Excalibur Squadron OOC Thread

[Goram]

I'm BACK me lovelies!

You seem happy. Date went well, did it?

[Len Hyet]

I'm BACK me lovelies!

You seem happy. Date went well, did it?

Yes sir!

[Goram]

You seem happy. Date went well, did it?

Yes sir!

[Len Hyet]

Yes sir!

The animation is what really made me laugh

[Goram]

(Image)

The animation is what really made me laugh

I aim to please.

Really considered making a joke about aiming to please or animation here, but, meh.

[United Kingdom of Poland]

posted and yes I did just make fun of the BAR.

[The Two Jerseys]

Yes, they had no uniform beret, until Oct '42.

"Initially those who joined the British Commandos kept their parent regimental headdress and cap badges. In 1941 No. 1 Commando had no fewer than 79 different cap badges and many different forms of headdress.[1] "Thus a motley collection of caps, Tam o' Shanters, bonnets, forage caps, caps 'fore and aft', berets, peaked KD caps, etc., appeared on the Commando parades," says Captain Oakley..."
So it's feasible a green beret could have been worn, just not as part of official kit.

I would assume that those wearing berets would be from the RTR, I think that they were the only unit to wear berets before the war.

[Monfrox]

I'm going to be insulted if the men who went out to try and find Samantha don't question her about her quite obviously ornate and custom SMG.

Just a thought.

[The balkens]

I'm going to be insulted if the men who went out to try and find Samantha don't question her about her quite obviously ornate and custom SMG.

Just a thought.

Meh......

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I'm going to be insulted if the men who went out to try and find Samantha don't question her about her quite obviously ornate and custom SMG.

Just a thought.

...You want to be asked about the damn Thompson again?
Come on, Mon, take some conversational initiative of your own!

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Keep an eye out for my cameo appearance!

January 2nd, 1941
1950 Hours
Chateau de Miramont

As Konrad tiredly shuffled back into his office, worn down by a solid day of the new interrogation regimen they'd been subjecting the prisoners to, he decided that he badly needed a drink. His office, dark, rigorously clean, and sparingly styled, may have been very spartan by the standards of most, but it definitely had its amenities. From the bottom cabinet, he extracted a glass and a bottle of fine Merlot. One of the definite perks of being the overlords of France - the food and wine was undoubtedly the best anywhere on Earth, and they could get as much of it as they wanted.
Ah, if only this stupid war were over. Then, we could actually enjoy all the spoils of our conquests, instead of having to devote ourselves to the fight all the time.
Although, it must be said, I've never had so much fun in my life as I've had since this war started.

As he opened the bottle and let it breathe for a few moments, he leaned back and put his boots up on the desk. Even though the fighting in Poland and France had been great fun, it had all begun to turn sour in recent months, all because of Excalibur. The Eiffel operation had fallen apart at the last second because the French collaborators hadn't been up to the job, the Tempsford mission had fallen apart because of Excalibur's presence (why had they been there? Konrad had interrogated Page about that very question, but the British Captain had pulled his usually tightlipped act. There was no way they were actually using Tempsford at their base - it was too far away from anything, too remote. Maybe they were acting as Churchill's bodyguard? He couldn't say.), and he'd only escaped incarceration in England by the skin of his teeth.

It went deeper than that too, a fact that he was unpleasantly reminded of as his hand twinged with pain. Before Paris, he'd gloried in his physical perfection. He was terrifically fit, and had been all his life. He had no scars, no allergies, no birthmarks, no abnormalities of his health or body at all. His body was the perfect body for a great soldier, a great leader of men, a warrior, a new incarnation of Achilles. He'd taken great pride in it.

But now, that had gone away. The grenade that had gone off in the Eiffel Tower that fateful night in Paris hadn't killed him, but it had permanently wounded him. His hand had absorbed numerous shards of shrapnel, and had been scarred deeply and painfully. The best doctors that the SS could find took a look at it, and ultimately came to the verdict that the pain would go away with time, but the scars likely never would, barring time-wasting and inefficient cosmetic surgery that almost certainly wouldn't work anyway. They maintained that he should just be grateful to be alive, and if he couldn't hold a gun or fly his 109 anymore, there were plenty of non-combat roles he could...

But he'd turned them down flatly and clearly. The pain wasn't that bad. He could do everything he did before, and do it just as well. He'd stay at the front. Only now, every day, he could feel the memory of what Page and the rest had done to him burned and carved into his skin. It pulsed, and throbbed, and prickled, and stung, and ached, and none of these pains had subsided yet. He privately wondered sometimes if they ever would. At least they had one advantage: nobody could ever question his devotion to the Reich again. Ever. His scars spoke for themselves.

