Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #36, #105, and #138



This thing was printed 3 times; you know it has to be good!

The script is by Roy Thomas (by way of Von Ryan's Express) and the art by Dick Ayers and john Tartaglione. Quite frankly, Tartaglione kind of subdues Ayers' art. It's definitely not Ditko and John Severin will blend well with it, later on.

Our story finds the Howlers on the infiltration course, with new member, German turncoat Eric Koenig, joining them. Koenig is out to prove himself and he is overly aggressive. The others are making with their usual banter and Reb tries to talk to Koenig, who brushes him off. reb calls him a spoiled brat and he over-reacts, jumping through the course; but, not realizing he is heading into a mine field. Pinky and Reb jump into the fray and Reb is able to lasso him and haul him back, just before a mine explodes. Dum-Dum gives him an @ss-chewing and then Fury shows up (driven by one Jason Stillwell, who hopes his son will one day serve under an officer like Fury). Fury calls them in for a briefing with Happy Sam Sawyer. They are being sent to Switzerland (!) where the Nazis will be sending top strategist Col. Ludwig Von Baum to Italy, to confer. He is travelling by train because he is afraid of flying (!!), on a train that will be officially listed as carrying medical supplies, to be allowed through neutral Swiss territory. The train will also carry a plain-clothed SS unit, led by Kapitan Wilhelm Krueger, an old friend of Eric's (!!!). Fury and his men will be disguised as medical inspectors, under the Geneva Convention. Eric reflects on his friendship with Wilhelm, in the Hitler Youth and then the Wehrmacht. The invasion of Poland started changing Eric's views but Wilhelm became a fanatic. He ended up transferring to the SS. Now Eric may have to face his old friend on his first mission as a Howler.

The group fly to Switzerland on a plane with Swiss markings. They are interrogated by Swiss officials and bluff their way through with their cover story. They meet their contact who trucks them to near the Swiss/Italian border. They take a cable car and are overheard speaking English by an Italian agent. he radios ahead and the car is stopped midway down the mountain. The Howlers are sitting ducks. percy zips down the cable on his bumbershoot (I say, Wah-hooo, chaps!) and, defying the laws of physics, isn't killed by the speed he would gain and takes of the fascist agent. The Howlers arrive in the village and spot their target. Eric sees Wilhelm and keeps out of sight. The Howlers board the train, with Eric's language help and they then hold up in a freight car, while Eric scouts around. he is forced to speak to Wilheml and dirties his face and turns up his collar to hide his face. He brings back intel and the Howlers decide they need to capture weapons to grab Von Baum. They take out some of the SS men and then don their fatigues ('cause that will keep them from being shot as spies, I'm sure). Eric takes over the engine while the Howlers trick some stupid Nazis and take their weapons. The commotion causes Von Baum and Wilhelm to try to escape, fearing they have been discovered. They take to the top of the train where they meet Eric. Words are exchanged and Eric says Wilhelm will not kill him and tosses aside his gun. Wrong!!!!!! Luckily, Gabe blasts his horn as Reb lassos Von Baum. Wilhelm takes off, oblivious to the tunnel approaching and ends up headless. The Howlers jump off the train in the tunnel and the Swiss border guards find the train filled with uniformed SS and Von Baum, hogtied. They take them into custody, while the Howlers escape across the border. With Eric's piloting skills, they steal an Italian bomber and fly it back to England. During the trip, Eric confesses to Fury about Wilhelm and Fury reveals he already knew. He tells Eric he made the right choice and proved himself as a Howler and that they are his brothers now.

The issue is a nice mix of a serious story, with the playful Howler banter and over-the-top battle action. Thomas doesn't go quite as far as Stan did, keeping things a bit more realistic. He keeps up the personalities but has more serious plots. A lot of time is spent on Eric and his relationship with Wilhelm and his torn feelings. Eric helped the Howlers escape Germany, turning against his people. Dino Manelli is wounded and Eric takes his place, for a time, before he returns. Eric allows the Howlers to infiltrate German areas more easily.

