Don Winslow of The Navy

When I entered the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps about fifty-eight years ago, all I knew about the navy came from three sources: the Victory at Sea television series, the book Queen of the Flattops about USS Lexington (sunk at The Battle of the Coral Sea) and Don Winslow comic books. It wasn't until about five years ago that I learned that the character Don Winslow was devised as a means to help naval recruitment in the Midwest. The creator, Frank Martinek had served as an officer in naval intelligence during World War I. He had already used the Don Winslow character in some novels he had written. When I told my wife about the recruitment angle, she said, "it worked, didn't it?"