He took his first drink, letting the taste wash through his mouth. It was a welcome relief from the hard exertions of the day. Hell, not just the day, the whole month. The interrogation process on all of the captured Excaliburs had been tiring and considerably more slow-moving than he'd counted on when he put this plan into motion. None of them had broken, or spilled anything worth reporting back...He was sure that they'd break eventually. They weren't superhuman; the electric current, poor food, lack of sleep, and hopelessness at their situation would either drive them mad or wear their defenses down to the point where they'd have to tell him what he wanted to hear to get the pain to stop. They had to. What the doctors had told him was clear.

But he didn't have unlimited time. Ever since the quartet of prisoners had been moved to Miramont, he'd been keeping his father (his nominal superior for the duration of this particular project) informed on a daily basis of the results of his efforts. Due to the fact that according to the official German statistics submitted to the Red Cross, Page and his comrades-in-arms were unaccounted for and thus were not in German custody, any references to Miramont's involuntary inhabitants were routed through a special communications arrangement set up by the SS with the (grudging) assistance of the Abwehr. The messages were encrypted using not only the best machines and codes Germany had - C.A.G.'s vaunted Enigma code - but an extraordinarily rare and obscure variant of those same machines. This system was known as Enigma 2, and it was a formidable machine. The normal Enigma machine had five encrypting rotors; this particular model had eight. It was a temperamental and inefficient beast (indeed, that was why it hadn't been widely adopted), but it worked. these messages were then routed through one of five randomly selected communications outposts on their way to Berlin.

And General von Sporrenburg increasingly didn't share these optimistic feelings. The old man was a solid supporter of Konrad's efforts at first, but this support waned as the weeks went on. He'd hinted that there was considerable debate as to what to do with the captured flyers in the highest echelons of of the Reich's military-

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by the phone on his desk ringing. He quickly brought it up - he could guess who it was. "Major von Sporrenburg speaking."
The old man's voice was unmistakable. "Report in, Major. Did you gain anything of use today?"
"General! I...well, we're continuing the electroshock, and the results...they weren't bad, per se, but..."
The disappointment was also unmistakable. "You didn't get anything. Again."
"Father," Konrad said, his voice close to pleading, "I have faith in this procedure. We've got doctors here telling me that all we need is a fortnight, maybe even just a week, and they'll be broken at our feet. Just give me a little more time, please. Trust me."

Silence. Then, a grim reply.

"I know you have faith, Konrad. And I trust your judgement. If the decision were up to me, I'd give you that time. But I don't have the authority. Orders have come down from a higher place than I occupy. The highest."
Konrad suppressed a gasp. "You mean-"
"Yes," the General growled. "They want them all moved to Berlin. There may be a public trial."
Konrad could feel the fury rise. "What the hell are they thinking-"
"Enough!"

Konrad immediately stopped talking.
"You should know better than to speak so foolishly. And it is happening. The Spanish government wants them tried as terrorists, and there are some who think that a public war crimes trial for these people might be good for the newsreels. Your reports haven't been very encouraging, after all. So, they figure they may as well make a public spectacle of them before they're shoved off to some labor camp or shot."

Konrad balled his wounded fist. Tendrils of pain dug into his flesh like daggers.
"That would be a tremendous waste, General."
"I know you think so, but look at what you've asked compared to what's been gained. You've spent six weeks hammering these people with everything we've practically got at our disposal. Everything you've asked for, I've given. And in exchange, all anybody has to show for it is reports from you saying that you need 'just a little more time'. People want this matter sealed and ended, Konrad. the war marches on. Truth be told, you can't stay there forever anyway. There's still a war to be fought out there, and we'll be needing you on the front lines."

"So that's it, then?"
Konrad;'s voice was stiff, trying to suppress any audible sign of his disappointment.
"Not quite. You have five days to turn up any solid results. The transport from Berlin will arrive on the fourth day. If you don't turn up anything, they go to Berlin, and they're out of our hands for good, one way or another. That's all I can give you."
There was a sigh. "That's all. Keep me informed. You are dismissed."

The phone clicked, and Konrad was alone once again. Gritting his teeth, he steeled himself for tomorrow. No doubt, he'd give all of them his absolute best in the interrogations in the next few days. But as much he hated to admit it, he felt like he was losing control of their minds. The electroshock had jolted Page out of his stupor and delivered monstrous amounts of pain in a hurry, but it also seemed to have...done something else to Page's mind. This was illustrated when Page, shackled by his arms and legs, was lead out of an interrogation about four days prior. Page, who had before restricted himself to verbal assaults on Konrad (again, after the electroshock had revitalized him), actually threw himself at one of the guards, biting him for all he was worth on the neck and face. It sounded pathetic, but it was no laughing matter - Page had actually gotten his teeth in there and ripped out no small amount of flesh. The guard was out to the infirmary for the foreseeable future, and Page had been...severely punished.

