled up there our life has been stainless; our reputation in the town is unimpeachable. But unfortunately,” his voice faltered, “there is something in the past, something which Stephen and I—Lord, I had hoped it was buried. But the past always comes back. Mr. Kelsey—the past always comes back. I was just beginning to forget—and then, only last week, came the first of the threats. Threats, Mr. Kelsey, from somebody my brother and I were both certain had died years ago—somebody,” his voice was a shaky whisper, “who has returned as if from the grave—from the dead—”

Cranford refuses to divulge too much information in Kelsey’s office and requests he come out to their Connecticut home, but entrust him with a valuable box before departing telling him to keep it in a safe place! Upon opening the box, Kelsey finds only small sharp rocks.

After narrowly getting crushed by a tree just outside the Cranford’s home, Kelsey arrives at the Cranford’s to find a a small group of suspects in the house: besides George and his brother Stephen, their niece from a third brother Ellen; “old family friend” Curtis Harvey; and the swarthy, almost olive-skinned Carlos, the new chauffeur.

Shortly after his arrival, George himself turns up dead and brutally mutilated on the porch! The sheriff is called in, questions everyone and locks down the house with Kelsey inside which does afford him a chance to get more information on people and search for information.

In addition to the question of who the murder is, is the question of why and or how the bodies are turning up mutalated. A question which is spoiled by the cover of the magazine which shows a man torturing another within a Iron Lady! That still leaves the questions of who and why—

From the pages of the July15th, 1933 issue of Dime Detective Magazine, It’s Ralph Oppenheim’s “Honest” Glen Kelsey in “The Death Lady!”

There she stood—that enigmatic murder smile welded on her lips—waiting to clasp her victims in a death embrace. What was this horror-creature who cast her torture shadow over the House of Cranford—whose lightest caress meant bloody mutilation for those she wooed?

• Download “The Death Lady” (July 15, 1933, Dime Detective Magazine)

“Honest” Glen Kelsey would return for a second and final time a few months later. Once again featured on the cover and in the pages of the September 15th 1933 Dime Detective Magazine in a story titled “Brand of the Beast”.

Next week: It’s Thrilling Detective’s Dave Rogers, State Trooper!

MARCH is Mosquito Month! We’re celebrating Ralph Oppenheim and his greatest creation—”The Three Mosquitoes! We’ll be featuring three early tales of the Mosquitoes over the next few Fridays as well as looking at some of Mr. Oppenheim’s detective characters. So, let’s get things rolling, as the Mosquitoes like to say as they get into action—“Let’s Go!”

The greatest fighting war-birds on the Western Front are once again roaring into action. The three Spads flying in a V formation so precise that they seemed as one. On their trim khaki fuselages, were three identical insignias—each a huge, black-painted picture of a grim-looking mosquito. In the cockpits sat the reckless, inseparable trio known as the “Three Mosquitoes.” Captain Kirby, their impetuous young leader, always flying point. On his right, “Shorty” Carn, the mild-eyed, corpulent little Mosquito, who loved his sleep. And on Kirby’s left, completing the V, the eldest and wisest of the trio—long-faced and taciturn Travis.

Let’s get things off the ground with an early Mosquitoes tale from the pages of the October 13th, 1927 issue of War Stories. The great German Ace Breikhart has been making his personal mission to down any observation balloon the allies have up. As a result, our intrepid trio has been assigned the task of protecting the observation balloons. An assignment Kirby finds boring and beneath his capabilities, until…

Breikhart, the greet German Ace, flying his darting little red Fokker, was bringing down captive balloons with devilish frequency. Again he outwitted Kirby—and now Kirby was in a savage, reckless mood!

• Download “Up and Out” (October 13, 1927, War Stories)

And check back next Friday when the inseparable trio will be back with another exciting adventure!

THIS week we have a story from the pen of the Navy’s own Allan R. Bosworth. Bosworth wrote a couple dozen stories with Humpy & Tex over the course of ten years from 1930 through 1939, mostly in the pages of War Aces and War Birds. The stories are centered around the naval air base at Ile Tudy, France. “Humpy” Campbell, a short thickset boatswain’s mate, first class who was prone to be spitting great sopping globs of tabacco juice, was a veteran seaplane pilot who would soon rate two hashmarks—his observer, Tex Malone, boatswain’s mate, second class, was a D.O.W. man fresh from the Texas Panhandle. Everybody marveled at the fact that the latter had made one of the navy’s most difficult ratings almost overnight—but the answer lay in his ability with the omnipresent rope he constantly carried.

