ASL scenarios featuring close relatives

[laullroy]

Through the Volchow, scenario 1 of Critical Hit "Hell on the eastern front", dated 19th october 1941. My maternal grandfather had volunteered to join the 250th foreign volunteer division, the Blue Division, with the intention of fighting against communism. After training at Grafenwohr and a series of adventures on the march across Russia - initially bound for moscow, only to be diverted and make a 1000km march on foot to lenningrad - he had the opportunity to fight in the division's initial operations. Throughout his service - 1 year - he kept a diary which he brought back to Spain in the summer of 1942. In the 1950s he turned the diary into a structured book, recounting his experience, which we still keep at home with great affection.
On October 19th, 1941 his company was assigned to cross the river with rubber dinghies, and he tells how they were handed out oars and rubber stoppers to plug the holes from the Russian gunfire. His particular boat came under fire from a Russian machine gun, and they all laid down the bottom of the boat. All but one. One of his friends, a playmate from the neighbourhood in Madrid, a corporal in the platoon, stood up to return fire with his submachine gun, and was hit several times in the chest, dying instantly. This, along with a few others suffering minor wounds, caused them to return to their shore. When they took the comrade to the casualty centre and retrieved his papers to send home, they picked up his birth certificate, which stated the soldier's true age: he was not yet 17 years old. As a result of this, a review of the unit's personnel was carried out, and several soldiers who were under the minimum age for enlistment were sent back to Spain.
My grandfather continued at the front as a rifleman until he was relieved, but his brother-in-law joined in the 1942 draft, was taken prisoner at the battle of Krasny Bor and was repatriated to Spain in 1954, after 11 years in a labour camp in Siberia.
As the eldest grandson of my grandfather I inherited all his medals - Moscow campaign, winter campaign, individual bravery medal,... but unfortunately a thief broke into the house when the family was out, and took the box with the medals. Probably the most important sentimental loss I could have had. Every day I regret not having had those medals in the safe

 

[Paul John]

My dad peeled potatoes in Bizerta and Naples. He told us often that the only combat he saw was a bar fight when some guys on leave from the front started shit. He never clarified but I always assumed he got beat up.

 

[GeorgeBates]

My dad peeled potatoes in Bizerta and Naples. He told us often that the only combat he saw was a bar fight when some guys on leave from the front started shit. He never clarified but I always assumed he got beat up.

They also serve who peel potatoes.

 

[Actionjick]

They also serve who peel potatoes.

 

[footsteps]

"Way way back many centuries ago..." (I think on GS) there was a discussion about how to incorporate a game of ASL into a movie or TV show. I offered the idea of two guys (one older, one younger) getting together to play a scenario. As the game starts, there's the first of many "flashbacks" to the actual battle depicted. As they continue playing and talking, it comes out that the older guy's father, and the younger guy's grandfather, took part in that battle - against each other. The game and the flashbacks take on a symmetry that starts to tell on the players. Of course, it comes down to the last DR in the CC phase. As the players watch the dice tumble out of the tower, flashback to the battle, one man dead, the other alive. From a distance, we see the two players at the table. One slowly stands up, turns and leaves. And a voice says softly, "It's just a game... right?" [cue credits]

 

[M Faulkner]

My uncle (Thaddeus Faulkner) was a Navy Corpsman with the 1st Marines at Guadalcanal. He passed away before I was born. All my father could say was that when he came home, his hands trembled, there was a bottle of whiskey near him at all times, and when a thunderstorm struck, he dove under the kitchen table.

 

[stuh42asl]

My Uncle Bill was at Guadalcanal, he was a mortar man , part of a crew operating the 107mm chemical mortar, his job was smoke and IR rounds.. He told while the were doing a patrothey came up a cave entrance with a steel door and frame.. there were a lot of tracks so they called in the engineers, searched the area for more caves and found none so the engineers welded the door shut.Two days later he ended up in a ships hold for two weeks as punishment for refusing to follow orders. He watched three 30 man patrols go along a marked path to do their assigned patrols none came back they were all picked off by snipers, he along with 20 other men seeing this refused to go on the fourth patrol..which when men were assigned to replace them also never returned.. after he was released, the battalon co and his exec officer were canned for incompetence..

 

[Alan Hume]

My dad was a cook in the British Army but he was bombed by a Stuka at least once while on a troop ship and I remember a really horrible story he told me of when he saw a friend die when they were shelled

He has been gone many years and he only really told me his stories when I was a young child (we fell out later) so the memories of what he told me are fading

He was all over the place in the war (North Africa, evacuated from Crete etc., ending up in Germany) and I am grateful that he shared his stories with me when he did (as I say we fell out and never really reconciled)

 

[Craig Benn]

My Uncle Bill was at Guadalcanal, he was a mortar man , part of a crew operating the 107mm chemical mortar, his job was smoke and IR rounds.. He told while the were doing a patrothey came up a cave entrance with a steel door and frame.. there were a lot of tracks so they called in the engineers, searched the area for more caves and found none so the engineers welded the door shut.Two days later he ended up in a ships hold for two weeks as punishment for refusing to follow orders. He watched three 30 man patrols go along a marked path to do their assigned patrols none came back they were all picked off by snipers, he along with 20 other men seeing this refused to go on the fourth patrol..which when men were assigned to replace them also never returned.. after he was released, the battalon co and his exec officer were canned for incompetence..

Calling bullshit on that. Which battalion? What date? 90 Marines or soldiers KIA - 100% casualties with no survivors, no wounded on Guadalcanal which is one of the best documented battles in the PTO. Sounds like a bit of a sea story.

 

[Jeffrey D Myers]

My wife's grandfather, an Iowan, was a BAR man in the armored infantry company depicted in DB129 (Silencing Sinzig) and DB143 (Fausts at Wethen). He didn't like to talk about the war, either.

Interestingly, the combat command commander in the first action was a graduate of the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. My grandfather-in-law moved to New Mexico later in life.