THE COAST GUARD had a program to acquire small boats. An owner could donate his boat to the Coast Guard, join the service, and go along with it. I loved boating, and I had a friend, John Beardsley, from Connecticut, who was an editor in comics. We used to hang around together and go fishing. So we had this idea.
“Let’s buy ourselves a boat,” John said, “and then enlist it in the Coast Guard. We’ll be around the shores, so we won’t get ourselves killed right off.”
It made a lot of sense.
But before we could carry out our clever plan, Marty Burstein got me involved in the Coast Guard’s mounted Beach Patrol. He was active in politics in those days, so he probably pulled some strings. He convinced his contacts that I was a big horse expert because I used to ride in Forest Park in Queens. It turned out to be a really good deal, too. They rated me as a coxswain. That made me a Petty Officer Third Class, so I was paid something like $41 a month.
Just like that, it was official. I had enlisted in the military.
I drove my car down to Long Beach Island in New Jersey, north of Atlantic City, where the Barnegat Lighthouse State Park is located. The Coast Guard had set up a barracks in what had been a beachfront hotel. It might have been nice in its day, but they had gutted the structure and filled one huge room with bunks for 50 people. Our commandant was a lieutenant junior grade, just above ensign and just below lieutenant. The petty officers and non-rated enlisted personnel referred to him as a “jay-gee.” From what I could gather, his military expertise consisted of having been an usher at Radio City Music Hall. At least he was comfortable being in uniform, I suppose. He turned out to be a huge fan — his office was filled with comic books — so that earned me his immediate respect.
One of the first things I noticed upon my arrival was that they had a boxing ring set up. Most of the guys were from the South or the Midwest. (There wasn’t a helluva lot of education spread around there.) The next thing you know, we were boxing one another, and these goddamn farm boys were trying to kill me! They didn’t like New Yorkers. Luckily I had some boxing experience, so I survived, though I suffered a fractured rib at one point.
There was a guy named Calhoun who hung out with another guy named Young. (It’s funny, I can remember the last names but I don’t remember the first names.) Now Young was an ex-boxer from the professional circuit, but Calhoun was just a mean little guy, a troublemaker. He always wanted to fight. We were about 70 miles east of Philadelphia, and frequently Calhoun and Young would head off to a bar in Philly to start a brawl with Navy or Marines guys. Even if Young wasn’t with him, Calhoun would still start a fight, then get beaten up. He obviously liked to take a beating in the name of the Coast Guard. These weren’t people I hung out with.
I did go on excursions with some of the other guys in the unit. I was the king of the road there — a G.I. with a car. It was a red Buick convertible I had bought at the beginning of the war from a guy who got drafted.
There was a house of ill repute in the suburbs of Eaton, Pennsylvania. Our chief petty officer was a regular patron, and all of the guys wanted to visit on a regular basis. It fell upon my shoulders to get them there. Then, the next morning, it fell upon me to get them safely back to the barracks.
At Barnegat we were instructed to groom the horses we used for the shore patrol.
On the plus side, I had my own horse in the shore patrol, and I loved it!
While I was at Barnegat I had two or three horses donated by the old cavalry. This one mean horse was pissed off about something. I don’t know who his previous owner had been, but evidently he didn’t want a new one. He tried to throw me in the marshes. He was so angry that he would bite down on the bit and cut his mouth open. I had him for a few weeks, and could never train him.
We also had a dog patrol. The problem was that people used to donate the dogs they couldn’t handle. Their idea was that the Coast Guard was supposed to retrain them, but that was easier said than done. Some of the dogs were just plain big and nasty. They’d behave themselves for a while, then just go off on a tear. There was a story going around that a couple of guardsmen had been killed by the dog they were handling. So we all treated the dogs with a healthy respect.
Long Beach Island is a long, thin strip of land off of the coast of New Jersey, butting up against an equally long, skinny peninsula to the north. Together they create Barnegat Bay. We were surrounded by narrow beaches, salt marshes, and water shallow enough that it was crystal clear in places. It was teeming with fish, crabs, jellyfish, and all sorts of birds. While there were some patches of forest, the relative lack of trees made it an ideal place for us to watch the Atlantic Ocean for signs of enemy boats and submarines.
