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- Aug 2, 2009
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Everybody in Realism/on a Realism team will be mentioned, featured, and (likely) killed sometime throughout the series. Maybe today, maybe weeks from now. Gotta keep checking for yourself.
Also, just to keep things easier to understand, all would-be-German dialogue and ranks will be in English/their English counterparts. lol
Teams, people, names, maps, results, ranks: Real.
Weapons, groups/teams, events, mannerisms/abilities: Fake, some based off of real-life.
Deaths: Completely random. Characters who die are done for the the entire series. Sorry. It is truly random who dies. I have a system set up and when it tells me how many/who dies on each side, I work that into the story somewhere.
Shores of Normandy, France…
“You are certain that your men are ready for a possible invasion?” he asked for the seventh time in the last five minutes.
As Commander in Chief of the entire sum of German military forces, it was Ravage’s sole responsibility to achieve victory at any cost. Failure was not an option, so making sure six different times that the Third Reich’s defenses were well-prepared only meant that they needed to be checked a seventh, and final, time. Checking them this seventh time would mean that an eighth, and final, inspection was then necessary. As Ravage’s second-in-command, General Bane knew how the process worked—it could only be interrupted by the outbreak of actual combat. If the German language ever had a word meaning “over-prepared”, it had long since been forgotten.
“Yes sir. My best Sergeants have continually tested our mortars and AA guns. My finest Major is directly responsible for the communications tower and both it and he are in peak operating condition. Our beach defenses are set and my forces are ever-vigilant.” Bane replied in a cool, even, tone. Showing his frustration for the endless assurance would do him no good.
“Perhaps you had better do another walk-around…” Ravage started. Bane said the inevitable second part of his sentence with him, even if just in his own head, “…just to make sure.”
He had been called many things in his life, but perhaps “tunnel-visioned” was one insult he had to accept. Heck, he wouldn’t just accept it; he would wear it as a sort of badge of honor. It was no small result of a life spent looking through the scope of a sniper rifle. That was were Private Ziegenpeter found himself on this quiet, breezy, summer morning—looking through his scope out over the English Channel, tracking the seagulls. It was relatively common for him to turn these dumb birds into unofficial target practice, but not today. The one he was currently watching was floating on the breezes in such a way that, at the moment, he was a relatively stationary target. No, this wasn’t much of a challenge at all, but he was still useful to Ziegenpeter in another way. This bird had captured some small scrap of glass or metal off of the beach, the glimmering reflection of which being what initially caught the sniper’s keen eye. For the next few minutes of this quiet morning, Ziegenpeter would test his eyesight by attempting to determine what, specifically, the bird had found.
His Corporal, a man known only as Vexx, sat quietly nearby in the same bunker, reading that morning’s paper. Whatever that sniper always found so intriguing out on the choppy water was beyond him, but Vexx did notice through his peripheral vision when the Private’s head suddenly jerked away from his scope, not unlike the pullback reflex of a hand touching a hot iron. As the Corporal rapidly narrowed his focus from the whole world’s current affairs to those occurring just within his own five-foot radius, lifting his eyes from the two-dimensional world of ink on paper to the three-dimensional man standing next to him, the Private peered deeply back into his scope.
‘I must have seen incorrectly’ was the Private’s lone thought as he gazed back through the scope’s magnifying series of lenses. As the seagull he was watching flew off to the East, the shiny object in its mouth stayed in relatively the same place, continuing the slight, erratic, rising and falling motions its previous owner had just displayed in the sea breezes. It did not fall into the cold water below, but instead just…hovered there.
‘That is impossible…’ he thought. Fortunately a man of action, not deliberation, he was not too-soon caught up in his own thoughts to notice that this reflective surface was actually in the water. No, not in the water. On the water. That conclusion hit him at the same instant as light from the sun reflected off of the landing craft and hit his eye, which took in the reflected light, put together an image, flipped it upside-down, and fired this picture to his brain for consideration.
“Corporal,” he said in near-whisper, “We have a problem.”
“So what does the Captain do back home?” Private Det. Jonathan Stubbs, ever the man in search for answers, asked his squad mate, a fellow Private.
A burly man from the state of Ohio who went by the name Osugobucks, he answered in a deep voice, “Nobody knows. He doesn’t talk much. There’s actually a pool on him about that very question, if you want in. There is also one on when he will die.”
“What? Are you serious? That’s a little…dark.” Det. Jonathan Stubbs responded, slightly taken aback.
“Well, look at the dude! What in the world is a 75-year-old man doing being involved in a landing such as this?!” Osugobucks defended himself.
