Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

76 BILL BARNES gray fighters, the other one might get him. He shouted into the microphone. His face was white, his eyes blazing. “Come out of that, Sandy,” he roared. “Come out of it you half-wit, before they have to shovel you off the ground!” But Sandy didn’t come out of it fast enough. The first two planes were fol- lowed into the air almost immediately by the second two. They were up and under Sandy’s tail as he started to run away. All four of them closed in on him. He whipped the little Eaglet around in a flashing Immelmann and tried to climb away from them. They were like a flock of vultures. : Suddenly Sandy whipped over and flew back toward the circling biplanes. White streamers cut through the sky as the first biplane fired. At that instant Sandy did a complete roll, turned left and came up above that first gray fighter. He half rolled and dived with his guns chattering. As the biplane veered away he whipped about in a vertical spiral. He rolled and twisted desperately to get out of range of the guns of the other three planes. They lined up and began to circle about him again to get him in the vortex of their fire. Bull Barnes cursed as he saw what the gray fighters were going to do to Sandy. THEN, as Bill knew the leader of the three biplanes was about to open up a cross fire from which there would be no escape, Sandy pounced forth and at- tacked another of the biplanes. He flew straight at it with both guns chattering. The deadly hail of lead tore the pilot’s head from his shoulders. The biplane went into a sickening whirl as Sandy zoomed upward. The sky was full of smoking lead. The little Eaglet stag- gered and dropped into a side slip as the three planes sat under Sandy’s tail and poured lead into it. Then Red Gleason and Bill tore the alignment of the three planes to bits. They dove on two of them and raked them with lead. They were like two mad bulls as they whipped their planes through the sky. The three biplanes zoomed, dove and darted in every direc- tion to escape those two whirling der- vishes. As Bill saw Sandy straighten out the Eaglet and limp away to the west he shouted into the microphone again. “Get out of this, Sandy,” he said. ‘Cy, stay with Sandy. He’s almost out of control.” The anti-aircraft guns opened up their fire again as Cy winged back over- head. Machine guns belched fire and lead and tracers at the two red planes above them. Red Gleason was trying to sing. The blood was racing through his body like fire. He was half around in a vertical back when a gray fighter zoomed up- ward beneath him. The twin guns mounted along its engine housing spewed out burst after burst of fire. The lead chewed through the leading edge of his left wing. He threw his ship out of the line of fire. The biplane roared upward and dove back to the attack. Red pulled his stick back and raced up to meet the diving plane. The two planes roared at one another with terrific speed. Red’s fingers tightened on his gun trips. His guns chattered the song of death. His bullets drove through the biplane’s fuselage before the pilot threw his ship out of range. “That baby can handle his ship,” Red muttered to himself, his face contorted with rage. The two ships streaked and tumbled all over the sky, filling the air with red- hot lead. They fired burst after burst at one another without telling effect. Far off to the left, Bill Barnes was fighting the two other gray planes. He was flashing through the sky in a series of lightning acrobatics that prevented oO CON) Ghook CO