The character of Eric Koenig was created to show not all Germans were Nazis. However, the idea of him being accepted to fight with the Howlers is a bit of a stretch. The Germans made great use of traitors from occupied territories (mostly on the Eastern Front, but, also with the camps and in groups like the French Milice). The allies had units with refugees; but the reverse was generally not the case, apart from German Jews. There are instances of German POWs in Poland joining the Polish army, though they identified as Polish and had been pressed into German service by the Nazis. Later in the war, US and Wehrmacht units fought together to drive off an SS Panzer unit that was out to kill the POWs at an Austrian castle. This is more of a fantasy, from Roy.

Roy gets his ranks wrong here, which is a common mistake (also seen in plenty of movies. Wilhelm. is called "Kapitan." This is a Kriegsmarine (Navy) captain, not a Wehrmacht (Army) captain, which is a "hauptman." Also, Von Baum's rank in German would be "oberst." That is never uttered. Actually, it was pretty rare to see correct German used in war comics, whether ranks or just phrases. You get a lot of "Gott in himmel!" and "Ach du lieber!" and quite a lot of "Kamerad!" when they surrendered. Aside from "Jawohl" and "Heil Hitler," you don't see much else. Probably due to a lack of German language skill with most of the writers. Kirby used a bit in the Losers, though not often. His family was from Austria, originally. DC wasn't much better, though I did first run across "hauptman" in an Unknown Soldier story, when I was a kid (sent me to our World Book Encyclopedia set).

The plot is partly swiped from the Frank Sinatra war movie, Von Ryan's Express.



That film features a group of Allied POWs who commandeer the train transporting them to a new prison and who then take it to the Swiss border, with the Germans in pursuit (the Italian surrender comes during the early stages of the film). The scenes on the train and the climax near the Swiss border are what Roy cribbed most. The film came out a year before this story and was a big hit. Ayers stages the action well and gives a sense of the speeding train and the suspense of the looming border.

That's it for Fury and the Howlers, for now. i will return to look at some of the Friedrich/Ayers/Severin material, which was the real highpoint of the series, for me, artistically, though I do have a soft spot for the wilder early stories.

Next up, World War 1 and the Knights of the Air.

No, David Westheimer wrote the original Von Ryan's express novel, partly based on his experiences as a POW in Italy.  He witnessed the bombing of Bolzano, from a boxcar.  Where Eagles Dare was by Alistair MacLean, author of The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, and HMS Ulysses.  I've never read the original Von Ryan novel, though I have read a lot of MacLean (damn good stuff!).  I first saw Von Ryan's Express when I was a young kid, on a family trip, while staying in a hotel.  Great movie.  Sinatra was actually a pretty good actor, when away from the Rat Pack films and things like Guys and Dolls.  He stars in another great war film, Never So Few, with Steve McQueen, Peter Lawford, and Charles Bronson, about an OSS team (based on OSS Detachment 101) in Burma, working with the Kachin tribesmen , harassing the Japanese and rescuing downed Allied airmen, ferrying cargo over The Hump (the Himalayas), to China.  That unit was one of the precursors to Army Special Forces, along with the Jedburgh teams, which coordinated guerrilla activities in occupied Europe.

Kubert's Ace is all kinds of awesome. And what you say about Sgt. Fury is exactly how i feel about DC's Unknown Soldier! Must be the Ayer's effect?!?

I was going to look at Enemy Ace, from DC; but, in light of Sam Glanzman's passing, I, instead, want to celebrate his life, as he detailed, with A Sailor's Story.



