Review: Sneeze That Off (Flying Aces, November 1930)/The Hardware Ace (Flying Aces, February 1931) - Joe Archibald

Regular readers of this blog know that with a few exceptions, I’m not a big fan of comedy in pulp stories. For that reason, I’ve avoided Joe Archibald’s work for the most part, since he specialized in comedy stories in several different genres, although he did some serious yarns as well. One of his most popular series appeared in the air war pulp FLYING ACES and starred Lt. Phineas “Carbuncle” Pinkham, an American pilot from Boonetown, Iowa, who’s assigned to the Ninth Pursuit Squadron in France during World War I. Between 1930 and 1943, Archibald wrote more 150 stories chronicling Pinkham’s adventures. Since I’d read a few other stories by Archibald recently and enjoyed them more than I expected to, I decided to give this series a try by reading the first two stories, “Sneeze That Off” (from the November 1930 issue of FLYING ACES) and “The Hardware Ace” (February 1931).

In “Sneeze That Off”, Pinkham arrives for the first time at the aerodrome where the Ninth Pursuit Squadron is based. He makes a lot of enemies almost right away, including the commanding officer, Major Rufus Garrity (“the old man”), and fellow pilots Howell, Wilson, and Bump Gillis. You see, Pinkham is a prankster, a practical joker, a would-be funnyman addicted to exploding cigars, rubber snakes, dribble glasses, and sneezing powder. His antics rub everybody the wrong way, especially since the squadron has been plagued lately by the German ace von Kohl. Despite his annoying habits, however, Pinkham is a talented flyer and a deadly fighter, even when he’s armed only with some of his tricky gimmicks.

By the time of the second story in the series, “The Hardware Ace”, Pinkham is maybe a little more accepted by his fellow pilots, although they still get annoyed with him most of the time. But most of the squadron’s ire in this yarn is directed toward the stuck-up pilots and officers of a French squadron also operating in the area. Pinkham’s antics just make the situation worse when the two units need to be teaming up to take on a new aerial threat from the Germans. But of course, it’s Pinkham who comes up with a unique way to resolve the situation and defeat the enemy.

These stories are slightly more serious and less silly than I expected them to be, probably because it’s hard to get too wacky when men are fighting and dying all the time. Archibald writes well, too, and manages to make Pinkham a sympathetic character despite his abrasive nature. I surprised myself again by liking these stories considerably more than I expected to, and I can see how Pinkham’s adventures could be kind of addictive. These two, and many more, are available to download as PDF files from the Age of Aces website. I’m sure I’ll never read the whole series, but I definitely plan to continue making the acquaintance of Phineas Pinkham.