THE BLACK EAGLES
There were
numerous old school men’s adventure series which used the Vietnam War as a
background. Two of the best were Saigon
Commandos and M.I.A. Hunter. The Black Eagles isn’t quite in the same
league, but with twenty-one titles it’s one of the longest running military
action oriented men’s adventure series. The
Black Eagles also sported cool thematic cover art, which was kept
consistent for the entire run—a feature valued by collectors.
Published by
Zebra between 1983 and 1990, The Black
Eagles books were written by several different authors under the pseudonym
John Lansing. As a result, the merit of the stories swings between mediocre and
very good, with a couple of excellent entries. It was often Zebra's editorial
policy that hurt the series by insisting on a high page count. This meant 180
pages of solid story had to be padded out to 250 pages of small print.
The highly
revered men’s adventure writer William Fieldhouse, was the power behind The Black Eagles. He is perhaps best
known for creating Gold Eagle’s Phoenix
Force series under the pseudonym Gar Wilson. Phoenix Force, along with Able
Team, were series spin-offs from Gold Eagle’s highly successful The Executioner series—the big daddy of
all men’s adventure paperback originals. Phoenix
Force ran for fifty-eight titles, thirty-two of which were written by
Fieldhouse. He is considered ‘the’ Gar Wilson by serious Phoenix Force fans and collectors.
Prior to Phoenix Force, Fieldhouse wrote for The Executioner series. He also wrote
numerous standalone and series Westerns (The
Klaw, Six-Gun Samurai, Gun Lust, etc.)
and other contemporary action novels under numerous pseudonyms (M.I.A. Hunter, Stony Man, and others). Along the way, he created and wrote the military
action series The Hard Corps under
the pseudonym Chuck Bainbridge.
Fieldhouse
created The Black Eagles series when
he was approached by Zebra to create a house
name series about the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Fieldhouse recalls:
I was not keen on this. I’m an Army
veteran, but I wasn’t in Vietnam. However, when I was taking BCT at Ft. Jackson,
they started pulling troops out of Nam. The veterans of that ‘conflict’ had
usually been depicted in a very negative manner (demented kill-crazy
psychopaths or maybe psychotic). I figured I might be able to portray U.S.
troops in Nam in a more positive manner. I was already writing two series.
Really didn’t want another house name project. So I came up with basic format,
characters and so on, acceptable by the publisher, and farmed out the actual
writing to three individuals.
This was much
the same process Stephen Mertz used when creating his M.I.A. Hunter series. Both Mertz and Fieldhouse were expected by
their publishers to ensure the books were of publishable quality and to do any
rewriting required. This often led to a considerable amount of unexpected work.
Due to the long running success of The
Black Eagles this rubbing point was exacerbated, demanding far more effort on
Fieldhouse’s part than he originally envisioned. In referring to the writers he
chose, Fieldhouse stated: One was a good
writer with an extensive military background. Another had a track-record, but
also had extremist views (political and otherwise) that steadily became more
obvious in his work. The third was quite intelligent, but inexperienced as a
fiction writer.
It was Patrick
E. Andrews, however, who wrote most of the remaining Black Eagles books. An Army brat growing up, Andrews enlisted in
the Army at age nineteen. He served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne
Division in the active Army and the 12th Special Forces Group Green Berets in
the Army Reserves. He left military service after being injured in a parachute
jump.
After the
Army, Andrew’s worked as a typesetter in San Diego while sending manuscripts to
numerous publishers without success. He then became a technical editor and
writer in aerospace while still pursuing his fiction writing. Eventually, he
began to get published (like Fieldhouse and Roberts, he also wrote for the Six-Gun Samurai series). He went on to
write more than fifty novels in the men's adventure, military adventure, Western,
and historical genres. Andrews writes in a breezy but his military background,
however, kept his entries rooted in solid believability.
Paul Glen
Neuman wrote only one Black Eagles novel,
AK-47 Firefight. Neuman had
previously written seven Phoenix Force
books, as well as two entries in the notorious They Call Me Mercenary series (#16 China Blood Hunt and #17 Buckingham
Blowout). Calling it grunt work,
Neuman stated AK-47 Firefight was written
under a tight deadline of six weeks for the book's approximate 240 pages.
Personal interviews conducted with veterans of the War provided an insight,
which proved invaluable for the novel's authenticity.
David Cheney,
who wrote at least two and possibly as many as four Black Eagles entries, is a bit of an enigma. A pharmacist in the
San Diego Area for over thirty-eight years, he left the men’s adventure genre
behind after writing for The Black Eagles.
His only other publication appears to be a 2014 sci-fi novella, Mars—The Deep Con.
Despite the
varied quality of the series, The Black Eagles is worth both reading and
collecting. It is a prime example of the military sub-genre under the men’s
adventure masthead.