The first volume of A Sailor's Story was released in September of 1987. I had just come back from by second Midshipman Training Cruise, CORTRAMID, where we spent 4 weeks in San Diego (or Norfolk), each week dedicated to a different segment of the Navy (Surface, Submarine, Aviation, Marine Corps). I came back black and blue with bruises from Marine Week (slamming into walls, diving on the ground) and a sprained ankle (from not keeping my knees flexed enough when I swung into the wall of a rappelling tower). By this point, I wasn't limping anymore and was back at school. I stopped at one of the two local comic shops in Urbana (Illinois, home of the Univ. of Illinois), Fantasy realm. There, I saw this book and scooped it up. I went back to my dorm and devoured it.

A Sailor's Story is an expansion of the USS Stevens stories and there is some overlap, as Sam's experiences during the war provided a foundation for those tales. Some were not directly personal, but stories he heard and witnessed at the time. Others were embellished for dramatic effect, though never at the expense of reality.

The book finds Sam on Dec 7, 1941, two days after his 17th birthday. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor and the US enters World War II. Sam has to wait another year and enlists on his 18th birthday. Sam tells us of some of the events of that year, as the Japanese advance steams through Wake Island, Guam, the Dutch East Indies, and, finally the Philippines, where the US forces finally surrender and suffer through the Bataan Death March. The US Pacific Fleet was badly crippled at Pearl Harbor, though the carriers had escaped. By this point, the US had stopped a Japanese advance into the Indian Ocean at the Battle of Coral Sea, launched the Doolittle Raid from "..Our base in Shangri-La" (the USS Hornet), and defeated the Japanese carrier task force decisively at the Battle of Midway (all 4 Japanese carriers were sunk, with the US losing the USS Yorktown). Now, the US was going on the offensive. Sam reported aboard his ship, the USS Stevens (DD-479), in the spring of 1943, in Boston. Sam is lectured by Buck Talbert, the Messenger of the Watch, on the Quartedeck, for failing to salute the Colors (when boarding a naval vessel, you first render honors to the Colors, the flag, and then salute the Officer of the Deck and request "Permission to Come Aboard.") Sam then gets a tour of the ship, as do we, with Bos'n (Bosun's Mate, the men who maintain the deck equipment of a vessel, including sails, in the old days) E. Smith. Sam uses these scenes to introduce landlubbers to naval terminology: a rack is a bunk, a "door" goes between bulkheads (walls), a hatch between "decks" (floors). The pointy part, or bow, is known as the "foc'sul (forecastle), the aft or stern, as the "fantail." Port is left, starboard is right (facing the bow). We see the cramped living conditions of life aboard a "tin can," a destroyer.



Sam takes us through daily routines: revile, breakfast, quarters, turning to (maintenance work) and so on, including watchstanding. We see the ship transit the Panama Canal and Sam sees the difference between deck and the "snipes" of engineering, as they don't seem to have to "turn to." After a port visit in Pearl Harbor, the Stevens joins a task force and Sam, for the first time, sees dozens of ships and planes, all heading off to war. The sight is awe-inspiring. Sam gives a vision of ships stretching across the horizon, far and near. Planes fly overhead as they head for the carriers (aircraft are debarked when a carrier comes into port and fly out and land on the carrier when it leaves port). Sam also gives us a look at a curious element of his particular ship. As part of an experiment, it carried a float plane, armed with a torpedo, which was to act as a scout and be able to launch an attack on enemy submarines. Cruisers and battleships carried them and this was an attempt to see if they would be of use on a destroyer. It was launched from a catapult in the aft section, in place of one of the ship's guns. The plane would land on the water and be hauled aboard with a crane. Sam show's us a time when they did it none too gently and the gunner, who wasn't strapped in, gets dumped out of the plane! The aircraft was later removed and the gun emplacement put back.

Sam's battle station is in the handling room of Mount #2, one of the ship's 5 inch guns, loading shells. This is where he experienced his first battle, as the Stevens takes part in the practice landing at Marcus Island. This was a dress rehearsal for bigger landings. A mishap with a shell occur and a sailor ends up losing a couple of fingers, when his hand is caught between a shell and the loading carriage. Off Tarawa, the float plane is spotted by the Japanese and they come down on the ship, before the ship's guns drive them off. The plane is cursed as they could have used the guns and torpedo tubes it replaced.