Det. Jonathan Stubbs looked at the elderly Captain ronpaul and knew it was a legitimate concern. After all, the legendary Captain was over three times his own age…
“Quiet down now.” ronpaul ordered everybody on board their landing boat. Osugobucks hoped that he hadn’t somehow heard their brief conversation. “We are a few minutes from landing. I want you all thinking about what you need to do once we hit that beach and that door opens. You need to make your way across that beach to the shingle as fast as you can. Once we blow the shingle, our group is to move to the right and blow this wall here. This should let us into the lower levels of the Western bunker. Once we clear that, we group back up and move from there.”
Accompanying all of his instructions were appropriate motions on the map he held out in the middle of the boat for all to see. Ron wasn’t just a renowned fighter; he was also like a skilled quarterback who lead his offense down the field against an equally-capable defense—even if, at this moment, his delivery of their plans (via running his finger along key points of the map) more closely resembled a mob of children drawing out impromptu plays in the dirt.
“Remember. Do not stay on the beach any longer than is necessary. From there it is not a matter of ‘if’ you get shot, but ‘when’ and ‘how often.’” He reminded them.
“So as you can see, sir,” Major Stormy’s report began, not for the first time today, “The tower is ful-“
“SIR!” one of his men interrupted. He would have been immediately reprimanded, at the very least, had it not been his “runner”, racing88.
“What is it?” Ravage asked for the Major.
“Sirs,” he started, while trying to catch his breath, “Landing force spotted.”
By the time the first doors opened on the first landing crafts, Dr. Compton was ready and he began firing his machine gun as though he earned commission by each bullet expended. Considering the fact that most lead to the untimely death of a foe, this wasn’t too off the mark. Though he manned a device whose purpose was to shoot the most bullets in the shortest amount of time, “the Doctor” got his name from his surgical bursts, intended to maximize his efficiency.
“Move it, move it, move it!” He stopped long enough just to yell to his men. He then lead by example, running up the beach as fast as his legs could take him. Though the General in charge of this landing, Backstab believed in leading by example, which explained why he was even on this beach in the first place. His group was responsible for the left third of the beach (and subsequent defenses), and he could already see the other two groups working their way across the beaches.
He was proud to see his soldiers respond accordingly. Well…all except for his Corporal who, much like Ziegenpeter on the far end of the beach was also doing at this exact moment, stared through his scope on some poor, unsuspecting target.
Corporal Erich fired one shot before running up the beach and yelling to his General through all of the mortar explosions, “Careful sir! When you stopped, there was a sniper up on that cliff who almost picked you off. Lucky for you, I am better than he could ever hope to be.” Corporal Erich was, in fact, a very good shot. Almost as good as he claimed to be, even.
Groups two and three, responsible for the middle and right thirds, respectively, hit the shingle at about the same time and wasted no time in planting explosives to blow a gap through the barbed wire and steep sandy hill. Mere seconds after the explosives went off and a gap was blown in the shingle, Group Two (ronpaul’s group) charged up the middle. The first through the gap was appropriately-named krazy1 and he had the next charge of explosives set before the rest of his group even caught up with him. The Allies who had survived this far had no time to think of the countless bodies of their countrymen lying on the shore behind them. Not yet. There was still a lot of work to do.
The bunker shook from the explosion. It was nowhere near the first such explosion on this day, and it was not likely to be the last. However, this one felt like it took place right below them—and for good reason, since it essentially had.
“Beach hall wall breached!” Corporal Vexx shouted. He started for the stairs out of the bunker overlook and ordered several other men with him as he worked his way through the hallways to the ladder that would take him down to the beach level. He was the first to the ladder and no sooner did his hands touch the cold, bare, metal of the ladder when the bullets from the waiting Allies touched the hot, bare, flesh of his torso. This attack had Vexx rather vexed, but…no longer.
The fight had not gone out of Fight, who was the Private right behind Vexx when he made his expedited descent down the ladder. Ever the experienced combatant, he quickly dropped a live stick grenade down with the late Corporal. Both struck the bottom at nearly the same time, as planned.
Silver Wolf was proud of his kill. He had hoped to catch the Germans off-guard, and was pleasantly surprised for the first time today when that was exactly as he had done. He stepped back around the corner, out of the way of the falling body, whose boots clanged down the steps of the ladder and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. So focused on what else might be waiting for him, Silver Wolf had just come back around the corner, looking up the dark shaft to the red glow above when another sound interrupted the silen—
On the other side of the beach, the second break in the shingle had come some minute or two earlier and this group was now rapidly working their way along the cliff wall towards the one intentional path up to the top of the bluffs. Being a relatively-direct route to their current destination, it was also heavily defended with the intent of sending people to their final destination. Several pillboxes had to be approached with care and deemed clear—a task that was immeasurably easier due to the progress of Groups 2 and 3, which were bigger threats. Covered by the steady rifle held by Erich, the group made its way to the top of the hill path.
