Robert Sidney Bowen, Jr. (1900, October 4 – April 11, 1977) was a World War I aviator, newspaper journalist, magazine editor and author who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and died of cancer in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the age of 76. He is best known for his boys' series books written during World War II, the Dave Dawson War Adventure Series and the Red Randall Series. He also worked under the name R. Sidney Bowen and under the pseudonym James Robert Richard.
Robert Sidney Bowen was born in Allston, Massachusetts to Robert Sidney and Catharine Sinclair (Fenton) Bowen. His grandfather, Charles F. Bowen, fought in the Fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War. Bowen attended the Newton High School at Newton, Massachusetts. After the World War I broke out in Europe, Bowen left school to drive an ambulance for the American Field Service (AFS) in France. In May 1917, the United States Army Ambulance Service took over the AFS, and Bowen, being underage to serve, returned to the United States. When he turned seventeen, he signed up in October 1917 with the Great Britain's Royal Flying Corps in recruiting office in New York City as a Flight Cadet. He went through several phases of training, including basic military training, ground instruction, and flight instruction at Training Depot Stations (TDS), in different locations, first, at Toronto University, then at Camp Mohawk, Deseronto, Canada, at Camp Leaside, Beamsville, Canada, and at Camp Taliaferro, Fort Worth, Texas. According to The London Gazette, Bowen was granted a temporary commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force on June 20, 1918.
Bowen turned to writing in 1930, using his prestige as editor-in-chief of Aviation Magazine to write Flying From The Ground Up, a non-fiction work on how to fly an airplane. He began freelancing for pulp magazines. In 1934, he started his own pulp magazine, Dusty Ayres And His Battle Birds, for Popular Publications. Twelve issues were released, the first eleven published monthly from July 1934 through July 1935, with most issues released monthly. Bowen continued writing for mystery, adventure, sports, and aviation pulp magazines through the 1950s.
After the invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939 sparked World War II, Crown Publishers called Bowen, asking for an adventure story based on the war. The Dave Dawson series , also known as the War Adventure series, was the result. Bowen got to work immediately, and the first book, Dave Dawson At Dunkirk, was published in 1941. A total of 15 volumes were released between 1941 and 1946.