Heroic Comics #27

Lieutenant Henry Matson, a fighter pilot whose parachute leaves him vulnerable during a dogfight over Guadalcanal, thinks fast when enemy Zeros close in—making an exaggerated face to convince the Japanese pilots he's one of their own. His quick thinking and nerve buy him enough time to drift safely to the ocean, where an American patrol boat picks him up hours later.

When a Coast Guard crew manning the Snafu Maru, an LST boat, faces its first taste of real combat, they must hold the line as fifty enemy planes descend in a coordinated assault near Cape Gloucester. With engines damaged and the ship vulnerable, the gun crews keep firing through waves of bombers and fighters, even as wounded sailors refuse to leave their posts—all while American fighters race to join the battle overhead. It's a gripping portrait of courage under fire and the U.S. Coast Guard's mettle when it matters most.

When the mixed-breed family dog Chips is enlisted into the U.S. Army's K-9 Corps in 1942, his journey from the Wren household in Pleasant Ville, New York, to overseas combat duty begins under the care of Private John A. Rowell. Trained at Fort Royal, Virginia, Chips ships out to the Mediterranean theater where he earns military honors that make him a legend among soldiers and a source of pride for his former owners, daughters Nancy and Gail, who anxiously await word from the front.

A torpedo man explains the inner workings of these naval weapons—from what powers their engines to how they're fired from submarines and how a gyroscope keeps them locked on target. This four-page military primer breaks down the anatomy and mechanics of one of the war's most devastating weapons, answering essential questions about depth settings, speed, and the coordination needed between the submarine skipper and crew to deliver a lethal strike.

Lt. Nathan Gordon, commanding a Navy Catalina rescue plane, refuses to abandon his mission when a B-25 bomber goes down near the heavily fortified Japanese base at Kavieng—even as his damaged aircraft takes fire and battles both enemy guns and a treacherous sea. Undeterred by repeated danger, Gordon and his crew make four daring runs into the heart of the fighting to pull American airmen from certain death. Their motto: enough is never too much when lives hang in the balance.

At an advanced base in New Guinea, the mess personnel receive an official order: cooks are off-limits for cursing, because they're human too and doing their best with wartime rations. A skeptical sergeant imagines the slippery slope this protection might cause—from soldiers sweetening their language to the Army losing its edge entirely—and decides maybe some traditions are worth keeping after all.

A young American soldier on patrol behind Nazi lines in Italy finds himself captured—but quick thinking and a promise of a hot meal turn the tables in the most unexpected way. When his German captors reveal their hunger for real food after months of rationing, this soldier's knowledge of what awaits back at camp becomes his greatest weapon. "Yankee Hospitality" shows how resourcefulness and a full stomach can accomplish what bullets alone cannot, all while driving home the message that food waste at home directly impacts the war effort.

Major "Pappy" Boyington trades a desk assignment for the chance to lead a ragtag squadron of capable but undisciplined pilots in the South Pacific during World War II. With his combat experience from the Flying Tigers in China, Boyington transforms his "Black Sheep" into an aerial force to be reckoned with against Japanese opposition. This 1944 account captures the true exploits of a Marine pilot determined to stay in the fight no matter the cost.

Hydroman helps educate Americans about the critical importance of scrap paper collection to the war effort, revealing how waste materials become essential components in military equipment and supplies for troops overseas. Through concrete examples, he demonstrates that seemingly ordinary paper goods play a vital role in keeping our soldiers safe and supplied.

When Lt. Jack Bade's crippled plane loses consciousness over the South Pacific, he awakens to find himself diving dangerously close to the ocean—and spots fellow American pilots under attack by Japanese Zeros. With his machine guns knocked out, Bade improvises a desperate aerial tactic: using his whirling propeller as a weapon to chase off enemy fighters and protect his comrades. This 1944 two-pager captures one of the war's most daring dogfights, proving that American ingenuity can turn the tide even when the odds seem impossible.

A soldier searching for shelter stumbles into a deadly German booby trap, setting off a gripping exploration of the land mine—one of war's most insidious weapons. Through dramatic real-world examples, this story reveals how the Axis powers ingeniously concealed these explosives to catch the unwary, and the painstaking techniques Allied engineers developed to detect and neutralize them before advancing troops. From magnetized detectors to safety lanes marked with tape, witness the dangerous cat-and-mouse game that unfolded before major operations like the British attack on El Alamein.

When a mysterious voice demands that oil magnate Jim Casey sell his wells or face deadly "accidents," Pat Dempsey arrives just in time to discover a murdered watchman—and uncover a conspiracy of theft and sabotage orchestrated by Casey's own foreman, Red Blaine. As Man O' Metal, Dempsey must stop Blaine's ruthless scheme before the crook forces Casey to sign away everything and silences them both in the flames of an oil field.