The reading room
Real Life Comics #40
Real Life Comics #40 is an anthology featuring multiple stories. "The Battle of New Orleans" dramatizes the famous 1815 military engagement involving commanders Alexander P. de Seversky, Trygve Lie, Hans Christian Andersen, and Fridtjof Nansen. Another story depicts a harrowing flood in July 1881 where a family takes shelter during a severe storm. A third narrative follows Bobby Feller's youth playing baseball, his progression through semi-professional tournaments, and his signing with the Cleveland Indians to play both baseball and piano. The final featured story chronicles a Russian aeronautical engineer who becomes an advisor to General Billy Mitchell and the U.S. Army Air Corps, later conducting experimental bombing missions in the Atlantic before founding his own aircraft company in 1931 to develop an amphibian plane ahead of German rivals.