Our Fighting Forces #133

Our Fighting Forces #133 (On Sale: July 6, 1971), has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert.

We begin with the Losers in "Heads or Tails" by Robert Kanigher and John Severin. This story was reprinted in Showcase Presents: The Losers Vol. 1 TPB (2012).

Next is "The Anthill" by Bob Haney and Mort Drucker and reprinted from Our Army at War #76 (1958).

That brings us to "No Place for a PT Boat" by Hank Chapman and Joe Kubert and reprinted from Our Fighting Forces #76 (1963).

We end with The Balloon Buster in "The Firing Squad Can Wait" by Robert Kanigher and Ric Estrada. Count Von Ulricht faces a firing squad for abandoning his fellow pilots during an air battle. Allied pilot Steve Savage interrupts the execution to give testimony on behalf of his enemy. He explains that Von Ulricht broke off from formation to chase Savage. The Count is exonerated, but he does not thank his foe. Instead, he issues a challenge. Steve accepts and the two men battle it out in the skies. In the end, Savage saved Von Ulricht from the firing squad only to kill his opponent himself by shooting him down.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #132

Our Fighting Forces #132 (On Sale: May 11, 1971), has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert.

We begin with the Losers in "Pooch: The Winner" by Robert Kanigher and John Severin. After inking the last issue, Severin takes over the art chores for the Losers, his first regular series assignment at DC. He will remain on the strip for the next three years. When Sarge and Gunner are in London they run into a K-9 combat dog who had helped them, before they had joined up with the Losers, against the Japanese on a Pacific island. Sarge and Gunner worry that the Losers' bad luck would rub off on Pooch and get him killed, so they leave the disappointed animal with his handler in London. Reprinted in Showcase Presents: The Losers Vol. 1 TPB (2012).

Next up is "The Invincible Armada" by Robert Kanigher and Ric Estrada.

We end this issue with the U.S.S. Stevens in "Cabbages and Kings" by Sam Glanzman.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #130

Our Fighting Forces #130 (On Sale: January 14, 1971), has a nice Losers cover by Joe Kubert.

We begin with the Losers in "Nameless Target" by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito. The Losers are sent to attack Rouen Beach as part of a fake invasion force intended to draw attention away from the real target, Normandy. The plane carrying the Losers across the English Channel is shot down miles from their intended target. As the Nazis chase the soldiers across the countryside, the Losers discover a town filled with weapons and ammunition. When the fighting continues in the town, the weapons caches are hit, and they explode.

The Losers escape the town with the assistance of a Frenchman. Despite their failure to reach their assigned target, the destruction of the unnamed town proves to be a significant distraction, drawing attention away from Normandy. As a result, the real mission was a success. Reprinted in Showcase Presents: The Losers Vol. 1 TPB (2012).

We end with "Three Graves to Eternity" by Robert Kanigher and Russ Heath. One night, as the men of Dog Company make their way across the African desert they come across three graves, marked by new rifles, helmets, and dog tags. As they wonder who the three men were we are taken back in time as Hank, Red, and Rooster Anderson walk across the same desert on their way to join Dog Company. They think back to their time in an orphanage and how they would not allow themselves to be separated, even if it meant not being adopted. They grow older and join the army and are thrilled to be stationed together. 

They are attacked by a big enemy patrol and fight them back, but Red is killed. Hank digs a grove for him and they bury him in the desert. As they start to move forward,  the patrol has returned, this time with a tank Hank takes out the tank with a bazooka, but is killed as he does. Rooster alone pushes back the rest. Afterward, he digs a grave for Hank and buries him. He also digs a grave for himself. Hank holds them off as best he can, but eventually he is killed by a rocket that covers him in his grave. 

Dog Company never learns who the men were, but given how well they fought, they must have been Dog Company men. A nice story that has never been reprinted.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #129

Our Fighting Forces #129 (On Sale: November 10, 1970), has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert. 

We begin with The Losers in "Ride the Nightmare" by Robert Kanigher. Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito. Johnny Cloud has been haunted by nightmares. The nightmares have caused him to react irrationally, even when wide awake. The other members of the team worry that Johnny's actions could put the team in danger. When the Losers are sent to retrieve a Polish scientist held prisoner by the Nazis, Johnny puts himself in harm's way. The other Losers protect him. 

