Canadian Harold F. Cruickshank was a World War I veteran, provincial civil servant, and from 1927–54 a prolific producer of fiction for American pulp magazines. He first specialized in Great War stories, including its subcategory, the war in the air. After those genres faded in popularity, he shifted to western and wilderness fiction, often featuring animals as his main characters.
Background
Cruickshank was born in Mold, Wales, in 1893, the son of Scots, Duncan Cruickshank (1855–1941) and Flora Ellen MacLeod (1860–1936). He had three brothers and a sister.
Cruickshank cited his Welsh birth as an influence: “Perhaps this is the reason I took to the writing game. Wales is peopled by bards, poets and singers. I cannot sing, nor recite, so had to tackle one of the arts.”“With the Authors: Meet Harold Cruickshank”, Battle Stories, January 1928.
In 1906, Duncan Cruickshank, Harold, and older brother Allan (1884–1960) emigrated to Canada. Other family members joined later. As Harold recalled, “We pushed right out to the frontier of an unsettled district, to take over pioneering duties.” In a tale Cruickshank repeated frequently: “The first morning of our arrival . . . my brother accidentally shot me with a .22, a half-inch below my left eye. Bullet became embedded in cheekbone. No medical attention.”“They Write as They Live: H.F. Cruickshank”, Thrilling Adventures, November 1939.
He called Alberta a “wonderland of ‘Great Open Spaces.’ ”
Hunted and trapped a lot, for our country teemed with wild-game life of every species: moose, bear, deer, lynx, wolf, coyote, beaver and fox, as well as all the lesser animal life of the hinterland. Engaged in various sideline occupations. Logging, railroading, and so forth. It was at my first railroad construction camp that I rubbed shoulders with many of the characters I now write about.
He also rubbed shoulders with a well-known Edmonton adventure author: “Have mushed the long white trails with none other than A. de Herries 'Doc' Smith in fifty below, where the wolves were wild and the snows deep.”“Meet Some More of the Folks! Harold F. Cruickshank”, American Fiction Guild Bulletin, February 1, 1936.
On July 14, 1915, Cruickshank married Dorothy May Watts (1896–1996).“Who's Who: H.F. Cruickshank”, Edmonton Bulletin, August 6, 1936. They had two children. John Duncan Cruickshank (1916–1945) died during World War II in Sweden while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force.. Edith Evelyn Nightingale (1921–2002) lived a long life in Edmonton.“Nightingale, Edith Evelyn (Scotty) nee Cruickshank” (death notice), Edmonton Journal, June 7, 2002.
World War I
Cruickshank enlisted in the Canadian Army in July 1915; nearly four years later, on April 25, 1919, he was discharged at the rank of full sergeant. He saw action at the Battle of the Somme (1916), the Battle of Cambrai (1917), the Battle of Amiens (1918), and on other fronts. As he recalled:
My first war experience was to feel our lines quake and then rocket skyward at the eruption of a tremendous German mine dug in eighty feet beneath us! Had a miraculous escape on that occasion. A terrible night. Fired 175 rounds of ammunition and chucked countless hand grenades, all in the short space of less than two hours! We moved on the long trek to the Somme, where our guns were placed wheel to wheel. But I was wounded early of the first morning in.
In November 1917, Cruickshank was appointed Company Gas N.C.O. of his battalion. In February 1918, he was transferred from the infantry to the Canadian Corps Gas Services, where he instructed troops on defenses against gas attack. After the Armistice, he entered Germany with the Army of Occupation attached to the Chemical Adviser’s staff of the Corps H.Q.“Meet the Authors: Meet Harold Cruickshank”, Battle Stories, September 1931.
The war is where Cruickshank’s writing career really began, as recounted for a 1929 interview:
One flaming night in Flanders, a wounded American doughboy crawled painfully to a small shell-hole far out in No Man’s Land. As the “Yank” slid down into the muddy refuge he noted that the hole already had one tenant; a young Canadian infantryman, also wounded.
The American growled a “Hello buddy!” then glanced curiously at the “Canuck”; for the latter seemed utterly oblivious to the presence of another person. By the light of the star-shells hovering overhead, the Canadian was busily engaged scribbling in a tattered note-book; muttering to himself all the while, and occasionally gazing straight ahead into vacancy.
Finally the Yank’s curiosity could stand the strain no longer.
“Hey Buddy! Whatcha doin’—makin’ out your will?” he asked.
Throwing down his pencil in fury, the Canuck glanced up.
“No you damn fool!” he replied; “I was writing a poem; but now you’ve spoiled my metre!”
. . . At any rate the poem was finished before the stretcher bearers found the two men, and Harold had the thrill of seeing his first bit of creative writing in print. It was published in The Listening Post, a small paper edited by the Canadian infantry unit.Robert A. McLean, “Palmer Personalities: Harold F. Cruickshank: Writer of ‘Action’ Stories”, Markets and Methods for Writers, February 1929.
Pulp writer
In 1921, Cruickshank joined the provincial government civil service.
Beginning in 1922, his poems appeared intermittently in his hometown Edmonton Journal. The first known was “May” (May 2, 1922). The poems tended to feature wilderness or World War themes. The latter were occasionally timed to appear on or about Armistice Day, e.g., “Remembrance Day” (November 10, 1931). He was not paid for these contributions.What Palmer Students Are Doing, Markets and Methods for Writers, February 1928.
He sold his first major story to Western Home Monthly in 1923.“War-era author dies after lengthy illness”, Edmonton Journal, April 3, 1979.