Humpy & Tex find themselves in the brig, busted down for their shenanigans. They volunteer to dive down and unfoul the anchor seeing it as a chance to retrieve the cognac they had dropped in the harbor the night before, but end up abandoned without air on the ocean floor—definitely not the place for two airman! “Jawbone of an Ace” by the Navy’s own Allan R. Bosworth is one of the duo’s later adventures from the pages of the January 1935 War Birds.

Humpy And Tex, Flying Fish Of The Azores, In A Mad Scramble From Ocean Floor To Sky-Top For Cognac And Krauts!

• Download “Jawbone of an Ace” (January 1935, War Birds)

THIS week we present a cover by Colcord Heurlin! Heurlin worked in the pulps primarily over a ten year period from 1923 to 1933. His work appeared on Adventure, Aces, Complete Stories, Everybody’s Combined with Romance, North-West Stories, The Popular, Short Stories, Flying Aces, Sea Stories, Top-Notch, War Stories, Western Story, and here, the cover of the October 1931 Sky Birds!

The Giant Killer

IT IS interesting to note that comparatively few Zeppelin raids were made on Paris during the war. Early in the big conflict the French brought down a big gas-bag, and the Germans decided to devote their raiding to night Gotha patrols or hurling giant shells from the security of the wood that hid Big Bertha. The main air defense of Paris in the early days was carried out by the old Maurice and Henry Farman ships. These rare old pushers, weird as they might seem today, were too much for the Zeps. Our cover this month shows a gunner in a Henry Farman “shorthorn” putting the fatal burst into a big raider on its way to bomb Paris. The airmen are wearing the famous old crash helmets that all wise flyers donned before taking the air, prior to 1915 or 16.

“The Giant Killer”
Sky Birds, October 1931 by Colcord Heurlin

THIS week we have a short story by renowned pulp author Frederick C. Davis. Davis is probably best remembered for his work on Operator 5 where he penned the first 20 stories, as well as the Moon Man series for Ten Detective Aces and several other continuing series for various Popular Publications. He also wrote a number of aviation stories that appeared in Aces, Wings and Air Stories.

This week’s story features that crack pilot for World News Reel, the greatest gelatine newspaper that ever flashed on a silver screen—Nick Royce! Davis wrote twenty stories with Nick for Wings magazine from 1928-1931.

Tip Top, one of the biggest producers in the movie field, is looking to add a news reel to their releases and want to buy up one of the present independent movie reel producers and it’s down to Compass and World News Reel. Which ever company can out perform the other and provide the best news reels will get the gig—only problem is, someone’s on the payroll of Compass at World News Reel and causing trouble. From the April 1928 Wings, it’s Frederick C. Davis’ “Winner Take All!”

Two flyers of the newsreel wage an air-feud in the clouds, and over the flame-belching tanks of the oil fields Nick Royce, sky-eater, plays his ace-in-the-hole.

• Download “Winner Take All” (April 1928, Wings)

FREQUENT visitors to this site know that we’ve been featuring Terry Gilkison’s Famous Sky Fighters feature from the pages of Sky Fighters. Gilkison had a number of these features in various pulp magazines—Clues, Thrilling Adventures, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Western, and Popular Western. Starting in the February 1936 issue of Lone Eagle, Gilkison started the war-air quiz feature Sky Writers. Each month there would be four questions based on the Aces and events of The Great War. If you’ve been following his Famous Sky Fighters, these questions should be a snap!

Here’s the quiz from the July 1936 issue of Lone Eagle.

If you get stumped or just want to check your answers, click here!

THIS week we have a story from the short-lived Sky Devils magazine by Anthony Field. Anthony Field was a pseudonym used by Anatole Feldman who specialized in gangland fiction—appearing primarily in Harold Hersey’s gang pulps, Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, and Gangland Stories. His best-known creation is Chicago gangster Big Nose Serrano. But he also wrote a number of aviation stories including four stories for Sky Devils featuring Quinn’s Black Sheep Squadron—this is the second of those four stories!

Quinn’s Black Sheep is another of those squadrons populated with other squadron’s troublemakers like Rossoff’s Hell-Cats or Keyhoe’s Jailbird Flight or any number of other examples. It seemed every author had a series with a black sheep squadron.