Foolishness can sometimes be mistaken seen as courage. In this same manner, prudence can be sometimes be mistaken as cowardice. Such was not the case when Ravage suggested what both General Bane and Major Stormy were already thinking—tactical withdrawal was the smartest move at the moment. With Allied forces now charging up the beach in large numbers, some a mere 50 yards away already, they fell back to the fort’s command center, leaving behind a small group to defend the communications tower. Stormy’s runner, racing88, was sent to each of the bunkers to order the fallback to their secondary defensive positions.
The message would never reach the Eastern AA gun, which the Allies were currently overrunning. The Staff Sergeant in charge of this gun, Megs a Tagger, was no fool though, and had already evacuated many of her people. As they withdrew, she sent word to the Eastern bunker to do the same.
Dr. Compton was not aware how close to being overran their position was, but he did have suspicions, so by the time Bergen delivered the Staff Sergeant’s message, he and his men were ready to comply and all rushed through the appropriate trenches to their fallback positions.
The fighting was the most intense in the middle. Group 2 was the first to blow their secondary objective, but since then had not yet been able to advance one bit. The amount of Germans they faced in the trenches before them appeared to be never-ending. At the very least it was far more resistance than they were supposed to face in this location. Not even Captain ronpaul could have known that it was because this was the main path of retreat, which meant they were combating two thirds of the German defensive forces as they gradually made their way past this combat zone.
Group 3 sat below the Western bunker for several minutes—or several days if you were to ask the men in this unit how long it felt like they sat in place under the direct order of their Sergeant Major, Sircampalot. Finally, when he determined that things were likely clear above, he sent somebody, Private loneB, up the ladder to scout things out. loneB gave the all-clear and the rest followed, clearing the rest of the bunker. Knowing that Groups 1 and 2 would eventually work their way West to his position, Sircampalot set his men up in defensive positions inside the bunker and again played the waiting game.
Whereas his counterparts in the Eastern bunker had narrowly avoided being caught from behind, Ziegenpeter was long gone by the time his own bunker was in Allied hands. As a man who always fought his battles from great distances, hidden behind his scope, he wanted nothing to do with the close-quarters combat that was inevitable in the series of trenches and tunnels. He arrived to the fallback positions near the command center at the same time as his General.
Racing88 had already reached a majority of the German forces with the “fallback” message, saving countless lives. His last stop was to the Eastern AA gun and running through the trenches full speed, in the hopes of saving more, it didn’t even occur to him how alone he had been for some time. He had no way of knowing that these groups had already vacated the area. His isolation was realized when he ran past a pillbox entrance and saw somebody for the first time in some few minutes. Not somebody in the pillbox though…but standing just outside it.
He slammed on the breaks, nearly pulling his hamstring as he did so, and took the left turn (of course) into the pillbox. For perhaps the first time in his life, his movements were very slow and deliberate, so as not to be noticed by this sniper who had let his guard down. Racing88 managed to reach the window without being spotted and crouched below it. He pulled out his pistol, took a deep breath, stood up abruptly, and emptied the clip into defenseless side of the young American.
Only somebody as ever-wired as Private Mtn. Dew could have heard the nearby pop-pop-pop amongst the rest of the battle’s myriad sounds, shortly before the large explosion marking the successful destruction of the Eastern AA gun. He turned to the right just in time to see Corporal Erich’s limp body hit the ground. Knowing from where the shots had to come, he raced down the nearest trench, Private Some Random Guy on his heels.
Upon arriving at the first tunnel on the right—the entrance to the now-occupied pillbox—Mtn. Dew and Some Random Guy turned the corner, rifles raised, and fired multiple shots into the dark, enclosed space. In such a situation it was impossible to miss their target, and revenge was soon issued on Erich’s killer. Their wits still about them, they turned back around and set up a sort of defensive position, ready for anybody else who might try to flank their group.
Back up near the AA gun, Private First Class Death_Keeper and Private Ashley slowly advanced through the trench to the West while the rest of the group moved North—back towards the water—and caught up to Mtn. Dew and Some Random Guy. They then systematically cleared every other pillbox and the Eastern bunker.
Opposition had greatly dropped for Captain ronpaul and Group 2 so he was ready to make his direct assault. To many, charging up this trench after all of the fighting that had occurred in the last few minutes would seem suicidal, but fortunately ronpaul’s squad leaders were two of the craziest ones in the entire combined Allied forces.
“YoSpankDawg, you take Det. Jonathan Stubbs and your team and take the left branch. Krazy1, you take Osugobucks and your team and take the right branch. Both of you make sure you don’t fire upon Groups 1 or 3. I will take my group right up the middle, over this crest here, and around that radio tower.” He issued orders, again pointing at his trusty map. “Got it?”