One night one of the patrolmen actually reported that he had seen a submarine off the coast, and as soon as he put in the call the air was filled with airplanes and soldiers parachuting onto the beach. We were all put on high alert. When there was no sign of a sub, our patrol guy was hustled away. The shore police interviewed him, then decided it had just been his way of trying to attract attention. Someone said he was going bonkers because he was so lonesome on the beach. So they took him to Philly and threw him into the brig. They had him there for quite a while.
Sometime later it was determined that there had been a sub at our beach, like the one sunk by a Coast Guard cutter off the coast of North Carolina in 1942. Of course, if a submarine had attacked the coast of New Jersey, it would have been bad news — especially for us.
You see, the moment I arrived I was handed a wooden rifle. They didn’t have enough guns and ammunition for us to use in training, so we just got these cheap prototypes. Finally they gave us live side arms, and we did some target shooting. Then they issued me a jeep and a driver, and sent me out on night patrol. I’d never seen a jeep before. I had no police training — nothing like that. Yet here I was, the shore police! Fortunately, most of what we found were drunks. Guys who were out boozing, and didn’t know where the hell they were. No terrorists.
I hope in the next war we’re better prepared.
We had some pretty interesting characters in the shore patrol. There was a guy named Feldstein who was a gay chorus dancer on Broadway. A New York Jew, but these guys didn’t know what a Jew was. They used to call me “that Guinea from New York,” meaning Italian, because they couldn’t tell the difference. Feldstein was a dancer, and they thought there was something girlish about him, but that’s about as far as they could figure that out.
There were a couple of Native American Indians in our company, but again, most guys couldn’t tell the difference. They looked like the rest of us, and bunked with the rest of us.
We didn’t have any black men among the recruits in the Coast Guard, and the first time we saw blacks at Barnegat, they had been brought in to do kitchen work. Nobody was nice to them, and they were kept strictly segregated. Most of our enlisted men were from the South, because it was assumed that guys from rural areas knew how to handle horses.
I knew there was prejudice in the country, but I’d never been so close to it. This was a new experience, and a new breed of American — the race baiters, the haters. As a result, the black guys were very appreciative if you said something nice to them. There was a time when I went down to the kitchen at night and there were all of these guys moving in. I hung out with them for a while, shooting the breeze. It was nice to have a chance to relax.
When he thought I wasn’t looking, one guy leaned in close to another.
“He’s alright,” the guy said, meaning me.
The other guy just nodded silently.
They didn’t expect me to hear that, you know, and it felt pretty good. It was nice to be accepted.
Later, in boot camp, there was a black guy who was hurt on the gym field. Everyone was just standing around and staring at him. Nobody seemed to want to help him, or call for help. I’ll never forget that. I could see that it was pretty tough being a black guy in a white man’s army. And I didn’t like it.
Another group of recruits came in, bringing our tour with the shore patrol to an end.
The Coast Guard sent me to Curtis Bay, Maryland, less than ten miles south of Baltimore, where they maintained a boot camp and a shipyard. I joined the rowing team, and got involved in all of the athletics I could. What’s more, I finally got the basic training I needed. It was a pretty good regimen, as they taught us intelligence procedures, like how to recognize the silhouettes of hostile airplanes.
“This one is a German plane,” an instructor would say. “You can tell by the large fuselage that it’s pregnant with possibilities.”
Overall, boot camp was easy for me. Baltimore itself was interesting, too. It was a far cry from the marshes of the Jersey Shore, and wasn’t like any other city I’d been in. With brick apartment buildings and homes with little concrete stoops in front, its style was completely different from Rochester, Syracuse, or even New York. It was a huge ship-building and military supply center, located just 40 miles from Washington, DC. So there was a constant hustle and bustle.
