The Howling Commandos were stuck in a time loop. The time loop was triggered by Junior Juniper dying. Every time the rest of the Howlers die, they all get shot back to an earlier point in the war. They don't have all their memories of their previous incarnations, just bits and pieces in the form of deja vu and odd precognitive senses, so they don't even realize they're in a time loop. And that's why some issues take place in say, 1945, but then oop suddenly they're in 1943, even though the story is told seemingly linearly. So the war really is endless for them. Eventually the time loop does somehow break when in the cycle they're in, Captain America (Steve Rogers) and Bucky Barnes actually "die". The first on-page major permanent death started the time loop, the first major retcon finally broke them out of it. The Howlers don't know this, though– they weren't ever really all that especially involved with Cap and Bucky. So they don't even realize when they're finally free because they don't even fully realize they aren't free to begin with. And Nick Fury eventually realizes what happened to them, which is partly why he ends up killing Uatu the Watcher decades later.