They find the scientist, but their escape is blocked. After the scientist sacrifices his own life by falling on a grenade, Johnny goes berserk and unleashes his rage on the Nazis. He destroys an enemy missile site and in the resulting confusion, the Losers escape. Reprinted in Showcase Presents: The Losers Vol. 1 TPB (2012).

We end with  "Ironclad! Man Your Guns" drawn by Fred Ray. A Union soldier boy mans a battery on the Mississippi River and dreams of getting a medal from President Lincoln. He and his fellow soldiers are confronted by a Confederate ironclad attempting to break through barriers and bring supplies to the confederacy. Onboard the ironclad, a young Confederate soldier also has dreams of a Presidential medal, only from President Davis. The ironclad wreaks havoc on the Union guns and breaks through the Union lines. The young Union boy is the only survivor and he takes a rowboat and a lone explosive and rows after the ironclad. As his boat sinks, he lights the fuse and wedges the explosive to the ironclad's wooden hull but is swept up in the flow of the ironclad's prop when the bomb goes off. 

The only survivor from the ironclad is the young Confederate boy, who sees the Union boy in the water and bulls him to shore. In the end, both boys received medals from President Lincoln.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #127

Our Fighting Forces #127 (On Sale: July 9, 1970) has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert.

We begin with the Losers in "Angels Over Hell's Corner" by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.

The back-up story is the U.S.S. Stevens in "Dragonfly" written and drawn by Sam Glanzman.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #126

Our Fighting Forces #126 (On Sale: May 7, 1970) has a nice dramatic cover by Joe Kubert featuring The Losers.

We begin with The Losers in "A Lost Town" by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. They seem to have decided by now that the team will not be called the Born Losers, as referenced in previous issues, maybe so it will not be confused with the movie of the same name which introduced the world to Tom Laughlin's Billy Jack or the daily comic strip which also shares that name. The story begins with the Losers being brought before a court-martial as deserters. The team, each of which must think of themselves using the word "loser" in at least one panel, think back to how they were bringing ammo to French fighters, when a German bomb kills all the French fighters and the Losers must attempt to hold the town of Perdu (Lost in English) on their own.

They run into a group of blind children being led by a blind old man. As bombing of the town begins, the hustle the blind into a basement and take on the Nazis. This was written back in the charming days of my youth, when Americans hated Nazis. When a tank rolls into town, the Losers lead it away from the hidden blind civilians where they are able to take out the tank. The danger over, the Losers say goodbye to their blind friends and head back to base where they are arrested for desertion. They explain about the blind folks, but when they go back to pick up their alibi, they are gone. The Losers are then put before the court-martial.  As the trial begins the blind people show up and are able to recognize the Losers by feeling their faces. Wow, Kanigher was really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one.

Next is the U.S.S. Stevens in "1-2-3" by Sam Glanzman.

That is followed by a one-page Warrior by Ken Barr featuring Attila the Hun, the one-page "So you want to be a Cartoonist?" by Joe Kubert, and a page of gags, called "Military Manners" by Pete Costanza.

We end with "The Fall of Constantinople," a Great Battles of History written by Raymond Marais and drawn by Ric Estrada. The story recounts the fall of Constantinople to the Turkish army of Sultan Mahomet II.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #125

Our Fighting Forces #125 (On Sale: March 3, 1970) has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert

We begin with our cover-story, the Losers in "Daughters of Death" by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Finally, a book I don't own!

That is followed by "Too Much G.I." from All-American Men of War #60 by Bob Haney and Russ Heath. We end with "The Browning Shot" another story of the U.S.S. Stevens by Sam Glanzman.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #124

Our Fighting Forces #124 (On Sale: January 8, 1970) has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert.

This issue begins with The Losers in "Losers Take All" by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. The Losers sneak in through Nazi-occupied France to another, unnamed Nazi-occupied country to rescue a king from the hands of the Nazis. There is a modicum of action along their way to the castle where the king is being held, but they eventually make it. There they find that the king is only a child.

As the Nazis storm the castle ("Have good time stormin' the castle!"), the Losers escape with the boy-king by making parachutes out of the royal curtains ("No, not the curtains!"). After blowing up a statue of Hitler in the town plaza the Losers turn the boy over to Allied forces. I'm not quite sure I see the purpose in this story existing, but I feel that way after reading many Kanigher books.

