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Biggles' Night Out! is a short story which was first published in The Modern Boy Issue 395, 31st August 1935. This is one of the "uncollected" stories. In was not gathered and republished in any anthology in Johns' lifetime. The story was only gathered and published in Biggles Air Ace in 1999.

Synopsis[]

Biggles and Algy meet Captain Fernwell, their night-bomber friend who had earlier tried to get them a Christmas Tree (see Biggles' Christmas Tree!) He is short of gunners so, on a whim, Biggles and Algy decide to fly with him on a night raid into Germany. It is strictly against regulations and matters get worse when their aircraft is disabled and they have to forceland inside Germany.

Plot[]

(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)

Characters[]

Aircraft[]

Places[]

Visited[]

  • 266 Squadron, Maranique
  • 100 Squadron, Morville, near Bar-le-duc
  • Offenburg
  • Konstanz
  • Switzerland on the shore of Lake Constance

Mentioned[]

  • Strasbourg
  • Basel
  • Stuttgart

Research Notes[]

  • Many real place names are mentioned. But Fernwell's 100 Squadron was at Auchez around Christmas 1917. In this story he has moved to Morville near Bar-le-duc. If Auchez is the Ochey where 100 Squadron was deployed in reality, then it would be quite near the new airfield. It doesn't make sense for Fernwell to fly all the way north to Maranique and south again to Morville. Unless Auchez is not Ochey.

References to the past[]

Incongruities[]

Chronology[]

(see also table at Timeline of the Biggles Stories)

  • "...stars were shining brightly in the frosty air...." suggests winter. It is certainly after December 1917. One researcher puts it as February 1917 because of the frosty conditions without snow.[1]

Publication History[]

  • The Modern Boy, Issue 395, 31st August 1934.
  • Reprinted in Biggles & Co., The W. E. Johns Quarterly Magazine, Number 7, April 1991.
  • Biggles Air Ace, Norman Wright, 1999 and 2008.
  • Collected in Biggles l'Intégrale 1 as Biggles en excursion nocturne, Ananké 2001.

References[]

  1. Ward Powers. "What Happened to Biggles in WW1?" Biggles Flies Again Vol. 3 No. 1, June 2009.
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