“Yessir.” Replied Krazy1.
“You betcha, Cap’n.” came the response from Corporal YoSpankDawg.
“K. Ready….Move it!” ronpaul yelled, and promptly backed up his words with actions. He ran straight down the trench, up the small crest, and dropped into the cement pad around the communications tower, gunning down any opposition he saw along the way.
Meanwhile, YoSpankDawg and his team charged left, took out a few remaining Germans, and met up with General Backstab’s team. PFC Krazy1 mirrored this action, meeting up with Group 3 on the right. At about the same time they met up, Sircampalot had slowly moved his men out of the bunker and found the tunnel that would lead them to their AA gun. While Group 1 and the bulk of Group 2 set charges to blow the tower, Sircampalot again sent loneB ahead to scout things out.
loneB set himself mentally and started down the tunnel by himself. He was used to working alone.
Dr. Compton had rushed through this same tunnel just five minute previously. Always mindful of potential killzones, he lay prone with his machine gun, looking at the tunnel exit, knowing that his enemies had to come through there eventually. With many fellow Germans also using this same route, he had to delay a split-second before opening fire on the next figure that ran out into the daylight. It was actually the American’s caution that was his downfall, because Compton knew that the first person he saw reluctant to leave the tunnel’s shadows, rather than moving out briskly, with purpose, must have been a “bad guy.” The American scout didn’t even have time to hear the sound similar to an amplified zipper before he was dead.
Compton packed up his machine gun and promptly withdrew to the command center.
When Groups 1 and 2 met up with Group 3, they heard about Sircampalot’s folly. Everybody could hear the distinctive machine gun fire and nobody could miss that loneB had not yet returned. Ronpaul took over all three groups from this point (with Backstab’s approving nod) and had Osugobucks toss a smoke grenade down to the end of the tunnel. After a few seconds and no more machine gun fire, ronpaul burst through the smoke on the other end, gun ready.
There was nobody there.
He gave the all-clear and began to set up his team as they all joined him. There was a long field between them and their last target—the base’s command center.
“Private…” ronpaul started, looking at the man’s left breast for his name, “Trees. Your BAR is the closest thing to a machinegun we have here, so I want you to lay down and cover us from that direction.”
“Yessir.” Trees said and moved off to the left.
“PFC Bole.” ronpaul shifted his attention to another of the Group 3 men, “You cover him with your Thompson.”
“Yes sir.” Bole responded. Though he out-ranked Trees, covering the man with the BAR was nothing new to him or his submachine gun. Bole always covered Trees.
Ronpaul set up the rest of the team in strategic areas before they blew up the second AA gun.
Ravage had already left—on his way to Italy, though Bane didn’t know it—leaving the General back in full charge of his forces and overseeing the remains of what would eventually be the first major German defeat on the European mainland. They had fought well, but there were just too many Allied forces continually hitting the beaches every second and their reinforcements seemed to have no end. Bane organized his final, overall, retreat and issued orders. Better to live and fight another day—perhaps they would take back this beachhead later in the week even.
He left behind a little…surprise…for the upcoming proprietors of this parcel of land. It would not be a total defeat.
Captain ronpaul lead his forces cautiously up to the German cannons and command center. By all appearances, full retreat had been ordered and executed, but when you dropped your defenses is when you paid the biggest price. As they got to the command center, he had his men check for combatants and booby traps, disarming several crude ones that had been quickly set up with grenades and wire.
As they stood inside one of the firing rooms of one of the large cannons that they would soon demolish, ronpaul sighed and reached out to tough the iron behemoth. He signed, and spoke to General Backstab!, who was standing behind him in the doorway.
“We did it.”
The thing about death is…you never know when it is going to strike. PFC Death hung quietly in the shadows, right over the head of this old man who he had personally witness ripping through fellow Germans like they were nothing. This was the one he had waited for. He dropped down behind him, sticking the muzzle of his gun in-between the man’s shoulder blades and squeezed the trigger tight.
It all happened before General backstab! could understand what he was seeing, yet alone yell a warning to ron. As he watched this shadow of a figure kill his best soldier and leader, he pulled out his field knife and lunged at the…man? Was it a man or just some ghost?
It wasn’t that Death was unaware of the other man’s presence, just that he didn’t care. As he felt the cold steel between two of his vertebrae, followed by the warm, sticky, blood that flowed out of the wound to envelop it, suddenly “care” he did. Oh well. His mission was accomplished. He wasn’t afraid of death because, after all, he was Death even in life.
The Allies mopped up remaining pockets of German resistance, blew up the cannons, and secured the beachhead. The attack would go down in history as a victory, but victories such as these were always difficult to accept for Generals such as backstab!, as costly as they were.