We were entertained by USO shows come to perform for us, with actors, comedians, and some prizefighters. I hate to tell this to anyone, but I really enjoyed my career in the military. We had these post exchanges where we could buy anything at one-third market price, free medical service, free dental service, and lots of women who loved just being seen with us. I seriously considered staying in the Coast Guard as a career, supporting my parents and my sister that way.
As amazing an experience as it was, however, there was also a lot of tension. There was always a chance that you would be assigned to a vessel that would be sent to unload troops in a war zone. During the war, the Coast Guard fought in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters. Our ships sank 11 German U-boats. You never knew when you might be thrust into the thick of things. Our families were worried about us, too. Nevertheless, you’d see a mother walking alongside her son in his uniform. He’d have a couple of bandages, and she’d be beaming. It would be clear that she was really proud.
After boot camp, I went back to Barnegat Bay one more time, very briefly. We were sent to fight a forest fire in a nearby town. When we came out of the forest, I had a terrible case of poison oak that lasted for several weeks. I was in intense pain much of that time. That wasn’t considered combat duty, but it sure hurt.
At Curtis Bay there were all of these notices hung on a bulletin board at the barracks. One day a notice appeared soliciting candidates who had artistic experience. They were needed for the Combat Art Corps, a section of the Public Information Division. It was a no-brainer. I applied immediately.
They replied immediately. Before I knew it, I was on my way to Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, DC. Our HQ was located in the Army and Navy Club building, about three blocks from the White House. The National Mall was a short walk away, with the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Smithsonian Institution. We were right next to the theater district, too — I think they had one theater. This wasn’t exactly Broadway.
Ken Riley with a high-level assignment — painting a portrait of Rear/Vice Admiral Russell Waesche, Commandant of the Coast Guard during World War II.
The Public Information Division fell under the command of Captain Ellis Reed-Hill. One of its objectives was to let the public know what part the Coast Guard was playing in the war, and convince young men and women to join up. All branches of the military were competing for government funding, as well, and the higher the profile, the more funds your branch received. So our job was to do everything we could to keep the Coast Guard in the news.
When I arrived at HQ I found a room full of writers, artists, and photographers, not unlike what I had experienced in my newspaper days in Rochester and Syracuse. Our guys would sail aboard Coast Guard vessels into battle zones where they would create sketches, paintings, and photos, then return to headquarters to fine-tune and polish them. The art would be released to the press and shown in exhibits. Articles would be written, polished, given full security clearance, then sent out to newspapers, magazines, and radio stations across the United States.
The Coast Guard cut a deal with Street and Smith, and Adventure is My Career appeared on newsstands everywhere.
Most of the artists, however, were painters, so right away I had my own unique spot. Nobody else could do cartooning. I was paired with a guy named Milton Gross, who was a sports columnist for the New York Post. He went by “Milton” to avoid being mistaken for the famous German cartoonist, the late Milt Gross, whose most popular creation was probably Count Screwloose. Nothing against Milt Gross, but Milton was pretty famous in his own right. He was a bitter man, though, who hated having to wear a sailor uniform — which he called “this Little Lord Fauntleroy” suit. He hated the fact that there were two-bit writers from out in the sticks who outranked him, and pulled in a larger paycheck. He had nothing but contempt for them, and always was willing to say so — at least to me.
Milt was a real Sammy Glick-type character, sitting there writing public relations puff pieces and photo captions. We started to hang around together, and in-between complaining he suggested that we get an apartment. We were on a per diem, which meant we had an allowance, but had to find and pay for our own lodgings. So I agreed, and we got a place in a building that had been the Egyptian Embassy. There were some other guys there from the New York publishing business. Every night they were throwing parties, and there were women coming and going at all hours.
Washington was crowded with women. They had come there from all over the country to fill the jobs vacated by guys who went into the service. Most were looking for new boyfriends. It was heaven for a single guy.
Ironically enough, one of the first things I did for the Combat Art Corps was a series of comic book stories, three pages each. Using my connections, we sold the adventures to DC Comics. With titles like “Post War Casualty” and “Foxhole Sailor,” they were “true stories of the fighting Coast Guard,” and they appeared in World’s Finest Comics alongside the Boy Commandos.
