At PulpFest 2025, we got the third volume of Donald Keyhoe’s Devildog Squadron series, The Mystery Meteor, from Age of Aces Books, after skipping a year.
This was his second series, started in 1931, the same month as Philip Strange. It lasted for 24 stories from 1931 to ’35 in Sky Birds, published by Magazine Publishers (aka Ace), with the magazine only lasting one issue after the last story appeared. This is the third of four planned volumes, with the next six stories.
The series is set in World War I and centers around a squadron of Marine pilots who have weird adventures against bizarre foes. While the squadron has several members, as this is a series of short stories, only a few characters are named or have major parts in each story. In all, there will usually be one character who is mainly featured in that story.
Villains are various spies and German agents, and, more importantly, some new and bizarre German staffel or weapon, led by a particular foe. But so far, we haven’t gotten any returns of the villains, though I found it funny that two stories gave the villains the same name, even though they are clearly different characters.
As an air-war series, planes and flying always have a big part of the story. The Devildogs fly SPADs; the Germans fly Fokker and Albatros fighters and Gotha bombers. The English have their Sopwith Camels. Sadly, the particular plane models aren’t given. We also hear about their guns: Spandau and Vickers. And I have to think the flying scenes are accurate, as Keyhoe was a Marine pilot.
And the series seemed to be popular. As I reviewed the cover art for the pulp magazine, I saw that Donald Keyhoe was almost always listed on the covers, and starting in 1933, the issues with the Devildog stories always list this in larger type, sometimes with the title, above the listings of Joe Archibald and Arch Whitehouse, both of whom wrote aviation series in many of the same magazines as Keyhoe. Each had their own long-running series.
The squadron is led by Maj. “Cyclone Bill” Garrity. He is your typical hard-boiled commander of the 28th Pursuit, overseeing about 30 Marines on the Western Front. Not all are named or featured in each story, and several will die along the way. Some of the other characters include second-in-command Hick Jones; Lt. Larry Brent, the youthful leader of B Flight; “Lucky” Lane, a man who lives up to that; and the Three Lunatics: Mack Tuttle, Benny Sparks, and the big Irish lug, Pug Flanagan.
This time, we get the next five stories from August 1934 through January 1935. Surprisingly, most of these appeared in sequential issues instead of having gaps. This hadn’t happened since early in the series.
In “Hangars of Hell” (August 1934), Lucky Lane is sent to check out the status of a German air base. Getting there, he finds it abandoned; worse, there are strange signs of small fires and several dead bodies. What has he discovered? Returning to base to report, he sees a German plane high above. Attacking it, a strange rain of fire comes from one of the clouds. It destroys the German plane, which crashes nearby.
Reporting back at base, a farmer from the nearby village where the plane crashed comes to say many have mysteriously died. A group of Devildogs, along with their medic, goes to investigate. There, they find the crashed plane and several villagers dead. Looking into it, the medic succumbs to whatever is happening, and everyone flees.
Back at base, Lane and the Three Lunatics are recruited to help find a missing U.S. sub with a vital cargo, as they are qualified to fly the flying boats being used. Is this all connected? We get subs as well as planes in this adventure before it’s all over, and we learn what is really going on.
For those wondering, the H-16 flying boats used in the story are Curtiss H-16s, actual planes used by both the British and the U.S. that came out in 1917, the last of a series of such planes.
In “The Spandau Cyclone” (October 1934), Larry Brent is sent on a mission to try to penetrate an area the Germans have been heavily protecting. While doing so, he comes across a strange sight: a British plane that was used briefly at the beginning of World War I, four years prior. Weirdly, the plane attacks him, and when it crashes near a British base, they look for information on who the pilot is. None is found, though there is part of an issue of The London Times. This issue, from a couple of years earlier, indicates that the war is being fought by Britain and Germany against France and Russia. Is this plane from some weird alternate reality? Or is it all part of a more sinister plot? Can Brent get to the bottom of it all before things go horribly wrong?
We are introduced to a new character, Lt. Jim Burke, in “Devildog Dynamite” (November 1934). He’s an American pilot in the RAF who, after time in combat, was strangely assigned to homeland defense. He thinks it strange and feels that someone is following him, but doesn’t know why. On a mission to fight off some German bombers, he sees a spy giving information to one of the bombers, but when he lands, he gets accused of being the spy. It seems he has been shadowed for this.
A new relief pilot for the Devildogs he met tries to help him, but they are attacked, and the relief pilot is killed. Getting away from German spies, he takes the pilot’s identity and flies to the Devildogs’ base. He soon discovers what this is all about when he is again captured by the Germans: He’s a dead ringer for one of the Kaiser’s sons, who has been using Burke’s identity in London to spy. Can he overcome this and prove his innocence?
At the end, he asks for a transfer to the Devildogs, so we will probably see more of him in the future.
And we do see more of Burke in “Devil’s Double” (December 1934). Here he is working undercover in another unit, as the Devildogs have been broken up and are working in other units. There are again some strange things going on. Whole squadrons are being wiped out, and it’s not clear why. Men seem to be frightened to death. And Burke seems to encounter a German spy disguised as an intelligence officer. Further, there seems to be a deal going on with the German prince. How is Burke involved? This one is basically a sequel to the last story.
In our title story, “The Mystery Meteor” (January 1935), Capt. Lash, who appeared in a story in the previous volume, is back. He’s on the track of a German spy who was a former actor. I am reminded of the long-running foe of Philip Strange, von Zenden. He meets up with Brent, who was working for him undercover, and Hicks. They are working to protect an important meeting of Allied leaders from an attack. And it comes, with some kind of death ray. Will the trio be able to stop the spy and put an end to this new and deadly weapon?
This was another great collection of stories. I look forward to what we will see from the final four stories. Will we see a return of either Capt. Lash or Jim Burke? And I do hope Age of Aces will reprint Keyhoe’s final series, the Al “Click” Jarnaghan series from Flying Aces, which ran only four stories.
Add Comment