There is a nice two-page Battle Album on the "Killer Flying Fish of the North Atlantic" by Ken Barr.

We end with the "find' of the issue: "Parable" by Jerry DeFuccio and John Severin. This is the first of five war stories that Jerry DeFuccio would write for DC and it is wonderful in its richness of character and place. This may be due to Jerry's tenure at EC Comics where he was an assistant editor and researcher for Harvey Kurtzman's war books, Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales, books for which Jerry also wrote stories. But Jerry is mainly known for his long career as a writer at Mad Magazine, where was was also an associate editor for 25 years. Jerry DeFuccio died of cancer in August, 2001.

The "Parable" takes place in British-occupied Kandahar Afghanistan in the 1880s and tells the tale of one Private Shelley, a tightrope walker turned British soldier who fell in love with Afghanistan and after his discharge went to live with one of the local tribes. There he made the tribesmen's lives better, lowering the infant mortality rate and turning the men to a more peaceful way of life. But they believed that Shelley was a saint and as such would serve them better in paradise looking after their black souls, so one day they gutted him and left him on the side of the road for dead while they rushed home to pray for his released spirit in paradise.

But he wasn't quite dead yet and a British patrol finds him and brings him to their fort, where none of them recognize him since his appearance had changed so much since joining the tribe. When they ask him through a translator if his wound is deep he answers with a quote from Romeo and Juliet, "Tis not deep as a well nor wide as a church-door" and they realize that he is an Englishman. As one of the men put it, "He died as an Englishman...without denying his people of the Hindu-Kush!" This story was reprinted in Sgt. Rock Special #3.

This story also marked the first work at DC by John Severin since 1958, his first work with the company being in 1948 on a Boy Commandos story. Severin has had four good runs at DC, the first in 1957-1958 doing war stories. The second begins with this story and continues a year from now when he takes over the reigns of the Losers from 1971-1974. The third begins in late 1980 and really picks up steam in 1981 when he draws Enemy Ace for two years. His fourth run began in 2000 and contains runs on Desperadoes Quiet of the Grave, Caper, and Bat Lash.

John Severin is well known for his stint at EC Comics working on Two-Fisted Tales and of course as one of the five artists who began Mad. When EC folded John worked for years at Atlas/Marvel and was well regarded as an inker for Dick Ayers in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos and Herb Trimpe on The Incredible Hulk. In the 1970s he worked with his sister Marie Severin on King Kull.

Many people know John Severin from his years of association with Cracked Magazine, where he did countless movie and TV parodies and tons of covers.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #123

Our Fighting Forces #123 (On Sale: November 6, 1969) has a Losers cover by Joe Kubert.

This is the first appearance of The Losers as a cover feature and even they are prominently featured on the cover, it is kind of strange that we begin with a different story, "Cold Deadly as a Bullet" by Howard Liss and Russ Heath. His company pinned down on the back of a frozen river by a Nazi machine gun nest, Joe Martin is ordered to cross the river on the flank and toss some grenades into the nest, but he falls through a soft spot in the ice and has to swim away under the water to avoid the Nazi guns. He breaks through the ice near the shore and out of the gunman's sights and is able to destroy the next with a grenade.

Because of the nearby enemy they are unable to make a fire and Joe begins to freeze in the cold night air. The Nazis attack and Joe uses an enemy soldier's body to shield himself from a Nazi grenade, the blast throwing Joe into a soft snowbank, where he plays possum as the snow covers he freezing body. Surrounded by enemy soldiers, Joe lets the snow cover him completely. At dawn Joe hears the sounds of fighting and realizes his company has reached the river bank and is attacking. Coming up from his hiding place behind the enemy nest Joe is able to catch them in the crossfire.

Promised a hot shower, a warm meal and a toasty bed if they can just force the Nazis to leave a nearby town, Joe and a Lieutenant ride a machine-gun mounted jeep with towards a farmhouse containing a Nazi sniper. The Lieutenant is shot, the jeep crashes and Joe is shot. He tosses his last grenade, taking out the sniper, then dies. A fellow soldier remarks that at least now, Joe is no longer cold. Not much of a story, but great Russ Heath artwork.

Next is a one-page "Warrior: Histories Mightiest Men of Combat" featuring Napoleon and drawn by Ken Barr.