After a little action, Sam shows us the time-honored tradition of the Shellback Initiation. When a naval vessel crosses the Equator, it is said to enter the Kingdom of Neptune, who stops them for violating his waters with "pollywogs." He demands that they be inducted into the society of Shellbacks. The pollywogs are gathered together and put through a series of rituals, after which they become shellbacks. essentially, it's a hazing ritual, involving noxious food, slimy garbage, crawling on hands and knees; and, in Sam's day, running a gauntlet of shellbacks armed with lengths of firehose. I'll declare up front that I refused to take part, when my ship crossed. I was partly motivated by a disgust at what I considered unfair treatment of myself and my department by the CO and XO of the ship (and the general disfunction of the the department heads) and the fact that I considered the whole thing to be juvenile and demeaning. I was transferring off the ship and didn't care what the CO thought anymore and I was the only person to refuse (it is "voluntary"). As such, I never became a shellback, though I never cared what anyone thought about that, until I reread this segment. As I remarked in an e-mail to Drew Ford, I wondered what Sam would think about my stance, as a shellback. I always wanted to meet Sam and discuss his work and swap sea stories and tell him about my shellback initiation and stance and see what he thought.

The book continues on, with scenes of the war and scenes of regular shipboard life, including a segment where Buck Talbert seems to go insane, dressing as a pirate and attacking people with a homemade cutlass (cut from a piece of sheet metal). Buck is evac'ed off the ship and life goes on. We see Sam back home on leave, as he is reunited with his black labrador, Beauty, left in the care of a neighbor. The time is fleeting as Sam goes back to war.

Sam spends time hiding from work and ends up getting an invitation to become a fireman, working with the burners that heat water in the boilers to produce steam, for propulsion. He also shows us some of the beauty of the sea



At every point, Sam educates us to how things work in the engineroom, the kind of maintenance work he did, and daily life. At one point, they get a "ragbag," a bundle of old cloth used for cleaning rags. They separate out silk undergarments, not for any pleasure, but to brew coffee in, as filters! Meanwhile, Sam sees more action. Off Saipan, they are acting as plane guard and head off to rescue a downed pilot, CDR Bill Martin, who later became commander of the US Sixth Fleet. Sam recounts a story used in the USS Stevens stories, of a new recruit, who, while off Guam, hears the battle raging above, catches a glimpse of it out a door to the weatherdecks, and runs into the engineroom and pulls a bucket over his head and sits there shivering. As Sam says, they did not pity or despise him, they were too busy. He was just there.

Sam recounts the sinking of the USS Shelton, off Mindoro...



Sam's words sum up the feelings of those who watch the ship disappear under the water: "To those crewman, as with all true sailors, a ship is not steel and iron...but a living entity." He recounts surviving the typhoon that hit Adm. Halsey's task force, which sank the USS Hull, Uss Monaghan, and USS Spence. The combined total of survivors of those 3 ships was 91 men. Each had a compliment of around 300. 91 survivors out of around 900. Hollywood has never captured loss like that, apart from the USS Arizona, in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!. The Stevens' anchor is ripped from its hawse and flung around, in 80 knot winds. They survived with a buckled bow.

Sam truncates things with a two-page spread that honors the ships and casualties of the destroyers that served and were lost off Okinawa. The Stevens was not part of that; but, 11 destroyers and destroyer escorts were lost. As Sam says, nothing he could draw could capture the horror and loss.

