RED CROSS: HIS WORLD WAR TWO ERA STORIES

For this weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog let’s go Old School and look at the 1940s character Red Cross.

THE RED CROSS 

Secret Identity: Peter Hall, MD

First Appearance: Captain Aero Comics # 8 (September 1942).

Origin: Doctor Peter Hall, a captain, was a physician serving in the field with America’s armed forces in World War 2. Outraged at Axis atrocities in the Philippines he vowed to take action but, constrained by his Hippocratic Oath he employed the VERY intellectually dishonest strategy of adopting a second, costumed identity.

Calling himself the Red Cross he took to battling both the Japanese and the Germans – with his physical abilities and with guns. (I’m guessing his motto was “First I’ll INFLICT their wounds, then I’ll HEAL their wounds!”). Not even his aide – Nurse Lucy Feller – suspected that the dedicated field surgeon Dr. Hall was also the homicidally violent Red Cross. You’d think the big Rx prescription logo on the superhero’s chest might have given her a clue.  

Powers: The Red Cross was in peak physical condition and was exceptionally agile. He was also an expert at unarmed combat and a proficient marksman with whatever guns he took from his opponents in battle. He often used his physician’s expertise in the human anatomy to target vulnerable points on his opponents’ bodies, inflicting maximum damage in the shortest amount of time.

Comment: Part Zorro, part Audie Murphy and part Dr. Cox from Scrubs, the Red Cross is a fairly unique costumed figure. This hero alternated white and blue shirts for his costume.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS #8 (September 1942)

Title: The Red Cross

Villain: Imperial Japanese General Yomakomo

Synopsis: In a Philippine city held by the Japanese forces, Captain Peter Hall, MD is among the latest prisoners of war brought into town. Having seen the Imperial atrocities across the Philippines, Dr. Hall is pushed to the breaking point when General Yomakomo has his men stop him from treating a wounded American soldier. 

Our hero escapes the Japanese soldiers taking him away, then briefly hides in an Imperial medical supply room. He works up a costume complete with mask and jodhpurs (a medical necessity, dammit) and goes John McClane on the Japanese soldiers. He calls himself the Red Cross. 

The running battle leads to our main character stopping his getaway to care for a wounded Japanese soldier due to his Hippocratic Oath. In a bit of nuance that we are always told would not have shown up in wartime fiction, the seeming Japanese soldier reveals himself to really be a Japanese man who was born in America and now works for Allied intelligence.

The Red Cross patches up the spy and then assumes his mission to seize Japanese war plans from General Yomakomo’s headquarters. The two get back to Allied lines with the plans. The narration closes with a plea for donations to the Red Cross but I don’t know if there really was an arrangement with that organization to use their name for a superhero.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS #9 (November 1942)

Title: The French Underground

Villains: Nazis

Synopsis: For some reason, Dr. Peter Hall is now serving in the European Theater of Operations. When the Nazis brag about capturing French Underground leader Jon Durez, Hall becomes the Red Cross and sets out to free him.

With lightning quick strikes at the Gestapo agents and Nazi soldiers in his way, our hero manages to covertly enter the concentration camp holding Durez. Using his fists, a knife and hand grenades the Red Cross frees the Frenchman and returns him to the Underground.   

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS #10 (January 1943)

Title: Sabotage!

Villain: Major Bodach

Synopsis: When Allied military operations in Egypt are being repeatedly sabotaged, Dr. Hall slips away to look into things as the Red Cross.

Amid punch-ups and gunplay, our hero at long last exposes British officer Major Bodach as the traitor. He proceeds to shut down Bodach’s entire ring of saboteurs.   

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS Vol 3 #9 (September 1943)

NOTE: I’m as confused as you are over this numbering system from Holyoke Comics.

Title: The People of Poland

Villains: Nazis

Synopsis: The Red Cross uses some connections among the Soviets to get flown into Poland.

Once there he links up with the Polish Underground and leads them in destroying a Nazi munitions plant. He also frees an Underground leader for the Poles. This one is named Jan, just like the French one was named Jon. 