Also, just to keep things easier to understand, all would-be-German dialogue and ranks will be in English/their English counterparts. lol
Teams, people, names, maps, results, ranks: Real.
Weapons, groups/teams, events, mannerisms/abilities: Fake, some based off of real-life.
Deaths: Completely random. Characters who die are done for the the entire series. Sorry. It is truly random who dies. I have a system set up and when it tells me how many/who dies on each side, I work that into the story somewhere.
Shores of Normandy, France…
“You are certain that your men are ready for a possible invasion?” he asked for the seventh time in the last five minutes.
As Commander in Chief of the entire sum of German military forces, it was Ravage’s sole responsibility to achieve victory at any cost. Failure was not an option, so making sure six different times that the Third Reich’s defenses were well-prepared only meant that they needed to be checked a seventh, and final, time. Checking them this seventh time would mean that an eighth, and final, inspection was then necessary. As Ravage’s second-in-command, General Bane knew how the process worked—it could only be interrupted by the outbreak of actual combat. If the German language ever had a word meaning “over-prepared”, it had long since been forgotten.
“Yes sir. My best Sergeants have continually tested our mortars and AA guns. My finest Major is directly responsible for the communications tower and both it and he are in peak operating condition. Our beach defenses are set and my forces are ever-vigilant.” Bane replied in a cool, even, tone. Showing his frustration for the endless assurance would do him no good.
“Perhaps you had better do another walk-around…” Ravage started. Bane said the inevitable second part of his sentence with him, even if just in his own head, “…just to make sure.”
He had been called many things in his life, but perhaps “tunnel-visioned” was one insult he had to accept. Heck, he wouldn’t just accept it; he would wear it as a sort of badge of honor. It was no small result of a life spent looking through the scope of a sniper rifle. That was were Private Ziegenpeter found himself on this quiet, breezy, summer morning—looking through his scope out over the English Channel, tracking the seagulls. It was relatively common for him to turn these dumb birds into unofficial target practice, but not today. The one he was currently watching was floating on the breezes in such a way that, at the moment, he was a relatively stationary target. No, this wasn’t much of a challenge at all, but he was still useful to Ziegenpeter in another way. This bird had captured some small scrap of glass or metal off of the beach, the glimmering reflection of which being what initially caught the sniper’s keen eye. For the next few minutes of this quiet morning, Ziegenpeter would test his eyesight by attempting to determine what, specifically, the bird had found.
His Corporal, a man known only as Vexx, sat quietly nearby in the same bunker, reading that morning’s paper. Whatever that sniper always found so intriguing out on the choppy water was beyond him, but Vexx did notice through his peripheral vision when the Private’s head suddenly jerked away from his scope, not unlike the pullback reflex of a hand touching a hot iron. As the Corporal rapidly narrowed his focus from the whole world’s current affairs to those occurring just within his own five-foot radius, lifting his eyes from the two-dimensional world of ink on paper to the three-dimensional man standing next to him, the Private peered deeply back into his scope.
‘I must have seen incorrectly’ was the Private’s lone thought as he gazed back through the scope’s magnifying series of lenses. As the seagull he was watching flew off to the East, the shiny object in its mouth stayed in relatively the same place, continuing the slight, erratic, rising and falling motions its previous owner had just displayed in the sea breezes. It did not fall into the cold water below, but instead just…hovered there.
‘That is impossible…’ he thought. Fortunately a man of action, not deliberation, he was not too-soon caught up in his own thoughts to notice that this reflective surface was actually in the water. No, not in the water. On the water. That conclusion hit him at the same instant as light from the sun reflected off of the landing craft and hit his eye, which took in the reflected light, put together an image, flipped it upside-down, and fired this picture to his brain for consideration.
“Corporal,” he said in near-whisper, “We have a problem.”
“So what does the Captain do back home?” Private Det. Jonathan Stubbs, ever the man in search for answers, asked his squad mate, a fellow Private.
A burly man from the state of Ohio who went by the name Osugobucks, he answered in a deep voice, “Nobody knows. He doesn’t talk much. There’s actually a pool on him about that very question, if you want in. There is also one on when he will die.”
“What? Are you serious? That’s a little…dark.” Det. Jonathan Stubbs responded, slightly taken aback.
“Well, look at the dude! What in the world is a 75-year-old man doing being involved in a landing such as this?!” Osugobucks defended himself.