Life goes on and the war ends. Sam says he doesn't recall cheering and no one knew from an atomic bomb. The entire crew got liberty in Manila and all they saw was the destruction and a place that looked like the ruins of a ghost town. They eventually sail to Tsingtao, China, to escort occupation troops and sneak off to go to a bar and get girls. Later, another ship tries the same routine and 4 crewman run smack into a Japanese soldier who had not surrendered. On Nov. 7, 1945, the USS Stevens pulled into San Diego. As Sam says, the victory parades were long over and there was no one to greet them with cheers and free beers. Sam is sent home to Long Island and discharged from the Navy. He returns home to find that his beloved dog Beauty has died. He asked what happened and his neighbor tells him it was just old age. No heart-rendering accident, no debilitating illness, just natural death.

We like to think that the vets of WW2 were welcomed home as heroes, with grand parades and celebrations, and many were. Some, like Sam, came home and found the world changed.

Volume 2 goes into more detail of combat action and shipboard incidents, adding other stories,expanding some from the first volume.

The book is probably the pinnacle of the war comics, in my estimation, both in artistry and authenticity. Joe Kubert or Russ Heath may have been slicker and more noticed; but, Sam made it feel real; because, to him, it was real. His stories also told you about life outside the battle, about his buddies, the characters, the gags to relieve monotony, and the stark terror. The Navy took Sam Glanzman form upstate New York, to the Panama Canal, to Hawaii, across the Pacific (with many stops along the way) to New Guinea, Korea and China. Most people are lucky to see life outside their home state. Through it all, Sam gives us a feel for the hefty price that came with that war, on both sides. Sam does not glorify it; he treats it as it was. You get the sense he carried that war with him for the rest of his life, the good and the bad. Just like Jack Kirby, just like the other veteran comics people who saw combat (and even those who didn't). Sam Glanzman was a storyteller and he gave us the gift of his story, to be carried on through the ages, in this book. We owe a debt of gratitude to Joe Kubert, who commissioned the first USS Stevens stories, and Larry Hama, who brought Sam's tale to Marvel, and Drew Ford and Dover, for bringing those stories to a new generation. Most of all, we owe a debt to Sam Glanzman, for sharing his story with us, as well as so many others.



I hope you are reunited with Beauty.

Star Spangled War #138



So, how do you follow up nearly 4 years of stories about GIs fighting dinosaurs? Why with a story about a german pilot, who dominates the Killer Skies!



"The Slayers and the Slain."

Our story finds Rittmeister Hans Von Hammer, deep in combat with a French Hanriot



The French pilot doggedly pursues Von Hammer, yet the Enemy Ace outmaneuvers him and moves in for the kill. he then spots a British Martinsyde



on it's way to bomb the German airfield. He swoops down and destroys the plane, then runs into his rival, the French pilot known only as the Hangman. The Hangman signals empty guns and Von Hammer pulls away, abiding by the code of chivalry of the air. he lands at his field, feeling that his engine is taunting him as a killing machine. It turns out he was wounded by the English plane in a last ditch attempt to take its attacker with him. Von Hammers attendant finds the hole in his flight jacket and Von Hammer faints. He awakes at a hospital, where he learns that the bullet passed through without harm. He spends some of his convalescence in the company of a young nurse, who desires him, until she feels his cold touch and is repulsed. She can see the killer in him. He consults with aircraft designers, who call him the perfect killing machine. His only solace is in hunting in the Bavarian woods, where he meets up with the wolf who he has encountered before. both recognize the other as a killer, separated from the rest of their respective societies.

Von Hammer encounters the Hangman again, and they spar amongst barrage balloons, igniting the hydrogen in the balloons. The Hangman escapes to fight another day. Later, Von hammer is stirred by an attack on the airfield and leads his jagdstaffel in response, returning to the killer skies, to be Slayer or the Slain.

This is a fairly typical early Enemy Ace story, filled with a variety of aircraft, from both sides, and Joe Kubert's fantastic aerial imagery, as planes twist, swoop, turn and blast away with their weapons, as modern knights of the air. chivalry is a must in these encounters, though Von Hammer has many kills. Kanigher fills the tales with such romantic ideas, though Von hammer often faces determined enemies. However, such notions of chivalry were mostly reserved for the early days of the war. As things dragged on, such niceties were left behind. The killing was more and more brutal and the casualty rate for pilots was extremely high.

