Those wildmen made Dunkirk seem like a high school prom! What do you feed 'em, H-bombs?! 
- —Ben, guardhouse commander
Appearing in "Midnight on Massacre Mountain!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Nazis
- Hans Schmidt (First appearance; dies), posing as Hank Smith, New York Globe reporter
Other Characters:
- United States Army
- General Curtis (First appearance)
- Ben, guardhouse commander (First appearance)
- O.S.S. (First appearance)
- Major Richards (First appearance)
- Uncle Sam (Mentioned)
- Jonah Jones (Mentioned)
- William Shakespeare (Referenced)
- Pietro, Italian partisan (First appearance)
- Adolf Hitler (Mentioned)
- Tony Curtis (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth
- Italy
- United Kingdom
- England
- Stratford-On-Avon (First appearance)
- King's Whistle (First appearance)
- Stratford-On-Avon (First appearance)
- England
- United States of America
- Hawaii (Mentioned)
- Brooklyn, New York City, New York (Mentioned)
Events
Synopsis for "Midnight on Massacre Mountain!"
On the English coastline, the Howling Commandos intercept a squad of German commandos and capture them. After a hike back to base, they prepare for a night on the town. Dugan walks into a pub called the King's Whistle. A swarm of darts lands in his cap, thrown by regular infantry who think the commandos are "glory-hungry." The next morning, Sawyer goes to the guard house to bail out his men; the MPs needed a tank to bring in the Howlers after their fight with the infantry.
Fury and Richards meet for the first time
Two days later, the commandos are on a PT boat off the Italian shore, getting strafed by German dive bombers. The boat lets them off in a rubber raft, still under fire, and they come ashore in range of a machine gun nest. After the Nazis bring up artillery, the commandos make it to some rocks. The firing stops. They find that the Italian partisans drew them off, and with them is Major Richards of the OSS, their contact. He tells them to find General Curtis and his division, who are trapped in a valley on the other side of Massacre Mountain, and tell them to follow the "tunnel of Caesar," their escape route.
Manelli goes into a bombed-out village and learns that the Nazis are all surrounding the trapped division. Three American reporters come out of hiding, and one of them, Hank Smith, tries to interview Fury. The commandos split up into two-man teams to find a way into the valley: Dugan and Jones try the south, Cohen and Ralston the east, but find the Nazis waiting for them. Fury tells Manelli and Juniper to try the north, but on the map he indicates the west instead. When he hears a barrage to the north, Fury has confirmed his suspicion that Smith is a spy. Smith confirms that he is really Hans Schmidt of the Waffen SS and covers the commandos with a sub-machine gun. The returning Manelli surprises Schmidt and shoots him. He tells Fury that the west side has only one artillery squad.
The Howling Commandos take out the artillery with a grenade, rapel down a cliff, and run through a barrage. Fury gives Curtis the message. The engineers blast a hole through the mountain where a bust of Caesar sits on a pedestal. Fury and his men lead the charge through the tunnel and rout the Nazis. While Curtis hands out medals to his men, the commandos are sitting in a rubber raft in the rain, waiting for their ride.
Notes
- This issue includes a one-page pinup, "America's World War II Shopping List," showing several pieces of equipment and their costs.
- An editorial note reveals that Major Richards will become Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four. Richards appearance is the first crossover in this series, and establishes that the Howling Commandos exist in the Marvel Universe. Similarly, Ben Grimm will later appear in Capt. Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders #7.
Trivia
- A fairly obvious anachronism occurs when hydrogen bombs ("H-bombs") are mentioned by an M.P. Nuclear weapons were still theoretical at the time this story takes place during, and the hydrogen bomb itself would not be invented until 1956.