Det. Jonathan Stubbs looked at the elderly Captain ronpaul and knew it was a legitimate concern. After all, the legendary Captain was over three times his own age…
“Quiet down now.” ronpaul ordered everybody on board their landing boat. Osugobucks hoped that he hadn’t somehow heard their brief conversation. “We are a few minutes from landing. I want you all thinking about what you need to do once we hit that beach and that door opens. You need to make your way across that beach to the shingle as fast as you can. Once we blow the shingle, our group is to move to the right and blow this wall here. This should let us into the lower levels of the Western bunker. Once we clear that, we group back up and move from there.”
Accompanying all of his instructions were appropriate motions on the map he held out in the middle of the boat for all to see. Ron wasn’t just a renowned fighter; he was also like a skilled quarterback who lead his offense down the field against an equally-capable defense—even if, at this moment, his delivery of their plans (via running his finger along key points of the map) more closely resembled a mob of children drawing out impromptu plays in the dirt.
“Remember. Do not stay on the beach any longer than is necessary. From there it is not a matter of ‘if’ you get shot, but ‘when’ and ‘how often.’” He reminded them.
“So as you can see, sir,” Major Stormy’s report began, not for the first time today, “The tower is ful-“
“SIR!” one of his men interrupted. He would have been immediately reprimanded, at the very least, had it not been his “runner”, racing88.
“What is it?” Ravage asked for the Major.
“Sirs,” he started, while trying to catch his breath, “Landing force spotted.”
By the time the first doors opened on the first landing crafts, Dr. Compton was ready and he began firing his machine gun as though he earned commission by each bullet expended. Considering the fact that most lead to the untimely death of a foe, this wasn’t too off the mark. Though he manned a device whose purpose was to shoot the most bullets in the shortest amount of time, “the Doctor” got his name from his surgical bursts, intended to maximize his efficiency.
“Move it, move it, move it!” He stopped long enough just to yell to his men. He then lead by example, running up the beach as fast as his legs could take him. Though the General in charge of this landing, Backstab believed in leading by example, which explained why he was even on this beach in the first place. His group was responsible for the left third of the beach (and subsequent defenses), and he could already see the other two groups working their way across the beaches.
He was proud to see his soldiers respond accordingly. Well…all except for his Corporal who, much like Ziegenpeter on the far end of the beach was also doing at this exact moment, stared through his scope on some poor, unsuspecting target.
Corporal Erich fired one shot before running up the beach and yelling to his General through all of the mortar explosions, “Careful sir! When you stopped, there was a sniper up on that cliff who almost picked you off. Lucky for you, I am better than he could ever hope to be.” Corporal Erich was, in fact, a very good shot. Almost as good as he claimed to be, even.
Groups two and three, responsible for the middle and right thirds, respectively, hit the shingle at about the same time and wasted no time in planting explosives to blow a gap through the barbed wire and steep sandy hill. Mere seconds after the explosives went off and a gap was blown in the shingle, Group Two (ronpaul’s group) charged up the middle. The first through the gap was appropriately-named krazy1 and he had the next charge of explosives set before the rest of his group even caught up with him. The Allies who had survived this far had no time to think of the countless bodies of their countrymen lying on the shore behind them. Not yet. There was still a lot of work to do.
The bunker shook from the explosion. It was nowhere near the first such explosion on this day, and it was not likely to be the last. However, this one felt like it took place right below them—and for good reason, since it essentially had.
“Beach hall wall breached!” Corporal Vexx shouted. He started for the stairs out of the bunker overlook and ordered several other men with him as he worked his way through the hallways to the ladder that would take him down to the beach level. He was the first to the ladder and no sooner did his hands touch the cold, bare, metal of the ladder when the bullets from the waiting Allies touched the hot, bare, flesh of his torso. This attack had Vexx rather vexed, but…no longer.
The fight had not gone out of Fight, who was the Private right behind Vexx when he made his expedited descent down the ladder. Ever the experienced combatant, he quickly dropped a live stick grenade down with the late Corporal. Both struck the bottom at nearly the same time, as planned.
Silver Wolf was proud of his kill. He had hoped to catch the Germans off-guard, and was pleasantly surprised for the first time today when that was exactly as he had done. He stepped back around the corner, out of the way of the falling body, whose boots clanged down the steps of the ladder and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. So focused on what else might be waiting for him, Silver Wolf had just come back around the corner, looking up the dark shaft to the red glow above when another sound interrupted the silen—
On the other side of the beach, the second break in the shingle had come some minute or two earlier and this group was now rapidly working their way along the cliff wall towards the one intentional path up to the top of the bluffs. Being a relatively-direct route to their current destination, it was also heavily defended with the intent of sending people to their final destination. Several pillboxes had to be approached with care and deemed clear—a task that was immeasurably easier due to the progress of Groups 2 and 3, which were bigger threats. Covered by the steady rifle held by Erich, the group made its way to the top of the hill path.