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS Vol 3 #10 (November 1943)

Title: Those Who Never Came Back

Villain: Dr. Molo

Synopsis: Dr. Peter Hall is back in the Pacific Theater of Operations now. When an Imperial Japanese mad scientist named Dr. Molo begins using his new Suicide Ray on wave after wave of Allied troops, Dr. Hall takes time out from tending the wounded to don his Red Cross costume and take action.

Arriving at the island where Dr. Molo and his troops are based, our hero does his usual one-man army bit.

Ultimately he commandeers the Suicide Ray and trains it on those Japanese soldiers he hasn’t killed already.

They take their own lives and the Red Cross gets word to General MacArthur that it’s safe to land on the island now.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS Vol 3 #11 (January 1944)

Title: The Code of the Morros (should be spelled Moros)

Villain: Maki Sao, mad scientist

Synopsis: On one of the Japanese occupied Philippine Islands that boasts a heavy Moro population, Japanese mad scientist Maki Sao is at work. The Japanese army has seized the local mosque and given it to Maki to use as his laboratory. 

The Red Cross arrives as the Imperial forces begin using Sao’s latest biological warfare creation against the Philippine resistance. Sprayed from Japanese planes the substance kills Moros by the dozen.

Maki Sao brags that he will be able to wipe out every Moro in the islands. Naturally, our hero isn’t having it and goes medieval on their asses. He saves the lives of the remaining Moros and destroys Sao’s bacterial agent, inflicting another defeat on the Axis forces.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS Vol 3 #12 (April 1944)

Title: The River of Fire

Villains: Imperial Japanese troops

Synopsis: U.S. Marines on a hotly contested Pacific Island are suffering heavy casualties from a new incendiary weapon of the Japanese. The Red Cross flies in to help both medically and martially. On the way he shoots down one Zero and drives off two others.

By this point our hero must have some kind of official status because he helps care for the Marine casualties while still in costume. He even operates with it on.

With his medical responsibilities taken care of, the Red Cross heads into the jungle. He single-handedly defeats several soldiers, survives a fiery death-trap, foils the “River of Fire” mechanism and recovers millions of gallons of oil for the Allied advance.   

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS Vol 3 #13 (June 1944)

Title: The Man Who Lost His Face

Villain: Professor Yukimara

NOTE: First appearance of Nurse Lucy Feller

Synopsis: The location is Java. When many of Dr. Peter Hall’s latest patients are victims of poisoned drinking water, he cares for the afflicted then becomes the Red Cross to investigate.

It turns out that the villain who is poisoning the water supply for both combatants and noncombatants alike is one Professor Yukimara, now a colonel in the Imperial Japanese Army. Yukimara wears a plastic mask to cover his face which was disfigured by acid long ago in a lab accident.

By a comic book coincidence, Nurse Feller is the woman who caused that accident when Yukimara was teaching in the U.S. She, along with the Red Cross, falls into the clutches of the professor and his troops.

When the villain prepares to disfigure Nurse Feller with acid as revenge, our hero breaks free of the soldiers holding him and saves Lucy. He fights their way to freedom and provides the coordinates of Yakimura’s poison factory so that Allied bombers can wipe it out of existence.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS Vol 4 #2 (August 1944)

Title: The Story of Hill 613

Villains: Nazis

Synopsis: Now stationed at a military hospital in Sicily, Captain Hall hears about a platoon of Allied paratroopers desperately holding Hill 613 against wave after wave of Nazi troops. He becomes the Red Cross and flies off for Hill 613 in his experimental “new jet fighter.”

First he cuts off and shoots down German bombers on their way to annihilate Hill 613, then miraculously lands on that hill. As the Nazi attacks continue, the Red Cross alternates between caring for the wounded and helping drive off the enemy.

At length our hero leads the soldiers in a defeat of the Nazis, but sadly only a handful of survivors remain alive among the paratroopers.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS Vol 4 #3 (October 1944)

Title: The Walled City of Yeng-Tu

Villains: Imperial Japanese troops

Synopsis: The Red Cross is in an area of China still held by the Japanese occupiers. He is overseeing a mission of mercy as a convoy of American trucks are permitted to enter the Walled City of Yeng-Tu with vital medical supplies for Chinese POWs.

Despite the arrangements, the Imperials double-cross the humanitarians, seizing the trucks and taking the medical personnel prisoner. The Red Cross fights his way free, vowing to return soon to save the others. 

