#boy commandos

Detective Comics #65 (May 19th, 1942)

The Boy Commandos are one of those names that keep cropping up if you ever look ANYWHERE into post World War II history and politics. Like many famous groups of specialized soldiers from the war its members became scientists, politicians, public servants, heroes and revolutionaries of various stripes. If you draw any post war European or American institution that was born out of an idealistic worldview in the aftermath of WWII in the attempt to make the world a better place you will eventually find one of the Boy Commandos there. Like Easy Company or Hunter's Hellcats.

...save for the ITTY bitty complication that none of the members of the Boy Commandos were old enough to shave.

(A poster for the Boy Commandos that was a gift given out with a 10 cent "child's war bond" circa 1942)

The Boy Commandos were originally built around a quintet of orphaned boys from various warring nations. Alfie Twidgett of the United Kingdom, Jan Haansan from the Netherlands, Andre Chavard from France and Dan "Brooklyn" Turpin from the United States. The served under the adult orders of Captain Rip Carter. Originally war orphans who were meant to act as "mascots" on the home front the boys were deeply motivated to act out against the fascist empire that had taken their families and homes from them. Often meddling their way into the missions that Captain Carter was assigned and racking up an astonishing body count across basically every theatre of the war.

Despite the Allied High Command's best efforts, the boys simply would not be stopped and eventually they were fully inducted into the halls of power. Given specific missions that would benefit from having their skillsets or connections in mind, often missions that had to do with delivering supplies to partisans or helping to defend allied settlements where being able to gain the trust of the local children would provide a critical inroad to the success of the mission. They were also often placed against the machinations of the mysterious Agent Axis, a masked fascist operative who became the team's nemesis.

Once the war was over, the group remained together for a few years with even an extended roster though eventually the "Boy Commandos" were no longer boys at all. Using the connections they had made they parlayed their wartime expertise into various high ranking positions in the post war world.

Andre Chavard became the first head of France's Department Gamma, an espionage unit specializing in extranormal events that was eventually folded into the Dome, the European organization that served as the seed for the Global Guardians.

Jan Haasan returned to the Netherlands to live with an uncle who survived the war and eventually became a well respected professor at the University of Amsterdam

Alfie Twidgett returned to the United Kingdom where he founded the high end computing company Statistical Occurances Ltd. Which isn't a name most people know but it is a name you will FIND if you crack open any of the patents that lead to whatever device you are reading this on.

Rip Carter remained in the military long after the war serving admirably and retired a general with a list of accomplishments as long as my arm. There are people who are going to be VERY upset that I don't talk about his service in Korea here but I'm not a military history buff.

Perhaps most famously though, Dan Turpin returned to the United States but NOT to his native New York. Instead he settled in Metropolis where he took up the role of police officer and eventually one of the city's most respected detectives, eventually becoming a founder of Metropolis' Special Crimes Unit the first specialized metahuman criminal response unit in the world and still one of the most advanced. If you've ever wondered why super criminals show up so OFTEN in Metropolis and yet seem to do so little lasting DAMAGE, the SCU is why.

5 young men (Captain Carter wasn't even 25 when given the task of watching over the boys) that decided if no one else was gonna run down some Ratzi bastards then they just had to do it themselves. As the modern youth would say.

Detective Comics #65, July 1942,

BOY COMMANDOS #23 (1947)