Gremlins 1938

[Stephen Goranson]

OED has 1941. HDAS has an April 10, 1929 use, apparently not quite the same sense as later use (vol. 36 page 57; HathiTrust says page 576, 5 uses). I haven't checked Green'sDS. Discussed recently by Anatoly Liberman:
http://blog.oup.com/2014/01/grimalkins-and-gremlins/

Pauline Gower. Women with Wings (London: John Long, 1938) pages 200 to 202, with a drawing (202) of a gremlin on a cloud, scissors in both hands, pointed at an airplane.

"Country that was particularly high or enveloped in cloud became known among the pilots as Gremlin country. Chanbers told us the old Air Force legend of the Gremlins. These are weird little creatures who fly about looking for unfortunate pilots who are either lost or in difficulties with the weather. Their chief haunts are ravines and the boulder-covered tops of hills. They fly about with scissors in each hand and try to cut the wires on an aeroplane. The pilot hears them coming, snapping their scissors....Usually they climb on one wing and the pilot manages to shake them off. Then they attack the other wing, and again he may manage to dislodge them by banking sharply, only to find that they have clambered on to the tail, the petrol-tank, and along the fuselage....Terrified, the miserable pilot flies madly round in circles until at last he gets into a spin and crashes. The Gremlins then fly off content at having slain yet another intruder of their country....Knowing that Gremlins do not usually fly over about 3000 feet, Dorothy and I felt fairly safe at 4000.....

Stephen Goranson
http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/

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