THE BLACK EAGLES
HANOI HELLGROUND
Captain
Robert M. Falconi of the 5th Special Forces had his orders: the clandestine SOG
needed an enforcement arm and Falconi was to put it together. Made up of the
best jungle fighters if R.S. could muster, they were to take the war to Charlie
- no matter where is Southeast Asia he tried to hide.
MEKONG MASSACRE
Falconi and
his Black Eagles combat team are about to stake a claim on Colonel Nguyen Chi
Ro—and give the Commie his due. But American intelligence wants the colonel
alive, making this the Black Eagles toughest assignment ever...
NIGHTMARE IN LAOS
There’s a hot
rumor that Russian in Laos are secretly building a nuclear reactor. And the
American command isn’t overreacting when they order it knocked out—quietly—and
fast...
PUNGI PATROL
A team of
specially trained East German agents—disguised as U.S. soldiers—is slaughtering
helpless Vietnamese villagers to discredit America. The Black Eagles, the elite
jungle fighters, have been ordered to stop the butchers before our own allies
turn against us...
SAIGON SLAUGHTER
After being
decimated by the NVA, Major Robert Falconi's killer crew, the Black Eagles,
fight a private war against the enemy agents and assassins who still stalk them...
AK-47 FIREFIGHT
Robert
Falconi and his Black Eagle fighters have been chosen to stop the deadly flow
of mortars, AK-47s, grenades, and thousands of tons of ammunition to the NVA
along South Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh Trail. However, the Black Eagles find the
North Vietnamese convoys so heavily guarded it seems a suicide mission. But the
men believe their leader Falconi, and if he says they can do it, by God they’ll
do it...
BEYOND THE DMZ
For the first
time, the Black Eagles are ordered to strike deep into the heart of North
Vietnam. It’s a suicide mission, but aided by a full complement of fearless
Ping-Yan-Uen tribesmen the blood and the body count is sure to flow...
BOOCOO DEATH
When the only
female member of the Black Eagles is captured by the North Vietnamese, Falconi
and his squad of battle harden jungle fighters chase to rescue her. Finding
themselves in an ingenious trap, they put their M-16s on rock-n-roll and come
out blasting...
BAD SCENE AT BONG SON
Accompanied
by an irritating embedded reporter, the Black Eagles don’t expect trouble in
the Vietnamese’s low-lands. But when all hell breaks loose during a lashing
wind and rainstorm, it’s come home as heroes, or not come home at all...
CAMBODIA KILL-ZONE
Major Robert
Falconi's battle-hardened crew of jungle fighters are America's most effective
killing machine in Southeast Asia. And when the big brass in Saigon uncover a
secret Red plot to reinforce Cong units with combat teams
from Iron Curtain
countries around the globe, the Black Eagles are ordered to the Cambodian
border to neutralize the situation quietly - and fast! But Algerian Colonel
Omar Ahmed is a dedicated Communist who's ready to take on anything the free
world can throw at him. And deep in the Cambodian jungle, on a battlefield
splattered with hot shrapnel and blood, it's the Black Eagles against a band of
fanatical Arabs in a duel to the death fought behind a news blackout imposed by
both sides - and that means no medals but plenty of body bags for the men of
The Black Eagles.
DUEL ON THE SONG CAI
When North
Vietnamese patrol boats take control of the Song Cai River, it’s up to the
Black Eagles to wade in over their heads and follow their unit motto: Calcitra
Cllunis—Kick Ass...
LORD OF LAOS
‘Nam down and
dirty—the way our men had to fight it...
ENCORE AT DIEN BIEN PHU
‘Nam down and
dirty—the way our men had to fight it...
FIRESTORM AT DONG NAM
Lt. Colonel
Gregori Kraschenko, a monster of a man and leader of the newly-organized Red
Berets, the cream of the Iron Curtain’s elite forces. With a burning drive to
destroy the Black Eagles and their leader, Major Robert Falconi, Kraschenko
issues a deadly challenge—a neutral zone battle to the death between the Red
Berets and the hardened jungle fighters of the Black Eagles—no backup, no heavy
weaponry, just whatever they can carry in on their backs. If the Black Eagles
refuse, the consequences to America’s intelligence apparatus will be
devastating. There is only one choice destroy the Red Berets or die trying...
HO'S HELLHOUNDS
‘Nam down and
dirty—the way our men had to fight it...
MONSOON HELLHOLE
‘Nam down and
dirty—the way our men had to fight it...
MAU LEN DEATH ZONE
A top NVA
general wants to defect, and the Black Eagles will face the steaming jungle’s
merciless dangers to get him out...
DURONG WARRIORS
Green hell in
the highlands. Outnumbered and out gunned, the Black Eagles are determined to
smash their way through the jungle to destroy the enemy’s Death Squad
command...
HOA TIEN KILLERS
‘Nam down and
dirty—the way our men had to fight it...
BO-BINK COMMANDOS
‘Nam down and
dirty—the way our men had to fight it...
NGUY-HIEM WAR ZONE
‘Nam down and
dirty—the way our men had to fight it...
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