Captain Jack Quinn, brought in for disciplinary action, manages to convince the General that he could solve a lot of his headaches by hand-picking the problem aces out of other squadrons and forming an essentially independent squadron to take on the Boche. Thus, Quinn’s flight was a crew of hard bitten aces who had been tempered—to a man—in the cauldron of war, having unflinchingly facing Death many times before.

There are rumors of a spy on the Black Sheep ‘drome and when a mysterious woman arrives, Quinn finds himself thrown into the unfamiliar world of intrigue in an effort to find out who the woman is—and who the spy is and finds out there is a sinister plan afoot to wipe out the Allied High Command!

Once again the hell-diving Black Sheep Squadron rears through screaming, shell-torn war skies! Some member of that infamous Black Sheep Squadron was a spy who had sold their honor to hell—so theirs was a double mission of hate as they roared through flaming skies in a mad attempt to save the Allied High Command from raw annihilation!

• Download “Flaming Destiny of the Sky Damned!” (July 1938, Sky Devils)

THIS week we present one of Paul Bissell’s covers for Sky Birds! Bissell is mainly known for doing the covers of Flying Aces from 1931 through 1934 when C.B. Mayshark took over duties. He also did covers for brother magazine Sky Birds. For the September 1931 cover Bissell put us right in the action with some artillery spotters over enemy lines!

The Fighting Spotters

PROBABLY no group of fighters in the World War did as much and got so little credit as the artillery spotters pictured on this month’s cover. These men sat over the German lines and provided “eyes” for the big* guns that pounded the enemy dumps, transport, front-line redoubts and artillery bases.

The heroes of the air today are those pilots who fought in sleek, high-speed scouts, but the artillery-spotting airmen had to do their important work in slow, unwieldy, low-powered ships, and had to rely on what little protection they might expect from the high-flying scouts and fighters above.

Hundreds of budding airmen who trained and prepared themselves for action against the German circuses found themselves unceremoniously dumped into the cockpits of R.E.8s and told to go off and control a “shoot.” This meant that a pilot and observer would leave their airdrome, fly out over the battery they were to control, lower their wireless aerial and pick up the battery control dugout.

Once in contact they would fly out over the target and call for the first shot. This would be observed and the corrections made, by wireless. Shot after shot would be pounded out and corrected until the target was “hit.” All this would be carried out while the ship was flying in a broad figure-8 track. One half of the figure-8 would be over the German lines and the other over Allied territory.

Needless to state, these “shoots” were not always staged under tea-party conditions. Often the spotting ship would be attacked while completing the correcting process as in our cover, but in all cases, the spotters stuck it out until they had registered a “hit” and had sent out their command for “salvo.” Grimly they hung on, the observer handling his Lewis gun and telegraph key, fighting and dying amid a wild fanfare of machine-gun bullets and the screaming wail of the shells that were being vomited out from steel muzzles at the request of the fighting observer, who in all probability was taking a torrent of enemy fire as his fingers tapped out the all-important corrections for the gunners many miles behind the lines.

Little honor, little glory and often the gibes of fellow flyers who were lucky enough to be flying faster and more up-to-date ships was their lot, but they accepted their Jobs and did them well. They lived and died, true examples of the old creed of the flying men: “We Are the Eyes of the Army.”

“The Fighting Spotters”
Sky Birds, September 1931 by Paul J. Bissell

FROM the pages of the December 1934 number of Sky Fighters:

Editor’s Note: We feel that this magazine has been exceedingly fortunate in securing Lt. Edward McCrae to conduct a technical department each month. It is Lt. Mcrae’s idea to tell us the underlying principles and facts concerning expressions and ideas of air-war terminology. Each month he will enlarge upon some particular statement in the stories of this magazine. Lt. MaCrae is qualified for this work, not only because he was a war pilot, but also because he is the editor of this fine magazine.

The Instrument Board

by Lt. Edward McCrae (Sky Fighters, December 1934)

ALL RIGHT, you ring-tailed gazookuses, the class will now come to attention, which is what I don’t want anything but. Mary, take that gum out of your mouth and stick it back of your ear until school is over. And Johnny, you quit dropping those fishing worms down Irene’s back. Put ’em, in your pocket until you find a fish that wants them.

So, clean out your ears and get ready to do some concentrated listening, because this time I am going to tell you some stuff that would sound awfully technical if anybody except myself were to try to explain it to you. But when I start to talk, even you dumbkopfs ought to be able to understand it.