In 1926, Cruickshank enrolled with the Palmer Institute of Authorship, a correspondence course, to upgrade his storytelling skills. The institute, responding to the exploding growth in the magazine fiction markets, trained several students who subsequently had success in the American pulps.John Locke, “Chapter 14: Human Sacrifice”, in The Princess, the Speed-King, and the Sultan of Llang-Llang: How Three Writers Pulled Off the Wildest Hoax of the Jazz Age (Elkhorn, California: Off-Trail Publications, 2026). Cruickshank's first appearance in the Palmer student magazine came in the July 1926 issue, when he announced that he had sold a story, “The Will of the North” to a Canadian magazine.What Palmer Students Are Doing, Markets and Methods for Writers, July 1926.
Early in 1927, he was “overjoyed” when he sold a story to Dell Publishing for $75.What Palmer Students Are Doing, Markets and Methods for Writers, February 1927. Dell had launched a mania for Great War fiction with their pulp War Stories, first issue dated November 1926. Cruickshank’s first appearance in a Dell magazine was “War Wolves” (War Stories, August 19, 1927).
After three sales to Dell, Cruickshank sold a story to Dell’s leading rival in Great War fiction, Fawcett’s Battle Stories. Fawcett, paying higher rates, became his primary market, with Dell his secondary.What Palmer Students Are Doing, Markets and Methods for Writers, October 1927. He did so well with Battle that he occasionally had two stories in a single issue; in these cases, the second story appeared under the pseudonym Bert Fraser, built on his middle name.
In 1928, he quit his government job to devote full-time to writing.
In 1929–30, a Canadian publisher issued Canadian War Stories, intended to compete with the American war pulps and tell the Canadian side of the story.”Another Canadian Magazine”, Edmonton Journal, April 23, 1929. Cruickshank regularly contributed short stories. His numerous sales to Fawcett and Dell ran into the early 1930s. The FMI lists Cruickshank’s magazine fiction under "Index by Name=Cruickshank, Harold (F.)". This corresponded with the waning of the Great War fad, at least for ground combat; air-war fiction remained popular.
When Henry Steeger was an associate editor for the Dell pulps, he became acquainted with Cruickshank’s work. In 1930, Steeger co-founded Popular Publications, which would prove to be one of the most successful pulp publishers. In June of that year, he asked Cruickshank to appear in the first issue of his first magazine, Battle Aces (October 1930).Letter from Harold F. Cruickshank, to Leo and Cylvia Margulies, August 24, 1974, Leo Margulies papers, Coll 133, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. Cruickshank’s contribution, “The Lone Eagle,” actually appeared in the third issue (December). Notwithstanding, Popular soon became Cruickshank’s primary market. He appeared frequently in Popular’s air-war pulps, Battle Aces, Dare-Devil Aces, and Battle Birds, especially from 1932-35. In all three titles, he regaled the exploits of series characters: Bill Hennedy, the Sky Wolf (Battle Aces); Bill Dawe, the Sky Devil (Dare-Devil Aces); and Ted Blair, the Red Eagle (Battle Birds). Dawe was modeled after Cruickshank’s wartime infantry commander. To commemorate their friendship, Steeger and Cruickshank exchanged letters every June for the rest of their lives.
In 1933, Cruickshank made his first sale to the Thrilling pulp chain: “Jinx Peelot”, Sky Fighters, November 1933. Within a few years, his name appeared regularly in Popular and Thrilling pulps, in almost equal amounts.
Along the way, he sold the occasional western (or northwestern) story. His first was “Thundering Flames”, for Fiction House's North-West Stories, November 8, 1928. Westerns remained a minor part of his output until 1937. From that point forward, his output was primarily western and adventure with the occasional air story. He appeared frequently in Popular’s Ace-High Magazine and 10 Story Western Magazine; and later in Thrilling’s West and Range Riders Western.
In two April 1937 pulps, he introduced canine characters who would make a number of appearances. Keko, a “handsome silver-gray timber wolf”, was inspired by a wolf Cruickshank had seen in his early days in Canada, “one morning at sun-up . . . stretched to his full magnificent height on the slope of a nearby hill.”Harold F. Cruickshank, “Writing the Animal Story”, Writer’s Digest, October 1944. Keko stories appeared in 17 issues of Ace-High Magazine, and once in New Western Magazine. The other April 1937 debut was Olak, the White Phantom, an albino wolf, who appeared 15 times in Thrilling Adventures, West, Range Riders Western, and one final time in Columbia’s Famous Western.
World War II
The Second World War interrupted Cruickshank’s writing career. Whereas he had averaged over 30 sales a year in the 1930s, he was published only 24 times from 1942–45, averaging six sales a year.
Meanwhile, in 1940, with the next war looming, Edmonton veterans organized the Veterans’ Volunteer Reserve, in two battalions, ostensibly to maintain vigilance against a potential fifth column.Harold F. Cruickshank, “Veterans of Last War Ready for New Tasks”, Edmonton Journal, August 27, 1940. In 1942, Cruickshank became musketry officer for the North Edmonton Battalion.“North Edmonton V.V.R. to Parade”, Edmonton Journal, September 28, 1942. He gave lectures to his battalion and also published newspaper articles about the First World War to underscore vigilance for the Second.E.g., Harold F. Cruickshank, “First German Gas Attack Launched in Ypres Fight 28 Years Ago Today”, Edmonton Journal, April 22, 1943. Presumably, these wartime activities detracted from his fiction production.
Later years