Foolishness can sometimes be mistaken seen as courage. In this same manner, prudence can be sometimes be mistaken as cowardice. Such was not the case when Ravage suggested what both General Bane and Major Stormy were already thinking—tactical withdrawal was the smartest move at the moment. With Allied forces now charging up the beach in large numbers, some a mere 50 yards away already, they fell back to the fort’s command center, leaving behind a small group to defend the communications tower. Stormy’s runner, racing88, was sent to each of the bunkers to order the fallback to their secondary defensive positions.
The message would never reach the Eastern AA gun, which the Allies were currently overrunning. The Staff Sergeant in charge of this gun, Megs a Tagger, was no fool though, and had already evacuated many of her people. As they withdrew, she sent word to the Eastern bunker to do the same.
Dr. Compton was not aware how close to being overran their position was, but he did have suspicions, so by the time Bergen delivered the Staff Sergeant’s message, he and his men were ready to comply and all rushed through the appropriate trenches to their fallback positions.
The fighting was the most intense in the middle. Group 2 was the first to blow their secondary objective, but since then had not yet been able to advance one bit. The amount of Germans they faced in the trenches before them appeared to be never-ending. At the very least it was far more resistance than they were supposed to face in this location. Not even Captain ronpaul could have known that it was because this was the main path of retreat, which meant they were combating two thirds of the German defensive forces as they gradually made their way past this combat zone.
Group 3 sat below the Western bunker for several minutes—or several days if you were to ask the men in this unit how long it felt like they sat in place under the direct order of their Sergeant Major, Sircampalot. Finally, when he determined that things were likely clear above, he sent somebody, Private loneB, up the ladder to scout things out. loneB gave the all-clear and the rest followed, clearing the rest of the bunker. Knowing that Groups 1 and 2 would eventually work their way West to his position, Sircampalot set his men up in defensive positions inside the bunker and again played the waiting game.
Whereas his counterparts in the Eastern bunker had narrowly avoided being caught from behind, Ziegenpeter was long gone by the time his own bunker was in Allied hands. As a man who always fought his battles from great distances, hidden behind his scope, he wanted nothing to do with the close-quarters combat that was inevitable in the series of trenches and tunnels. He arrived to the fallback positions near the command center at the same time as his General.
Racing88 had already reached a majority of the German forces with the “fallback” message, saving countless lives. His last stop was to the Eastern AA gun and running through the trenches full speed, in the hopes of saving more, it didn’t even occur to him how alone he had been for some time. He had no way of knowing that these groups had already vacated the area. His isolation was realized when he ran past a pillbox entrance and saw somebody for the first time in some few minutes. Not somebody in the pillbox though…but standing just outside it.
He slammed on the breaks, nearly pulling his hamstring as he did so, and took the left turn (of course) into the pillbox. For perhaps the first time in his life, his movements were very slow and deliberate, so as not to be noticed by this sniper who had let his guard down. Racing88 managed to reach the window without being spotted and crouched below it. He pulled out his pistol, took a deep breath, stood up abruptly, and emptied the clip into defenseless side of the young American.
Only somebody as ever-wired as Private Mtn. Dew could have heard the nearby pop-pop-pop amongst the rest of the battle’s myriad sounds, shortly before the large explosion marking the successful destruction of the Eastern AA gun. He turned to the right just in time to see Corporal Erich’s limp body hit the ground. Knowing from where the shots had to come, he raced down the nearest trench, Private Some Random Guy on his heels.
Upon arriving at the first tunnel on the right—the entrance to the now-occupied pillbox—Mtn. Dew and Some Random Guy turned the corner, rifles raised, and fired multiple shots into the dark, enclosed space. In such a situation it was impossible to miss their target, and revenge was soon issued on Erich’s killer. Their wits still about them, they turned back around and set up a sort of defensive position, ready for anybody else who might try to flank their group.
Back up near the AA gun, Private First Class Death_Keeper and Private Ashley slowly advanced through the trench to the West while the rest of the group moved North—back towards the water—and caught up to Mtn. Dew and Some Random Guy. They then systematically cleared every other pillbox and the Eastern bunker.
Opposition had greatly dropped for Captain ronpaul and Group 2 so he was ready to make his direct assault. To many, charging up this trench after all of the fighting that had occurred in the last few minutes would seem suicidal, but fortunately ronpaul’s squad leaders were two of the craziest ones in the entire combined Allied forces.
“YoSpankDawg, you take Det. Jonathan Stubbs and your team and take the left branch. Krazy1, you take Osugobucks and your team and take the right branch. Both of you make sure you don’t fire upon Groups 1 or 3. I will take my group right up the middle, over this crest here, and around that radio tower.” He issued orders, again pointing at his trusty map. “Got it?”
