With hardly any planes and no battleships we have a fight on our hands, Buddy… 
National Comics #18 is an issue of the series National Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of December, 1941.
Synopsis for Uncle Sam: "The Bombing of Pearl Harbor"
One morning in late 1941, Guam is attacked by "oriental" dive bombers, and Pearl Harbor is attacked with cannon fire by "enemy" warships. Another "hostile" fleet moves from a Mediterranean port toward North Africa.
Congress directs the Navy to send the entire Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific. Uncle Sam scolds Congress about this idiocy, then he and Buddy Smith travel from Washington DC to Portland Maine in an open outboard motorboat. The town is very quiet until a mob of wharfside thugs attacks them. Uncle Sam punches out a few of them but the rest manage to throw a big fishing net over Sam and Buddy, who are then stashed in the hold of a suspiciously-large, steel-hulled trawler, which then puts to sea. They escape from the net, and are unguarded. Uncle Sam detects a radio transmission coming from the trawler, which confirms his suspicion that these "fishermen" are spies. Then he punches a hole in the hull, and departs, with Buddy riding his shoulders, by sprinting across the surface of the ocean. The bad guys fire a torpedo at them; Uncle Sam surfs to shore on that torpedo, then flips it around and sends it back to the trawler, where it explodes. Then Unc and Buddy go looking for a telephone.
An enemy fleet, with air cover, is moving toward the New England coast, and aboard it, the German-looking officers are laughing it up about how clever their ally is, to have pulled away all the defenses from America's eastern coast. Uncle Sam and Buddy are on the scene at an Army sound detector station on the Maine coast, when it detects the "alien" attackers, Sam telephones the Secretary of War, who tells him that less than a dozen bombers are available. These, plus some cargo planes, plus some minelayers and destroyers, plus Uncle Sam, all advance and engage the enemy.
A large number of enemy bombers attack Portland. Young Buddy has an idea, and he persuades the members of a private flying club, and the president of a large piano company, to go along with it. A piano-wire cable, towing other cables, could be carried below a pair of ordinary airplanes, to tangle the invaders' propellors. Five enemy bombers are taken out by this tactic. Buddy directs the counterattack from the cockpit of one of these planes.
Enemy battleships begin shelling Portland. Out in Portland Bay, Uncle Sam encounters the forty-foot-tall ghost of John Paul Jones. Two historic frigates are anchored there, the USS Constitution and USS Constellation. Jones gives Sam an idea, then disappears. Uncle Sam recruits most or all of the town's fishermen and mariners to load the old warships with drums of oil, then that night to silently sail all the way around the enemy fleet, leaving a trail of oil, then ignite it.
A large number of transport planes attack Boston, dropping German-looking paratroopers. Buddy's two planes with their tangling cables attack the planes, and destroy all of them. They fly back to Portland, off the coast of which they see nine large warships, "completely helpless" because of the surrounding ring of burning oil. One catches fire, causing its ammunition supply to explode; it sinks. The American bombers come back and bomb the warships some more, until they sail into the harbor and surrender. The townspeople cheer for Uncle Sam who in turn cheers for John Paul Jones.
Appearing in Uncle Sam: "The Bombing of Pearl Harbor"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- John Paul Jones's ghost
- Secretary of War (not Henry L. Stimson)
- United States Air Force
- United States Army
- United States Navy
Locations:
Vehicles:
- USS Constitution
- U.S.S. Constellation
Synopsis for Kid Patrol: "Baby Carriage Brouhaha"
Appearing in Kid Patrol: "Baby Carriage Brouhaha"
Featured Characters:
- Kid Patrol
- Teddy
- George Washington Abraham Lincoln "Sunshine " Jones
- Porky
- Spunky
- Suzy
Supporting Characters:
- Officer Pat Malone
Synopsis for Sally O'Neil Policewoman: "Crooks In the Country"
Appearing in Sally O'Neil Policewoman: "Crooks In the Country"
Featured Characters:
Synopsis for Prop Powers: "The Phony Lighthouse"
Appearing in Prop Powers: "The Phony Lighthouse"
Featured Characters:
Synopsis for Wonder Boy: "The Central American Jungle Caper"
Appearing in Wonder Boy: "The Central American Jungle Caper"
Featured Characters
Synopsis for Quicksilver: "The Four Duplicate Witnesses"
Indicted mobster Dutch Hanson's gang has been kidnapping the prosecution's witnesses, and setting up his own hirelings to impersonate them at Hanson's upcoming trial. The night before the trial, they get the last one, Miss Carol Thomas; they stash her in their big sedan and drive away. As they pass over an open manhole, Quicksilver grabs their rear bumper, springs out of the manhole and skids along the pavement for a few feet, then flips himself onto their car, and rides the roof as they leave town. At an abandoned farmhouse, a good distance from the city, Miss Thomas is tossed into the basement along with three of the other witnesses, and three witness-impersonators. Carol gets tied to the same wall as the other three witnesses, while in walks the fourth impersonator, Maisie, who is about Carol's size, shape, and age. Quicksilver observes all this from the cover of some old barrels in one corner of the basement, and he gets an idea, then silently slips out of the house and streaks back to the city, to a police station, zips in via a 2nd-story window, punches out one cop, and searches through the PD's rogues' gallery, steals some photos, and zooms back to the farmhouse.