Konrad had seen it happen, and it had struck him as a bizarre and vaguely worrying act of defiance. But what had truly unnerved him with what happened as Page had been hauled off. Page had been covered in the guard's blood when they'd pulled him up, and he'd managed to crane his neck back at Konrad. The look in Page's eyes, blood literally running out of his mouth, the sardonic, bright red grin he'd flashed at him as he was taken away...

The possibility always existed that the electroshock as well as the punishment regimen had some unintended consequences that nobody could have foreseen - this sort of thing was still fairly experimental. But this was...on another level entirely...
Konrad looked back down at the red wine, his stomach now turning at its resemblance to the guard's blood. He grimaced at his stupid sentimentality, and took a long swig. He knew he needed it.

---

Four days later...

Page could feel the desperation in Konrad now, almost like it was a part of him.

He could see it in the Major's movements as he stalked around the interrogation cell, hear it in his pathetic voice, straining to be impressive and intimidating as he cajoled Page into giving up on his allegiances and begging for mercy. He could see it in his eyes as he flipped the switch, sending more of the volts into his quaking, screaming frame, feel it in the punches Konrad occasionally resorted to in addition to the shocks, as they grew wilder and wilder.

His apathetic self-hatred of the pre-electroshock days had faded. In its place had grown a sort of...anarchic disregard for any pain, threats, or blandishments Konrad threw his way. Clearly, time was running out for Konrad. They couldn't do this forever. One of them had to break, and Konrad was visibly beginning to lose his faith.

And that made Page stronger. He could feel it in his spirit and what was left of his body. He'd lost twenty pounds through sheer malnutrition, his face had only begun to recover from Konrad's abuse of the early phases, and his arm was covered in ugly, painful red track marks where they'd shoved the electroshock needles in for over a month. His whole existence was teetering on the brink of total collapse every second of every day. But instead of sinking into total despair, like he'd done before, he just smiled and screamed right back in Konrad's face, rejoicing in his rage every time the switch was flipped.

When the switch was flipped, he often had visions (or hallucinations, whichever the proper term was) in the duration or immediately afterwards. Sometimes it was his parents. Sometimes it was Paul. Sometimes it was various Excalibur Squadron members. Sometimes it was Churchill. Sometimes, it was Hitler. Once, age even had a vision of a strange, foreign-looking place and person he didn't recognize, and it occurred to him he might have just seen the future, or even seen God. But that seemed a bit too crazy, even for him. As fucked-up as the universe clearly was, and despite his own history of wishy-washy Anglican-style agnosticism, he doubted mightily that Heaven (should it exist) looked like somebody's cluttered basement, and that God, by the transitive property, was a thin, spotty, unpromising-looking youth of about 17 or 18 with short light-brown hair, spectacles, short pants, a gormless expression, and an odd shirt that bore an image of what appeared to be a (nude?) angel falling to Earth in front of a massive American flag, with text below reading "LED ZEPPELIN - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TOUR 1977" on it, sitting and typing on what looked like some bizarre typewriter with great ferocity and focus.

Yeah, Page thought as Konrad bellowed something incomprehensible at him, letting him have another jolt, that was a weird one.

But most of the time, it was either Isabelle or Alix. And regardless of who it was, they all just stared at him. they never said anything. They just stood over Konrad's shoulder, and looked silently.

"...Last chance!" Page heard Konrad scream as he came out of it. "Captain, you are at the end. Either you recant now, or give me something I can use, or both, or...or..."

"Or what?" Page mumbled innocently. "You'll send me...back to my room? Oh no...can't have that..."
He could see Isabelle's face over Konrad 's shoulder as the German tried to regain control of himself.
"Unless you talk sometime within the next 12 hours, Pae, you're dead. I mean it. They're shipping you to berlin, and you'll be tried and gutted like a pig afterwards. You can save your life, or you can die. Your choice. You've lost, Captain, there's no point in further resisting. You must see that by now."

Page pretended to think for a second. "Hmmm. Killer choice. But it occurs to me, my dear Major...that if I get sent to Berlin and get gutted like a pig...all of this effort of yours will have been in vain. And if my final choice is between me getting out of here forever and you getting disgraced - or me letting you win at the cost of my own life, which would be made worthless by such an admission...well..."

He smiled the same bloody smile again - this time, from where he'd bitten into his own lips from the shock treatment.
"I think I'll drag you down with me."

[Monfrox]

I'm going to be insulted if the men who went out to try and find Samantha don't question her about her quite obviously ornate and custom SMG.

Just a thought.

...You want to be asked about the damn Thompson again?
Come on, Mon, take some conversational initiative of your own!

I did. She's cleaning it. However, I'd think, or at least hope that those who were out looking for her would be keeping their eye on her.

