The Dreadnought Boys on Aero Service by Captain Wilbur Lawton
Price: $2.45
ePublished by
October 2025
Originally published 1912
Fiction, young adult, Boys of World War I series
Author: Captain Wilbur Lawton
ePublished by
October 2025
Originally published 1912
Fiction, young adult, Boys of World War I series
Author: Captain Wilbur Lawton
This novel, written for young adults, is the fourth of six describing the adventures of Ned Strong and Herc Taylor, two rural farm boys, cousins, who decide to leave the farm owned by their parsimonious grandfather who raised them and run off to join the U. S. Navy in the period shortly before the United States decided to enter World War I (1914–1918), known as the “Great War.”
The storyline of this fourth in the series follows the cousins on their assignment to a brand new “aeroplane” service the Navy has started. In the previous book, when Ned and Herc were helping test a new submarine, it was private, corporate interests that tried to sabotage the Navy’s efforts, but this time it’s anarchists plotting against the Navy—with a plan to send torpedoes at the anchored fleet. If the bad guys in this plotline sound familiar to readers of the current century, maybe it’s because they’ve seen Antifa’s violence documented in daily news accounts. At the least it’s a good reminder that the anarchist movement has been a scourge on civilization for a long time.
“Captain Wilbur Lawton” is a pen name for John Henry Goldfrap (1879–1917), an English-born journalist and author of boys’ books who always wrote under pseudonyms.
The storyline of this fourth in the series follows the cousins on their assignment to a brand new “aeroplane” service the Navy has started. In the previous book, when Ned and Herc were helping test a new submarine, it was private, corporate interests that tried to sabotage the Navy’s efforts, but this time it’s anarchists plotting against the Navy—with a plan to send torpedoes at the anchored fleet. If the bad guys in this plotline sound familiar to readers of the current century, maybe it’s because they’ve seen Antifa’s violence documented in daily news accounts. At the least it’s a good reminder that the anarchist movement has been a scourge on civilization for a long time.
“Captain Wilbur Lawton” is a pen name for John Henry Goldfrap (1879–1917), an English-born journalist and author of boys’ books who always wrote under pseudonyms.