In the basement one thug, using make-up and a wig, has just about finished getting Maisie to look like Carol, and all four impersonators return to the city to get ready for the trial. The four thugs left behind make reassuring comments about how all the witnesses will be freed after Hanson gets acquitted, then Quicksilver walks into the room and taunts them. They try shooting at him, and he spends the next few seconds trouncing them, then leans on the make-up thug, and shows him some photos from the police files. Quicksilver tells this creep to change the real witnesses to look like the people in the photos. The next day at the trial, right after the fake witnesses finish demolishing the DA's case, in walk the real witnesses, disguised as the fake witnesses real selves, and a large amount of confusion is created, amid which Dutch Hanson stupidly blurts out an unexpected confession, and ends up getting sentenced to 20 years, and so does his gang.
Appearing in Quicksilver: "The Four Duplicate Witnesses"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Dutch Hanson
- Dutch's gang
- Maisie
- three other impersonators
- four thugs
- Dutch's gang
Other Characters:
- Miss Carol Thomas, a witness
- Mr. Hanley, a witness
- Fred, a witness
- Ed, a witness
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Jack and Jill: "Fury on the Florida Flyer:
Appearing in Jack and Jill: "Fury on the Florida Flyer:
Featured Characters:
Synopsis for Kid Dixon: "The Hollywood Hero"
Appearing in Kid Dixon: "The Hollywood Hero"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- B. Galsworthy "Bottle" Topps, Dixon's Manager
Synopsis for Paul Bunyan: "The Levee Saboteurs"
Appearing in Paul Bunyan: "The Levee Saboteurs"
Featured Characters:
Synopsis for Pen Miller: "A Real Slugfest"
Appearing in Pen Miller: "A Real Slugfest"
Featured Characters:
Synopsis for Merlin: "The Marsden Mystery"
Off the coast of India, a British submarine, the HMS Marsden, is torpedoed and destroyed by a Nazi submarine, the U-18. Shortly later a British scout plane arrives and spots the U-boat, running on the surface, but it immediately begins to dive. The scout plane is piloted by Lieutenant Rex King, who is accompanied by his friend Merlin the Magician. The pilot flies in closer, to make positive identification before attacking, and sees swastikas painted on the hydrovanes, even as the enemy craft is diving and about to get away. Lt. King drops a bomb, a near miss, the U-boat gets down deeper and then fires a "dummy torpedo." This device breaks apart and puts a fake oil slick on the surface, with navy caps and uniform pieces floating around in it.
It's a frame-up. When a patrol boat brings back the salvaged uniform pieces, they turn out to be Royal Navy gear, and the Marsden is very overdue on reporting in. The patrol boat also leaves a buoy at the site. The senior officer concludes that Lt. King has bombed the Marsden and has him arrested, pending a court-martial.
Days later, the admiralty convenes a hearing. Merlin the Magician is present to vouch for Rex, he saw the same things Rex saw, but he also can't account for the British uniform pieces, but promises to figure it out.
The next day, a patrol boat brings Merlin to the site of the Marsden's sinking, in his tuxedo and cape, and he jumps into the ocean, using backwards-talking magic to give himself the ability to breathe. Merlin surveys the sunken wreckage, and in his opinion the damage is too big for Lt. King's bomb to have done, plus he finds the steering mechanism from a Nazi torpedo. He returns with this evidence, but still can't account for the floating uniform pieces. So he flies off in search of the Nazi sub, and soon finds it. Merlin dives in again, using magic to turn himself into a huge green whale, then chases and swallows the U-boat, swims to the shore outside the Admiralty's office, and spits the sub out onto the beach. The enemy crew is captured alive.
Soon Lt. King is exonerated, and the Nazi ruse is explained.
Appearing in Merlin: "The Marsden Mystery"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Nazi submarine crew
Other Characters:
- Lieutenant Rex King
- British submarine crew (all die)
- British admirals and other senior officers
Locations:
Items:
- Merlin's Magic Cloak
Vehicles:
- HMS Marsden
- U-18
- a patrol boat
- Lt. King's 2-seat scout plane
Notes
- Uncle Sam: Although this issue's cover date was December 1941, it would have been produced some months ahead of time.
- No actual caption or dialogue in the story explicitly identifies the nationalities of the aggressor forces, but the ones we see in person are wearing German-style uniforms, but with no insignia.
- No actual caption or dialogue in the story identifies the date of the Pearl Harbor attack as 7 Dec 1941, or even in December at all.
- Merlin: The combatant nations in this story are identified in the captions as "British" and "Nazi."
- Also appearing in this issue of National Comics were:
- Windy Breeze: "The Lie Detector" by Jack Cole
- Miss Winky, art by Arthur Beeman
- Cyclone Cupid: "The Giant Mosquito" by Gill Fox
See Also
Links and References
