The reading room
Fightin' Army #48
The issue features two war stories. "G.I. Diplomacy" follows an American soldier named Dave Vogel who drops a grenade at Japanese feet during combat, then leaps away instantly as the sentry is alerted. Five weeks later at 11th Airborne Headquarters, a strange obsession strikes a soldier who reveals he is Phil, an American medic who was fished out of a stream after the incident and patched up by native nurses. The second story depicts American soldiers conducting a military operation where they must prevent enemy forces from capturing a prisoner named Joseph Appgood, a P.F.C. from Baker Company who was lost behind German lines; the operation involves pursuing the enemy in vehicles through a European town, with German and American forces in direct conflict as soldiers attempt to retrieve their comrade.