Our hero leads a commando raid which takes the walled city while defeating the Japanese. The medical supplies are retrieved and the prisoners set free.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS #21 (December 1944)

Title: Ghost Story

Villains: The Axis Nations

Synopsis: After his latest mission of mercy, Dr. Peter Hall – for some reason called Drake in this story (you know comic book writing) – falls in with the ghosts of a heroic bomber crew. They openly admit to being ghosts right up front and have him become the Red Cross.

Next, they take him aboard and fly off to magically show him sights from theaters of combat around the world. It’s never spelled out, but this might have been intended as a pseudo-Christmas Carol variation, hence the ghosts.

At any rate, the Red Cross finds himself rededicated to the Allied cause after being shown heroic people around the world sacrificing their lives to win the war.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS #22 (April 1945)

Title: Zero Hour

Villain: Submarine Captain Hokoto

Synopsis: The Red Cross is on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Theater of Operations this time around. He’s been doing some one-man rescue missions of downed American fliers as needed.

On this particular mission, just as he lands his seaplane by the American pilot’s inflatable raft, a Japanese Imperial Submarine surfaces. With plenty of weapons aimed at them, our costumed hero and the pilot surrender.

Captain Hokoto, the sub commander, keeps the Red Cross alive for the moment to examine one of his seriously ill officers. It turns out the man needs an operation. What follows is a plan carried out by Hokoto, who surprises everyone by wanting to defect to the Americans and tell all he knows.

The captain leads the Red Cross and the downed pilot in escaping to our hero’s seaplane and returning to the American aircraft carrier.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS #23 (August 1945)

NOTE: In real life the war would soon be over, but some comic book companies were still running already completed stories of their heroes fighting the Axis Powers.

Title: Lifeboat

Villains: Two Japanese submarines

Synopsis: Still in the Pacific Theater, the Red Cross is aboard a cargo vessel bearing twenty Red Cross workers on an unspecified mission of mercy. A Japanese submarine torpedoes the ship, killing nearly everyone on board.

When the sub surfaces to raid the cargo, the Red Cross mans a piece of artillery and blows the sub away. (Just go with it.) Next, he saves the still living crew members, many of them injured, and sets out with them on a lifeboat.

After tending to the wounded, the Red Cross is shocked to see another Japanese submarine surface. It is about to fire upon everyone on the lifeboat but, impossibly, our hero leads the survivors in taking the sub and linking up with an American Destroyer to take the sub into port.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS #24 (November 1945)

Title: The Bagpipes of Scotty MacDoon

Villains: The Imperial Japanese Army

Synopsis: Dr. (Captain) Peter Hall is skippering a shipment of supplies to Allied forces holding an island against a Japanese attack. Scotty MacDoon, a veteran of World War One, sneaks aboard in hopes of seeing his son, who is in command of the Scottish troops on the island. 

When the ship hits a floating wood barricade used by the Japanese, Hall becomes the Red Cross then he and Scotty – and his bagpipes – go into action. They fight their way to the barricade and destroy it with dynamite, but Scotty is mortally wounded.

On the island, his son is about to surrender but the sound of his father’s bagpipes inspires him to keep fighting. The Red Cross reaches the Scottish troops with the supplies, and Scotty MacDoon is buried.

CAPTAIN AERO COMICS #25 (February 1946)

Title: Diana Favor

Villain: Diana Favor

Synopsis: Dr. Hall is in an Australian port while his “flying hospital” gets repairs and gets ready to take more wounded on board. Wealthy and selfish Diana Favor is bored in Australia and wants to get flown to Hawaii aboard the flying hospital. 

To that end she invites Peter to dinner, then drugs him as part of her plan to sneak aboard the doctor’s plane when it takes off the next morning with wounded on board. Peter comes to, then gets in the plane dressed as the Red Cross.

A bad storm forces the plane to land on a Pacific Island. The Red Cross must stay there for days, treating an epidemic among the natives and tending to his own wounded. Diana Favor pulls a gun on the plane’s pilot and tries to force him to take off, but winds up thwarted.

*** And so, with that fairly lame story the adventures of the Red Cross came to an end. Throughout his run he shared the publication with Holyoke superheroes like Captain Aero (of course) plus Miss Victory, Alias X and Flagman.