The back-up is just nuts. The first page identifies it as Lt. Hunter's Hellcats in "Exit Laughing." The Hellcats blow up a man-made volcano and proclaim this to be their last mission, if they can find someone to take their place (this is, in fact, their last appearance). The very next page is introducing The Born Losers in "No Medals No Graves" by Robert Kanigher and Ken Barr.  Now I know the cover says the book stars The Losers, but DC seems to not be sure that is the name they want to use, as the group is once again called The Born Losers.  Ken Barr's artwork is wonderful, though editor Kubert has his fingers in the mix on a few panels from page to page.

Capt. Storm, Johnny Cloud, Gunner and Sarge are all lamenting their lack of assignments and secretly thinking that they are not given one because they are "Born Losers" or simply "Losers." The word appears on nearly every page of the story and multiple times. Lt. Hunter shows up and lets them know that they are going on R&R and that Capt. Storm and the group must take the Hellcats' place, to which they all respond, "What have we got to LOSE?" As luck, or really bad writing would have it, their mission is for Capt. Storm to take the place of a man named Howard, who is known to the Nazis and looks exactly like Storm, right down to the wooden leg (one has to wonder how the Hellcats were supposed to pull this mission off!).

Storm is supposed to parachute into a Nazi stronghold, get captured, hold out in interrogation for 48 hours, then give the Nazis bogus information as he "cracks" while the rest of the Losers or Born Losers or whatever, launch a diversionary attack. Does any of this make sense? Not really, but it is Kanigher, so what do you expect? After a lot of fighting, the team is successful in their mission but still refer to themselves as "born losers" as they fly to safety. Read it for the wonderful Ken Barr artwork and try not to think too much about the story.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #122

Our Fighting Forces #122 (On Sale: September 11, 1969) has a cover by Joe Kubert. This is the last issue for Lt. Hunter and his Hellcats.

We begin with Lt. Hunter and his Hellcats in "24 Hours to Die" by Robert Kanigher and Artie Saaf. As a kid, I never much cared for Artie Saaf's artwork, but looking back at these issues, he was not bad at all.  The Hellcat's are told of how all agents sent to the Nazi-occupied island of Crete are "Captured, brainwashed and executed" after divulging our secrets. There mission is to  land on the island, contact the resistance leader and let them know of an Allied invasion plan. To make sure they do not divulge anything if captured, they are all given a poison that will kill them in 24 hours if they do not return for the antidote.

After taking the pills, the city is attacked by Nazi bombers and as the Hellcats run for cover, Heller sees Tommy Carlin, the man who murdered her father, rush into a bomb shelter, but he sees her and manages to escape. A PT boat which holds the antidote, drops the Hellcats off the coast of Crete and they are spotted by an enemy PT boat. From out of nowhere they produce a large net which they use to upend the enemy craft (not sure how this was supposed to work, but, you know, Kanigher).

As they approach the beach they are attacked by Nazi's hiding behind rocks, but the resistance shows up and they are able to take the Nazis out. The resistance ends up being the wives of the resistance leaders killed or captured by Col. Minotaur. Joining forces with the resistance, the Hellcats head off to Col. Minotaur's maze, where Zorba, the leader of the resistance, is being held.

The Hellcats go on alone into the maze and when they find Nazis, they surrender and are taken it Minotaur. The Hellcats are put into the maze where shrill sounds are blasted to make them go insane. They locate Zorba and using explosive buttons (Kanigher!) are able to escape and return Zorba to the resistance. They also use their buttons to destroy a huge minotaur statue that falls and kills Col. Minotaur. Feeling the effects of the poison, they swim back to the boat and receive the antidote.

That is followed by a one-page Warrior: History's Mightiest Men of Combat, featuring Ottawa Chieftain Pontiac by Ken Barr. Beautiful as you might expect from Barr.

Next is the first Battle Album  in a two-page spread featuring the Messerschmitt 264 which the Nazis designed to cross the Atlantic and bomb New York. Another nice piece by the talented Ken Barr.

We end with "Coward -- Take This Hill" by Robert Kanigher and Fred Ray. More confessions from me: as a kid I hated Fred Ray's artwork, but looking back on it, he told a really great story: Lt. Jim Travers of the Union army panics and runs when his men are slaughtered at the battle of Stoney Brook Hill. A year later, in another state, Lt. Travers leads the charge up Cemetery Hill. Once again he is overcome with fear, but he ignores it and leads his men up the hill, where another slaughter takes place. One man after another is killed as he carries the stars and stripes up the hill. Soon. Travers is the only man left and as he is dying he hands the flag to the Confederate commander who places it next to the Confederate flag.