I had a wealth of reference material while I was doing those stories. There was this big wooden footlocker full of sketches and photographs, all at my fingertips. They had been sent in by Coast Guard artists and photographers all around the world. I was allowed to take those with me when I got out of the service, and I still have them somewhere. It was — and is — a real treasure trove.
The next thing we did was a series of Sunday comic strips called True Comics. The series wasn’t exclusive to the Coast Guard — we had to alternate with the other branches of the military. The material was provided free of charge to newspapers everywhere. A lot of the best comic strip artists also had been drafted, so the newspapers were ecstatic to get all this professional-grade material for free. We reached millions of readers with that series.
The Combat Art Corps fell under the jurisdiction of a fellow named Commander Dixon, and he was always pimping me out. Sometimes I felt more like a side of beef than an artist.
A Coast Guard installment of True Comics.
“We have Joe Simon here, the guy who did Captain America,” he would say when he pitched the strip to the newspapers. “Joe will do the True Comics for you providing that the Coast Guard is featured in” — I’ve forgotten exactly how many —” two out of three Sundays.” Milton Gross helped with the scripting, but I was doing everything else. We didn’t have any inkers or letterers.
Flush with success, Commander Dixon had another brainstorm. He proposed that we produce a comic book that would educate the public, and encourage people to enlist.
“We could publish it,” he said. “And, we could charge for it. We’ll distribute it like a regular comic book, and get publicity from it.”
His superiors loved the idea, and approved it immediately.
Once again I was teamed with Milton Gross. They sent the two of us to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, to do the research we would need. We watched the recruits go through their training, and interviewed them about their backgrounds. Then it was back to Washington, where I put the whole thing together, script and art. The story followed the careers of Bill Brown and Henry Warner in the Academy from enlistment through to graduation. As a bonus there was a center section filled with photos and painted artwork, some of it by an illustrator named Ken Riley. Adventure is My Career even had the two-page text story we needed to tie down the second class mailing privileges.
The Coast Guard peddled it to Street and Smith, the publisher responsible for The Shadow and Doc Savage. It was a huge success, so both Milton and I received promotions. I think that’s when I made petty officer second class, or bosun’s mate.
About a year after we returned to civilian life, Milton announced that he was going to sue Street and Smith for the profits they made on “our” work. He wanted me to be part of the legal action, but I said no. I didn’t think he had the slightest chance of success. When I said as much, he told me he was going to drop the idea. But later, when I talked to Alfred Harvey about it, he said that Milton had gone through with it.
What’s more, Al said, he won!
There were other guys in the Combat Art Corps who became good friends. As a matter of fact, when we got out of the service, I brought a lot of them to New York to work for me in comics. One was Specialist Second Class Ken Riley.
Ken was our star. He was a painter, one of the best in the service, and much more talented then the rest of us. Born in a small town in Missouri, he attended the Kansas City Art Institute. I think that’s where he met his wife, Marcene, a lovely, lovely woman, also an artist. He studied with Thomas Hart Benton and Harvey Dunn, one of Howard Pyle’s students, and became a brilliant illustrator. As if that wasn’t enough, Ken taught himself how to play the drums, and actually toured with Eddie Lain and His Orchestra.
The staff of the Combat Art Corps in Washington, DC. That’s Milton Gross wearing a hat, and Joe Simon in front, second from the left. Lieutenant John Spencer, to my right, later became the general manager of Mainline Publications.
While we were in the Coast Guard, his paintings were sent to places like The Saturday Evening Post and Life magazine, and he continued to work for them after the war, even while he was working with Simon and Kirby. Eventually he moved out West and specialized in desert and American Indian subjects. His work is hanging in the Smithsonian, the White House, the Air Force Academy, and West Point. I think he lives in Arizona now.
After we were married my wife Harriet met Marcene and instantly fell in love with her. We even named our daughter after her — Lori Marcene Simon.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
As it had been at the Rochester Journal-American, it seemed like I was always associated with photographers. The Coast Guard photography studio was right next door to the art department, and at least a couple of times a day a photographer would stand in the doorway to test his camera or just shoot some pictures. Whenever I could, I took some myself. That’s why I have so many photos from that time in my life.