“Where Am I At?”

The subject of the sermon, today is taken from the first book of Aviatus, second chapter and third verse. It says here, “And the aviator came unto me saying, ‘Where am I at?’ And I answered unto him thusly, saying, ‘Learn to read your instruments and thou wilst know where thou art at’.”

And so we plungeth inneth.

Now whether you knot-heads know it or not, there is a difference between an airplane and an automobile. The point is that a car buzzes along on a highway and if something goes wrong you can pull over to the side of the road and find out what it is and maybe get towed in. And if you get lost on the road you can ask where the right road is and get on it.

When Things Go Wrong

Well, sir, believe it or not, you can’t do that in an airplane. If you are in the air over the German lines and something goes wrong with the ship you don’t want to pull over to some German camp and get them to fix you up so you can go on your way. And if you happen to get lost, you don’t want to stop some Heinie and ask him where you can find the Hamfstengle Air Circus which you were sent out to bomb.

All of which means that since we couldn’t stop to make repairs and ask questions we had to carry our information along with us when we went out sniping Heinies. We carried that information on the instrument board, in the form of dials with needles and other kinds of indicators.

Times Have Changed

It wasn’t like it is now. In these days you can look at the instrument board of a good ship and see a record of what your Aunt Mehitabell had for breakfast and how it is affecting her indigestion. Today they have turn and bank indicators that register the angle of the bank before your eyes. During the war that was registered on the seat of our pants. If we were slipping down to the left we felt it by sliding in the seat and so on.

But we had instruments. And they fall into two groups, according to their purpose. One group is for the purpose of knowing how the motor is doing at all times so we wouldn’t have to stop and get a Boche to do a repair job for us. And the other group was for the purpose of telling us where we were or ought to be so we wouldn’t have to ask a German to direct us on our way.

A Handful of Gadgets

For the engine we had a switch to turn it on and off, a tachometer to record the number of revolutions of the motor, fuel and oil gauges, etc.

And for getting around places and knowing where we were, we had an air speed indicator, an altimeter, a compass and a clock.

By the side of a list of present day instruments you would get the impression that this little handful of gadgets wouldn’t be enough to successfully navigate a kiddie-kar. But we got there, folks. Ask ’em if we didn’t!

Pretty Bare, Eh?

Take a look at Figure 1 and you will get some kind of an idea what the board of one of the old crates looked like. Looks pretty bare, doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t the face of the instruments that did the work, it was the insides of them that performed the job. And if you want to know something about the problems of the birds that had the task of devising ways for us to know what was going on in the ship, just take a look inside one or two of those instruments. It was those tiny little hairsprings and needles that won the war.

That’s a big statement, but I can prove it. There’s no use in going into detail as to that, so I’ll get on with the lesson and show you how they did it.

How They Worked

There are some of the instruments that could be adapted from automobile and other uses. Things like thermometers and the compass and the tachometer. But in case you didn’t happen to look into the matter the last time you were playing around an instrument factory I’ll tell you how they worked.

A tachometer, or “tack” or a “/*!!&* tack” as it was called when it wasn’t working properly was a simple device adopted from the speedometer of an automobile or any other machine that had to record the number of revolutions a wheel or anything made. You merely had a flexible shaft with one end attached to or in contact with the crankshaft of the engine. The other end had a governor on it. The faster the engine turned the more the governor spread out. Then the amount of spread was recorded on the dial which is marked off in thousands of revolutions a minute. The tach didn’t tell you how fast you were going, but only how fast the engine was turning. You knew in advance how many revs it should turn for this and that, for climbing, for gliding, straight flight, and so forth. (Figure 2, if you’re interested.)

And while we’re on the simple things, we might clean up the thermometer. That little gadget ordinarily operates by having a tube with some kind of liquid like mercury or sulphur dioxide or methyl chloride in it. All these liquids expand under heat. As they expand they naturally rise up in the tube and the readings are marked on the tube.

The Distant Type

But an engine thermometer had to be read back in the cockpit, so they made a variation of this principle which comes under the head of “distant type thermometers.” If you will take your eyes off that circus parade that’s passing and look at Figure 3 you’ll see what one looks like.

