“These stories were being read by men who’d been there, done that. I had to have the personalities and the details right. They wouldn’t tolerate having men like themselves overly glorified, or to have war made glamorous. . . .”
Aviator, diplomat, and historian, Robert F. Dorr was uniquely qualified to write for men’s adventure magazines, bringing sweat-and-blood, nuts-and-bolts authenticity to his stories of risk, combat, and sacrifice. Best known today for his highly regarded historical works, Dorr’s stories for the men’s pulps also drew from jaw-dropping true accounts, as action-packed as any imagined by his hard-boiled peers.
In this tense, gritty collection, the master storyteller drops readers squarely into the action’s fiery crucible, both in the cockpit and on the front lines. Each story includes full-color reproductions of the explosive vintage art from the stories’ original publication by some of the greatest names in illustration.
A singular collection in the author’s vast bibliography, A Handful of Hell highlights the best of Robert F. Dorr’s vivid, gripping tales of aerial conflict, battlefield heroism and action—some fact, some fiction, all adrenaline-fueled, white-knuckle adventure.
“Robert F. Dorr sets the standard for writing about aviation and adventure.”
— Walter J. Boyne,
author and former director,
National Air and Space Museum
Table of Content
Robert Deis
Preface
Robert F. Dorr
‘My Plan Was To Be a Writer and an Adventurer . . . .’
‘Handful of Hell’ [Climax, October 1962]
‘The Bloodiest Single Mission in Air Force History’
[Bluebook, November 1962]
‘Rammed Over Berlin’ [Stag, August 1963]
‘Yank Ace Who Battled the Japs Over Pearl Harbor’
[Stag, December 1965]
‘The ‘Impossible’ Raid’ [Stag, January 1966]
‘The POW General Who Tried to Kill Himself’
[Man’s, November 1965]
‘I’m Going to Ram That Nazi Plane!’
[Man’s, November 1966]
‘Fish Him Out-Or Else!’
[Man’s, December 1966]
‘5 Downed GIs Who Gutted Ambush Alley’
[Men, June 1967]
‘Yank Ace Who Saved the Anzio Invasion’
[Man’s, December 1967]
‘The Day the Boondocks Ran With Yankee Blood’
[Bluebook, August 1969]
‘Borneo Longshot’
[Male, March 1970]
‘I Fought Castro’s Cutthroat Guerrilla Squad’
[For Men Only, April 1970]
‘The Incredible Glory Saga of the Boondock Padre’
[Man’s Illustrated, October 1970]
‘I Fought Burma’s ‘Red Flag’ Terrorist Killers’
[Bluebook, March 1972]
About the author
ROBERT F. DORR (1939-2016) was an author (starting in 1955), an Air Force veteran (1957-60) and a retired American diplomat (1964-89). His final book was the novel CRIME SCENE: FAIRFAX COUNTY, and features characters introduced in his 2014 alternate-history novel, HITLER’S TIME MACHINE. Author of more than 70 books on military and aviation history, Dorr had served as a columnist for Air Force Times and Aerospace America. Many of his early published writings were in men’s adventure magazines in the 1960s and 1970s.
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