We had several celebrities in our midst, which provided even more fodder for the photographers. Those guys had two functions. One was to go out and raise money for the war effort, in particular the Coast Guard. The other was to entertain the troops, like they did when I was at boot camp in Maryland.
The comedian Sid Caesar was in our company. He’d been a performer in the Catskills, so this was before he broke into movies or television. But everybody could tell that he was going places. Wherever he moved he would have something like six guards in back of him, kissing his ass. I think he was a junior officer, all show business, but really he was very nice. The word was that he was one of the strongest guys in show business, in terms of physical strength, that is. And no matter what he said, everybody would laugh. I don’t think it even had to be funny. Sid split his time between Washington and a base in Brooklyn.
We had another Caesar, too — the actor Caesar Romero. Although he was already a movie star, with films like The Thin Man and the Cisco Kid series, he was even nicer than Sid. He used to come and watch us draw.
“I wish I could do that, you know,” he’d say. “You guys have such talent.” Coming from a celebrity like him, it made us feel good.
Former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey was the nicest one of them all. Already retired from boxing, he would make public appearances at bond drives, as well as entertaining the enlisted men at military camps and hospitals. He was a lieutenant commander by the time I met him. In 1944 he went to sea aboard the USS Wakefield, and in 1945 he was aboard the USS Arthur Middleton for the invasion of Okinawa in the South Pacific. Talk about the thick of things. More than any of the celebrities, he was Coast Guard through and through.
A lot of comic book writers and artists ended up in Washington during the war, as well. Alfred Harvey became a lieutenant in the Army, working for the Pentagon. He was producing comics for them, with the help of Al Avison, who was a sergeant. Alfred had a young wife at the time, and they had a baby daughter, Susan. They also had a very nice apartment there in DC.
By this time I was no longer attached to Elsie Feldstein, and I had a new girlfriend, Lois Olson. She was Swedish, and I had met her in Washington, where she was working in a government office somewhere. She was beautiful — all of my women were beautiful, for that matter. Lois and I would go up to Alfred’s apartment to babysit little Susan while Al took his wife out on the town. He was always confident in the knowledge that I would take good care of the baby.
Will Eisner had been drafted into the Army a couple of years before the rest of us, forcing him to leave behind a staff that continued to produce The Spirit throughout the war. He took the test required to become a warrant officer, which put him above the enlisted men, but not as high as the regular officers. He was doing strips and posters that promoted safety, especially among the guys in the motor pool. There was a character he called Joe Dope who starred in his own comic strip appearing in Army Motors magazine. After the war, Will kept on doing that kind of thing for a little magazine called P*S, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly.
At one point after the war he came over to my house with a proposition.
“Do you want this job, Joe?” he asked, meaning the P*S gig. “I can’t handle it any more.”
He had some samples with him, and I looked them over.
“What’s the problem here?” I asked. “This all looks great.”
At that point he lowered his voice, as if he was afraid someone was listening.
“You’re dealing with the government,” he said. “They’re going to drive you crazy before you make any money out of them. I mean, you’ll make a living, but that’s about it. You’ll still go crazy.”
Somehow, that didn’t exactly make it sound appealing.
“I’m crazy now, Will,” I said. Then I added, “I’ve got enough work.”
I know he turned it over to someone, but I don’t know who. One thing I do know — that was another bullet I had dodged.
While we were all in Washington, Busy Arnold used to come down and take us all drinking. It would be Will Eisner, Al Avison, Busy, and me — I don’t think Al Harvey went with us. He was a family man by then. Milton Gross probably joined us some of the time. I didn’t do much drinking, but I enjoyed hanging out with the others.
In 1945 my tour of duty came to an end. Jack Kirby had already re-entered civilian life, having been injured during his time in Europe. By the time I got out, the Germans had surrendered, but the Japanese were still at it. This was before Hiroshima.
For Simon and Kirby, it was time to get back into the business.