Air Stories, July 1937

# Angel of Death by G.M. Bowman

This July 1937 special holiday aviation issue of Air Stories leads with "Angel of Death," a serialized World War I air-war mystery by G.M. Bowman. The narrative introduces Lieutenant Edward Brownlow, an experienced R.E.8 observer flying artillery spotting missions over the Western Front near Lille, until attacked by a red Fokker triplane piloted by Leutnant Johann Krantz. Brownlow escapes using Verey signal flares. The story then backstories Krantz, born Jurgis Krakoff in the village of Plev to a Jewish-Polish mother who dies in childbirth. After witnessing Cossack pogroms at age fourteen, young Jurgis flees to Germany, eventually becoming the sophisticated motor-car salesman "Johann Krantz" in pre-war Berlin. The fragmentary OCR ends mid-narrative amid hints of criminal behavior, including a maid's mysterious death.