“Yessir.” Replied Krazy1.
“You betcha, Cap’n.” came the response from Corporal YoSpankDawg.
“K. Ready….Move it!” ronpaul yelled, and promptly backed up his words with actions. He ran straight down the trench, up the small crest, and dropped into the cement pad around the communications tower, gunning down any opposition he saw along the way.
Meanwhile, YoSpankDawg and his team charged left, took out a few remaining Germans, and met up with General Backstab’s team. PFC Krazy1 mirrored this action, meeting up with Group 3 on the right. At about the same time they met up, Sircampalot had slowly moved his men out of the bunker and found the tunnel that would lead them to their AA gun. While Group 1 and the bulk of Group 2 set charges to blow the tower, Sircampalot again sent loneB ahead to scout things out.
loneB set himself mentally and started down the tunnel by himself. He was used to working alone.
Dr. Compton had rushed through this same tunnel just five minute previously. Always mindful of potential killzones, he lay prone with his machine gun, looking at the tunnel exit, knowing that his enemies had to come through there eventually. With many fellow Germans also using this same route, he had to delay a split-second before opening fire on the next figure that ran out into the daylight. It was actually the American’s caution that was his downfall, because Compton knew that the first person he saw reluctant to leave the tunnel’s shadows, rather than moving out briskly, with purpose, must have been a “bad guy.” The American scout didn’t even have time to hear the sound similar to an amplified zipper before he was dead.
Compton packed up his machine gun and promptly withdrew to the command center.
When Groups 1 and 2 met up with Group 3, they heard about Sircampalot’s folly. Everybody could hear the distinctive machine gun fire and nobody could miss that loneB had not yet returned. Ronpaul took over all three groups from this point (with Backstab’s approving nod) and had Osugobucks toss a smoke grenade down to the end of the tunnel. After a few seconds and no more machine gun fire, ronpaul burst through the smoke on the other end, gun ready.
There was nobody there.
He gave the all-clear and began to set up his team as they all joined him. There was a long field between them and their last target—the base’s command center.
“Private…” ronpaul started, looking at the man’s left breast for his name, “Trees. Your BAR is the closest thing to a machinegun we have here, so I want you to lay down and cover us from that direction.”
“Yessir.” Trees said and moved off to the left.
“PFC Bole.” ronpaul shifted his attention to another of the Group 3 men, “You cover him with your Thompson.”
“Yes sir.” Bole responded. Though he out-ranked Trees, covering the man with the BAR was nothing new to him or his submachine gun. Bole always covered Trees.
Ronpaul set up the rest of the team in strategic areas before they blew up the second AA gun.
Ravage had already left—on his way to Italy, though Bane didn’t know it—leaving the General back in full charge of his forces and overseeing the remains of what would eventually be the first major German defeat on the European mainland. They had fought well, but there were just too many Allied forces continually hitting the beaches every second and their reinforcements seemed to have no end. Bane organized his final, overall, retreat and issued orders. Better to live and fight another day—perhaps they would take back this beachhead later in the week even.
He left behind a little…surprise…for the upcoming proprietors of this parcel of land. It would not be a total defeat.
Captain ronpaul lead his forces cautiously up to the German cannons and command center. By all appearances, full retreat had been ordered and executed, but when you dropped your defenses is when you paid the biggest price. As they got to the command center, he had his men check for combatants and booby traps, disarming several crude ones that had been quickly set up with grenades and wire.
As they stood inside one of the firing rooms of one of the large cannons that they would soon demolish, ronpaul sighed and reached out to tough the iron behemoth. He signed, and spoke to General Backstab!, who was standing behind him in the doorway.
“We did it.”
The thing about death is…you never know when it is going to strike. PFC Death hung quietly in the shadows, right over the head of this old man who he had personally witness ripping through fellow Germans like they were nothing. This was the one he had waited for. He dropped down behind him, sticking the muzzle of his gun in-between the man’s shoulder blades and squeezed the trigger tight.
It all happened before General backstab! could understand what he was seeing, yet alone yell a warning to ron. As he watched this shadow of a figure kill his best soldier and leader, he pulled out his field knife and lunged at the…man? Was it a man or just some ghost?
It wasn’t that Death was unaware of the other man’s presence, just that he didn’t care. As he felt the cold steel between two of his vertebrae, followed by the warm, sticky, blood that flowed out of the wound to envelop it, suddenly “care” he did. Oh well. His mission was accomplished. He wasn’t afraid of death because, after all, he was Death even in life.
The Allies mopped up remaining pockets of German resistance, blew up the cannons, and secured the beachhead. The attack would go down in history as a victory, but victories such as these were always difficult to accept for Generals such as backstab!, as costly as they were.
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Looking forward to the next read.