The letter's page is filled with people complaining about Kanigher's plots on Hunter's Hellcats. They were right as The Losers take over the book starting next issue, though the Hellcats do make a final appearance there.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #121

Our Fighting Forces #121 (On Sale: July 10, 1969) has a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.

We begin with Lt. Hunter's Hellcats in "Take My Place" by Robert Kanigher and Artie Saaf (I really hate when things like this happen, Robert Kanigher writes a good story. I just need to remember my mantra: Kanigher was an asshole, Kanigher was an asshole). We begin on top of a windswept fjord in Norway, as we meet a pretty young redhead, who we learn is Pvt. Heller, the newest member of the Hellcats. She soon meets and defeats a Nazi Command Car, with the assistance of the Hellcats who arrive JIT.

They steal the Command Car and leave the Nazis in their underwear. While heading away, Heller remembers how she got here...Her father was a cop who was murdered by a neighborhood kid, Tommy Carlin. Heller promised her dying father that she would track Carlin down and get revenge no matter what. When Heller went looking for Carlin she learned he had enlisted and in order to follow him, she did the same.  A troublemaker, Heller winds up in the WAC guardhouse where Lt. Hunter choses her to join the Hellcats. In her first assignment with the group of ex-cons, they decide to answer a German Poster offering to free captured resistance leaders if they would take their place in front of the firing squad.

Coming back to real time the Hellcats get to the town and give themselves up. Later in their cell they meet the officer from the Nazi Command Car who tells them that they will not honor the poster and will execute all of them. The next morning they are taken out to be hung in public when the people of the town rise up in revolt against the Nazis.  As Kanigher put it, "Like a broken dam the people pour over their oppressors." They free the Hellcats but are stopped when the hostages are about to be shot.

Heller breaks away from the rest and sidles up to the Officer, saying, "Mind if I join a winning commander?" She is hot, he is stupid and once she get close enough she takes him and his guards out. The last page is pretty stunning. It is a single large panel with a round insert panel in the lower right side where Hunter and Heller talk in closeup. But it is the top of the page that is so well done. It says, "Following the Hellcats--the enraged townspeople mete out the kind of justice that is the ultimate end of all tyrants...Brutal--Permanent--and to the point" Below this you see the bottom of their boots as the townspeople cheer at their hung bodies.

Loved it. I was really surprised at how much I liked a lot of the Artie Saaf art. When it is good it has a sort of Frank Springer feel to it; when bad it looks like Vinnie Colletta inked it. Besides the really effective last page, Saaf did some interesting work, including the first page of the story that he liked enough to actually sign.

The back-up is "Jump into Two Wars" by Bob Haney and Joe Kubert and reprinted from Star Spangled War Stories #108. It is the night before D-Day and a plane full of ally soldiers is about to jump into enemy territory. Their job is to stop a division of Nazi tanks from shelling Omaha Beach. Andre, a Frenchman, relates to Lt. Link how they are about to jump where Charles Martel defeated the Moors centuries ago. On his way out of the plane, Link hits his head on the doorframe. When he lands he is met, not by his men, but by Charles Martel about to attack the Moors.

Link notes that he is in the exact same spot he was supposed to be, looking down at the same bridge he was supposed to keep the Nazis from crossing. The Moors are stopped at the bridge by Martel's men, but some of them head away and attempt to cross on a dam hidden around the bend of the river. Outmanned at the dam, Charles Martel tells Lt. Link to save himself while Martel attacks. Link's machine gun had jammed when he arrived, but he bets his hand grenades still work. He tosses one at the dam which explodes stopping the Moors. A chunk of debris from the dam whacks Link in the head, knocking him silly. When he regains his senses, he is back in his parachute, high over France, the day before D-Day.

When he lands, he is able to stop the Nazi tanks with the knowledge of the dam he gained, while in the past with Charles Martel.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #120

Our Fighting Forces #120 (On Sale: May 8, 1969) has another Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.

This issue begins with Lt. Hunter's Hellcats in "Devil in the Dark" by Robert Kanigher and Art Saaf.

