Notes: The Korean War. After defeating another night attack by the Communist forces Major Greenberg decides to send his U. N. soldiers on the offensive. P.F.C. Steve Klechek is sent ahead to scout the enemy's position. He radios back their co-ordinates so that the U.N. forces can bombarde them but has his escape delayed by a tussle with a Chinese sentry and catches part of the barrage himself and is knocked unconscious. He awakens in the arms of a beautiful Chinese girl but quickly finds that her cruel father is a Chinese officer sent to interogate him. Klechek is tortured but is saved by the advancing U.N. troops and joins them in battle. His life is saved by the Asian beauty when she warns him of a rear attack. After the battle is over and the victorious U.N. soldiers are mopping up the girl tells Klechek and the Major that she helped them because "your side is the good side". Then because by helping the U.N. troops she has "disrespected" her father she commits suicide by knife before the startled Klechek. - Joe Moore.

Notes: The Korean War. The men of Able Company just can't seem to please their top kick sergeant. No matter how hard they work and whatever they do he just chews them out and gives them an earful. The men hate him for this. When tested in battle though they prove up to the task and defeat their communist enemies. The sarge radios to HQ and privately tells them how well the men did but he gets no praise from the officer there and is treated by him just the way he treated his own men. - Joe Moore.

Notes: Recipient: Captain Raymond Harvey.

Notes: The Korean War. It's October 1951 as the American soldiers of the second regiment fight the Communist troops across the terrain of Dwakai in Korea. Pvt. William Manning is worried. He wonders how the scattered three hundred soldiers on his side can possibly hold out against the enemy. Then comes word that they are to attack the Communists and Will is certain that they will all die. But he has not reckoned on the many others involved in the assault. It's not just the him and his fellow foot soldiers but there are also air assault jets, big artillery gun units, armored cavalry tanks, and well-armed reserve regiments backing them. All these parts co-ordinated together bring about victory and make Will realize that he and his buddies are just one part of the big picture. - Joe Moore.

Assault, is a propaganda piece aimed at the humble footsoldier (many of whom were reading these books). Pvt. William Manning is a scary guy. He and his fellow soldiers of the second regiment are scattered over the terrain at Dwakai in october 1951. Pvt. Manning is afraid they will all die, because it's only 300 of them against thousands of reds. His friends tell him to leave the brain work to the big brass, but when he hears they are going to attack at 1200 hours, he is sure they'll die. The narrator takes over and addresses him directly, a trick often used in these books, mostly by Hank Chapman, whose work this surely resembles. "But that is only part of the picture... the part that you're involved in! There are more parts in this giant jig-saw calles assault!" He goes on to explain that the 300 men are backed-up by guns, howitzers, tanks, planes and other hardware firing over their heads at the reds. When the assault finally happens (in a full page splash on page 5), the army wins. And to assure the lowly footsoldiers reading this, the story ends with a army bigwig saying: "With all we've got, the most important element of assault is still the foot soldier! Bless everyone of the mud-slogging, foxhole-digging sons of battle!"

Several things make this story stand out production-wise. First of all, on the opening page, above the title, as quick introduction has been added - in such a way that is partly runs over the title block: "A soldier's mind can be a hodgepodge of doubts, bravery, fear and uncertainty! Here's a close look into such a mind and the story of what happened to it in the face of... assault!" Did someone object to the story? If so, maybe other parts of the story were rewritten as well. There's no evidence of any of that.

And then there is the assault splash on page 5. There are several signs that that page has been doctored with and it might even have been assembled after the story was finished. One would think that such a page was the whole point of the story - to show the different parts that make up an assault in one huge page - but in fact the story reads just as well without it, so it could have been a later addition.

The splash itself has an uneasy mix of perspectives, that could indicate that is was cobbled together from something else. On the top half there are two down-looking shots of a row of jeeps driving though a camp and several tanks coming over the ridge of a mountain. We would have to assume that the mountains we are looking at are sloping very much, to accommodate such a shot. Under that is a single group of soldiers running over another ridge. They are looking sideways and it is not quite clear what they are doing.

Then there is a group of soldiers running towards the camera, charging a couple of red soldiers. In the back is an explosion. These are the only reds on the whole page and frankly, the positioning of the groups makes you wonder what they are doing so far behind the enemy lines. Underneath them is a group of soldiers shooting a totally different way. This is a downward shot that fits very badly with upshot of the charging soldiers above them. And in front of that is a purple colored close-up of a soldier firing in yet another direction. This is a pasted in image drawn by Joe Maneely. I knew I'd seen it somewhere, so I searched Atlas Tales for Maneely samples and found it soon enough... it's the shooting soldier from Battlefront #2, published a couple of months earlier.

Oh and there are five almost identical planes added to the sky, flying from the left to the right, further mystifying as to where the action really is.

Other signs that this page has been doctored with are the slight (or sometimes not so slight) lines that suggest some cutting and pasting has been performed... two vertical lines, one through one of the tents in the camp and one next to the group charging the reds... the second one has a different type of crosshatching to the left than to the right. There's also a line visible on the bottom of the page underneath the past-up of Maneely's cover image and a very slight line to the right of the group running over the ridge.

So what does it all mean? I don't think the page was especially assembled, because it would have been better if it was done as a whole. Still, it could be. I am not even sure if the images used are all by the same artist. The charging group in the middle could be by Russ Heath, making the whole clip and mis theory more likely. Or could it be a reassembly of an earlier version of the page, maybe some sort of action page? - Ger Apeldoorn.

Notes: The Korean War. Al Thompson is unhappy. He's got beach patrol duty along the coast of the sea of Japan and he can't think of anything more boring. He lets everyone know it too. Then while patrolling that night he sees some American sailors unloading a Chinese junk. At least he thinks they are Americans until they start shooting at him and then he realizes that they are Chinese in American uniforms. He bravely shoots it out with them, getting shot in both legs in the process, as he frantically tries to get back to phone for help. He makes his call and waits figuring he can "rip into 'em for the last time" as the Chinese stage a "super banzai" attack on him. Just as it looks like he will be overwhelmed a vicious barrage cuts down the Chinese and Al is saved by an American patrol boat that got his message. A happy Al says that he will "never gripe again about sentry duty being dull." - Joe Moore.