Two Fisted Tales

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Two Fisted Tales #30, 1952.  Jack Davis cover art.  The great writer Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) was overage for combat but managed to get in the army as a footsoldier.  He repeatedly turned down a commission, and was an extremely good NCO.  Taking out a night patrol, one of his men lit a cigarette.  Munro's last words were "put out that bloody cigarette"!  He was killed by a bullet to the head immediately afterwards..  That he had to tell someone at night and in a no man's land dominated by enemy snipers not to use a match demonstrates that Britain was scraping the bottom of the barrel for manpower by late 1916.  He has no known grave.





Two Fisted Tales, #27, 1952.  Harvey Kurtzman cover art.




Two Fisted Tales # 25 1952.  Harvey Kurtzman cover art.  This is the greatest comic book cover of all time.  I first saw this in Les Daniel's excellent Comix, in 1973 while I was sick with the flu.  This is where the young boy discovered that reading comics was now "OK"!  I have been rich and famous and had great sex all day long ever since.





Two Fisted Tales #41.  This cover is by Jack Davis.  The Mau-Mau emergency arose because of the almost unbelievable way the Kenyan authorities treated the Kikuyu people and anyone else of color.  It was far worse than South Africa.  During the rebellion more white people died in traffic accidents in Nairobi then in the entire war.  Here is one of the genuine bad guys of that fight-



 
Dedan Kimathi

A paranoid guerilla leader, he started killing his own people most violently for no reasons that were coherent.  He is a national hero in Kenya.  He brutally slaughtered his adherents even as the Brits drew the noose tighter around his stronghold in the Aberdare mountains.  Genuine heroes like General China are ignored.  Kimathi was taking orders from God.




The most searing war comic to date.  A must read.  Harvey Kurtzman.
 




  

The Chosin Resevoir.  Still the Marine's nastiest battle, and that is big talk.  My uncle Glen survived this advance to the Yalu on the other side of the lake, with the Army's Second Division.  2cnd and 5th divisions got creamed.  The Marine 1st Division's commander, Gen. Oliver Smith, distrusted MacArthur's bullshit and prepared for a withdrawal, building roadways and airfields.  The Marine's were saved by the valor of Captain William Barber and the men of Fox Company.





 
Captain Barber, recipient of one of the best deserved Medals of Honor ever.  He had a lot of help in getting this award, but I doubt any of his men thought he did not rate it.  They held the Toktong Pass open until 1st Division passed through it, 3 days and night of -30 degrees against two Chicom regiments.  When I was a young Marine, I spoke to the man who led the relief of Fox Company, General Robert Barrow, who was commandant at the time.  'Spoke to' means shouting 'yessir' whenever he paused in talking.





Bummer.

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