What happened when it was supposed to register the temperature of the oil and the water and those things that were not supposed to get too hot if you wanted to stay in the air was this:

The part called the bulb contained methyl chloride which makes a vapor when it gets hot. The juice creates the vapor which then fills the tube running to the dial (the capillary tube) and that then exerts pressure on the Bourdon Tube which is that curled part with the needle attached. The needle then registers the temperature as indicated by the amount of pressure in the Bourdon Tube.

I’ve got to hurry through this lesson because I’ve got a date with a blonde who is “just crazy about flyers” so I’ll first tell you that the air speed indicator also works by pressure, and then explain how the pressure gauge system works so you will never forget it.

Air Speed Indicator

Now, to get the recording of the amount of speed with which you are passing through the air you have an air speed indicator. It is a combination of a Bourdon Tube and what is called a Pitot tube.

The Pitot tube is hollow and usually runs out a wing, up a strut, and ends by sticking out forward from the strut. You’d think it was a piece of gas line that was broken off. But here’s what you’ve got. When the ship is flying forward there is naturally head resistance. That open-ended tube sticking straight forward into the wind has the increased wind pressure entering the hole in it. Naturally the pressure is greater than if the ship was standing still. The ship registers no miles per hour when it is still, but as it increases speed, the air pressure increases and that in turn increases the pressure inside the Bourdon Tube and makes the dial tell you how fast you are going through the air, not from point to point on the ground.

Stay Awake

Now there are other gauges that work by pressure. They all usually use the Bourdon Tube system, or a diaphram system. So, wake up long enough to look at Figure 4, and try to stay awake long enough for me to explain it to you, and then you will know how they work.

You see that thing like a question mark? That’s the Bourdon Tube. It is hollow and made out of bronze or brass. The pressure from the thermometer or Pitot Tube, or hot oil or hot water or what have you comes in through the tube connection and enters the Bourdon Tube.

The pressure tries to straighten out the question mark and make an exclamation point out of it, like what goes after the word damn.

Speaking of Throttles

But was that air pressure or vapor pressure’s face red? The end of the tube was tied to a little gear apparatus and that was geared to a dial. So as the pressure huffs and puffs and tries to blow the house down it really succeeds only in straightening out the question mark a little bit, and in doing that, it makes the needle turn around in front of the dial and the needle says to the flyer, ‘‘watch out, your water’s getting too hot. Better throttle down.”

And in speaking of throttles, you buzzards beat it before my date shows up or I’ll throttle the whole bunch of you.

Scram!

“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!

Phineas Pinkham meets his match when the 9th Pursuit’s latest replacement in the form of one Lieutenant Monk Flanagan, once known as Perfesser Merlin the Great of the Hipperdrome Vodyville Circuit, arrives. Poor Phineas gets a taste of his own medicine—he can certainly dish it up, but can he take it? Find out in Joe Archibald’s latest Phineas mirthquake, “Pride of the Pinkhams” from the May 1932 Flying Aces.

One Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham to a squadron would be enough in any man’s war—according to Major Rufus Garrity. But somebody back at Wing thought differently when he assigned Lieutenant Monk Flanagan, late of the Hippodrome Vaudeville Circuit, to the Ninth Pursuit!

• Download “Pride of the Pinkhams” (May 1932, Flying Aces)

THIS week we present one of Paul Bissell’s covers for Sky Birds! Bissell is mainly known for doing the covers of Flying Aces from 1931 through 1934 when C.B. Mayshark took over duties. He also did covers for brother magazine Sky Birds. For the August 1931 cover Bissell put us right in the action as a pilot whose observer had been killed during a dogfight is forced to lean back in his cockpit and take over the observer’s gun!

Rear Gun Action

TWO-SEATER pilots were not always confined to “action front.” There were times when they had to be able to use the rear Lewis—many times, in fact. This month’s cover shows a pilot whose observer had been killed during a dogfight, and as most of the opposition was coming from the rear, and he had little or no chance to out-maneuver the Jerry ships, the pilot was forced to lean back in his cockpit and take over the observer’s gun.

As long as there were cartridges in the drum, the pilot could put up some sort of a defense, but once the drum was expended he was forced to go back to his attempts to get away by means of the joystick and throttle.

Artillery-spotting ships, that were often suddenly attacked by the enemy scouts, ran into situations of this kind many times. And on the other hand, the observer was often called upon to take over and attempt to fly the ship back when the pilot was killed. Neither situation was any too pleasant.

“Rear Gun Action”
Sky Birds, August 1931 by Paul J. Bissell