Von Hammer was modelled on Baron Manfred Von Richthofen, the Red Baron, German's greatest ace of WW1, with 80s kills. Such romantic notions were applied to Richthofen, though reality was far different. Both pilots flew the Fokker DR-1 Triplane, though Richthofen started out in an Albatross. Richthofen was eventually brought down by Canadian pilot Capt. Arthur "Roy" Brown, and by gunfire from ground troops. Brown got the credit, though most historians feels that the groundfire led to the fatal bullet that hit his heart. Richthofen was replaced as commander of his Flying Circus by Wilhelm Reinhard, who was killed and replaced by one Hermann Goring, the future Reichsmarschall of the Luftwaffe.

What always made the Enemy Ace stories stand out was Kubert's haunting art, is his sketchy lines gave sharp features and a haunted look to Von Hammer, displaying the weight of his prowess at killing. Von Hammer was tormented by the lives he took. Everyone admires him but he feels they only see him as a killer and he removes himself from their company. The wolf is a constant, appearing when Von hammer hunts in the Black Forest and the two stare at one another, with the same killer eyes. Kanigher always shows Von Hammer as the height of nobility and chivalry, though the only ones who understand him are men like The Hangman, who are also efficient killers.

This series more than any other took the motto "Make War No More" to heart. The tales are of the slaughter of WW1 and even the moments of chivalry tend to end in tragedy. If ever there was an anti-war war comic, this is it.

It's a shame it has never been adapted for film, as it is perfect for it. None of the really good WW1 aerial combat movies matches it, such as The Blue Max, Brown vs Richthofen, Hell's Angels, the Lafayette Escadrille or Ace's Hugh. This is what Warner should be trying to do, with DC characters, if you ask me. Von Hammer has been seen in Batman, The Brave and the Bold. He was later used quite well by Tim Truman, in Guns of the Dragon, an inter-war tale about adventures in the South Pacific, with Bat Lash, Enemy Ace, and Biff Bradley, which also included Chop Chop, Miss Fear and Vandal Savage. Highly recommend that all but unknown mini-series.

I do that quite often for kicks! ... I love that Site!

How about in the Charlton tradition:

Fightin' Jagdstaffel!

Sheer poetry!

Maybe Hans Von Hammer's Fliegender Zirkus...

Enemy Aces High?

Zwei-Fisted Tales!

Seriously, I agree it was an odd placement.  It was a rather unique series.  Then again, the USS Stevens stories debuted in Our Army at War.  Bet that rankled Sam a bit!  I can hear the conversation with Joe Kubert...

Joe:  Sam, the story's great, can't wait to get it printed.

Sam:  So, which book are you putting it in?

Joe:  Our Army at War

Sam:  What?  You're putting my tale of salty, he-man sailors sinkin' Japs in with a bunch of pukin' groundpounders?

Joe:  Yeah, whatta ya expect?  We don't have a Navy book...

Sam: Joe, even Charlton has Fightin' Navy....

Joe:  Yeah, and Fightin' Army, Fightin' Air Force, Fightin' Marines and Grouchy Coast Guard.  About the only thing they don't publish is Fightin' USO!  By the way, how much did they pay for a Willy Schultz story?

Sam:  Our Army at War it is!

Joe:  That's the spirit!

Sam:  You're still mad about the Army-Navy Game, aren't you?

Joe:   That's got nothin' to do with it........

Sam:  Is that why everyone in the Losers is Navy or Marines, except Cloud?

Joe:  Coincidence.  'Sides, Cloud is there...

Sam:  Joe, he's a Navajo; it sounds racist.  Besides, why is he in charge, when Captain Storm should outrank him.

Joe:  He's a lieutenant.

Sam:  Then why do you call him Captain Storm?

Joe:  That was Kanigher...

Sam & Joe:  CIVILIANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!