The back-up story is "Killer on My Back" drawn by the Scottish wonder Ken Barr.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #118

Our Fighting Forces #118 (On Sale: January 9, 1969) features a Joe Kubert Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover.

This issue begins with Lt. Hunter's Hellcats in "Hell Underwater" by Robert Kanigher and Artie Saaf. This is Artie Saaf's second story for DC, the first being a romance story in 1967. Saaf would do all kinds of work for DC for the next ten years or so, from romance and horror to Binky and Scooter, Lois Lane, Supergirl and the Teen Titans.

The back-up stories are "Battle Light" from Our Army At War #41 and produced by Robert Kanigher and Irv Novick and "Yankee Stallion" written and drawn by Fred Ray.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #117

Our Fighting Forces #117 (On Sale: November 12, 1968) has a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.

We begin with Lt. Hunter's Hellcats in "Colder Than Death" by Robert Kanigher and Frank Thorne. Next is "The Three GIs" from Star Spangled War Stories #62 by Bill Finger and Russ Heath. Lastly we have "Medal in the Mud" written and drawn by Fred Ray.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #116

Our Fighting Forces #116 (On Sale: September 12, 1968) has just a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert.

We begin with "Peril from the Casbah" by Robert Kanigher and Frank Thorne, the second of three Lt. Hunter's Hellcats that Frank Thorne would draw. This was followed by "Combat Cowboy" drawn by George Evans in his first work for DC. Evans had worked on Crime SuspenStories and Aces High at EC Comics and may have been brought in by fellow ECer Joe Orlando. In 1980 Evans would take over the Secret Agent Corrigan newspaper strip from another EC alumnus, Al Williamson, a strip which ended with Evans' retirement in 1996. Evans died on June 22, 2001.

We end with "The Silent Tin Can" a reprint from Star Spangled War Stories #104 by Bob Haney and Jack Abel.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #115

Our Fighting Forces #115 (On Sale: July 11, 1968) has a rather uninspiring cover by Joe Kubert featuring Lt. Hunter's Hellcats.

"Death in the Desert" featuring Lt. Hunter's Hellcats is by Robert Kanigher and Frank Thorne. This is Thorne's first art for DC, a company he will work at for the next nine years, including a 22-issue run on Tomahawk which will do for the inside of the book what Neal Adams' covers did for the outside of the book. However, Thorne's popularity will skyrocket when he leaves DC to draw Red Sonja for Marvel.

The back-up stories are "Double-Cross" from Our Fighting Forces #77 by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert and "Tank in Town" from Star Spangled War Stories #58 by Bob Haney and Jerry Grandenetti.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #114

Our Fighting Forces #114 (On Sale: May 9, 1968) has a Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Joe Kubert (Irv Novick having moved on to Batman and Wonder Woman duty).

Inside we have Lt. Hunter's Hellcats in "No Loot for the Hellcats" by Robert Kanigher and Russ Heath. This story was reprinted in Our Army At War #269. The back-up story is "No Medals for a Hero" drawn by Jack Sparling.

Edited by Joe Kubert.

Our Fighting Forces #113

Our Fighting Forces #113 (On Sale: March 14, 1968) has another nice Irv Novick cover featuring Lt. Hunter's Hellcats.

"Operation – Survival" is by Robert Kanigher and Jack Abel and features Lt. Hunter's Hellcats. The back-up, "Tanks Are More Than Steel" is drawn by Jack Sparling.

Edited by Robert Kanigher.

Our Fighting Forces #112

Our Fighting Forces #112 (On Sale: January 11, 1968) has a fairly nice Lt. Hunter's Hellcats cover by Irv Novick.

"What's in It for the Hellcats?" by Robert Kanigher and Jack Abel features Lt. Hunter's Hellcats. The back-up story, "I Haven't Had My Basic Training Yet," is also drawn by Jack Abel.

Edited by Robert Kanigher.

Our Fighting Forces #111

Our Fighting Forces #111 (On Sale: November 14, 1967) features a cover by Irv Novick featuring Lt. Hunter's Hellcats.

We begin with Lt. Hunter's Hellcats in "Train of Terror" by Robert Kaniger and Jack Abel. This is followed by "No Movies in a Foxhole" drawn by Jack Sparling.

Edited by Robert Kanigher.