Fightin' Navy #110

A ragtag crew of inexperienced sailors aboard the destroyer escort DE 219 is thrust into the most perilous convoy duty of World War II—shepherding merchant ships across the Murmansk Run, where Nazi wolf packs and the Luftwaffe reign supreme. With little training and green hands manning every station, they must learn combat operations on the fly while protecting helpless cargo vessels through waters where fewer than half the ships that set out survive. Their baptism by fire comes fast: a U-boat contact, a ramming attack, and waves of enemy bombers testing their nerves and their growing resolve to get the job done.

The U.S.S. Cassenden, a nimble Fletcher-class destroyer, earns her stripes through desperate combat in the Pacific and Atlantic—racing through enemy fire to rescue refugees off Mindanao, ramming U-boats in the North Atlantic, and laying down covering fire at Normandy. After years of relentless action that age her crew beyond their years, the ship finally heads home when the European war ends, her reputation as a fighting vessel cemented in the hearts of everyone who served aboard her. But the greatest test of her legacy may come in peacetime, as she faces a quieter, more permanent fate.

Down in the engine room of a Navy light cruiser, a sailor called Blackie tends the machinery during intense combat—unaware whether it's day or night, unable to see the battle raging above, but performing his duties with quiet determination as the ship endures hits and fires rage around him. In this war story from 1963, the real heroism belongs not to the officers topside, but to the men like Blackie who keep the engines running in the heat and darkness, doing their jobs when it matters most.

When communist raiders strike the fence at Guantanamo Bay during his sentry duty, sailor Burrel Talbot finds himself in an unexpected position to stop them—even though his orders never prepared him for what comes next. With Rear Admiral Wallin's stolen briefcase hanging in the balance, Talbot has to make a split-second decision that could change everything at the base. This tense 1963 Cold War tale from *Fightin' Navy* #110 puts one sailor's quick thinking against enemy planning, where hesitation means disaster.

Aboard a Korean-coast carrier during the war, Lt. Mark Edmonds and a specially trained commando unit devise an audacious plan to destroy the heavily defended Cuchan Gorge Bridge—a target that's claimed eight pilots and planes already. When fog grounds the fighter bombers, the men decide to take matters into their own hands, piloting experimental radar-equipped boats up the river under cover of darkness to finish what the air wing cannot.