That and I have no initiative for convo. Social awkwardness and anxiety is very prevalent in me.

[Goram]

Isn't Samantha's Thompson all shiny and reflective? Surely, that can't be a good thing for a night operation.

[Kouralia]

Isn't Samantha's Thompson all shiny and reflective? Surely, that can't be a good thing for a night operation.

*Smythe grabs some boot polish and just rubs it on until the whole thing's matte-black*

"Problem solved."

[Goram]

Isn't Samantha's Thompson all shiny and reflective? Surely, that can't be a good thing for a night operation.

*Smythe grabs some boot polish and just rubs it on until the whole thing's matte-black*

"Problem solved."

That's pretty much where I was going with that.

[Kouralia]

*Smythe grabs some boot polish and just rubs it on until the whole thing's matte-black*

"Problem solved."

That's pretty much where I was going with that.

"You don't like getting your weapon dirty? Man up, and clean it when we get back to base."

[Goram]

That's pretty much where I was going with that.

"You don't like getting your weapon dirty? Man up, and clean it when we get back to base."

Advocating a dirty rifle? Where's Smythe and what have you done with him?

[Monfrox]

Isn't Samantha's Thompson all shiny and reflective? Surely, that can't be a good thing for a night operation.

*Smythe grabs some boot polish and just rubs it on until the whole thing's matte-black*

"Problem solved."

Ooooooh Samantha would not like that one bit. Hope you don't plan on Smythe having any children.

[Goram]

To the almost 300,000 citizens of Stahlstadt, the day dawned like any other. Snow blanketed the ground, as was usual for the North German city in the depths of winter and the sky was a featureless blue aura, marred only by a long white scar cut by an aeroplane at extraordinarily high altitude. Very few of the civilians in the city noticed the aircraft and those that did were unmoved. Stahlstadt had been largely untouched by the war, thus far, and only those with family members affected by the bombing or with sons, boyfriends, husbands or brothers in service to the Reich really thought much of the conflict that sprawled around the world. The only reminder of the conflict was the slight of uniformed young men walking the streets and in the evenings, they could be found sitting in one of the city's numerous beer gardens, talking loudly of their personal deeds of heroism against the Communists in order to impress the young girls who flocked to the uniformed men in droves. Thus, the people went about their early morning business and disregard the aeroplane that was even now turning back for it's final run across the city.

At 32,000 feet above the North German city was an aircraft painted light blue. The aircraft tore through the sky at almost 400 miles per hour and would make the trip from RAF Bircham Newton to North Germany and back again in under 90 minutes. The aircraft made several passes over the city with it's fuselage mounted cameras clicking dozens of pictures that would show the landscape in intricate detail. The pilot of the PR.XI Spitfire took the oil pencil that was bound to his leg and scribbled the position of a cold front, which would later cover the target area with scattered cumulus clouds, onto a map that was bound to his other leg. In the process, the aircraft lost 500 feet of altitude and descended into thicker air, resulting in the five mile long scar of vapour trail that was briefly etched into Stahlstadt's sky. What no one in the German city could possibly realise was that the RAF reconnaissance flight that was even now making it's way back to England was just the first of more than 800 British aircraft that would be in their airspace in the next twelve hours. The aircraft that most hadn't even noticed, was the machine that would finally bring the war, in all of it's devastating horror, home to the city.

Within two hours of the Spitfire making it's final run, the pictures and weather report were splayed out in the Operations room of Bomber Command headquarters, High Wycombe. Civilians from the Met Office and RAF weather experts looked up and down the latest reports from the area, whilst intelligence specialists disseminated the freshly taken photographs. The pictures and reports had begun to arrive just before 11AM and less than half an hour later, Stahlstadt's fate had been decided. The weather was acceptable for a raid tonight, despite the chance of cloud forming over the target area during the night, and the city was virtually untouched, with some industrial output.

On one wall of the operations room, was a huge chalk board, listing every squadron on Bomber Command's strength and the number of operational aircraft it could offer. The number would fluctuate up and down from day to day, as aircraft were delivered to front line squadrons or listed as unserviceable, perhaps due to attrition or damage from the previous night's operation. Last night, 9 aircraft out of a force of 240 had failed to return from a trip to Duisburg, deep in the Ruhr, and this number was sombrely reflected on the black board. The number of operational machines was well known to the man sitting behind a desk on the next room, surrounded by senior officers. The AOC in C of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, spoke very calmly, almost as if he was planning a family holiday rather than a bombing raid.

"Maximum effort tonight. 700 heavies and, say, 150 mediums, in two waves ought to do."

Harris began

"I want two thirds of the first wave to be carrying at least one 4,000 pounder. We want to be flattening the Hun's homes, peeling off his roofs with high explosive, and then the incendiaries can really get in amongst them. Make sure that at least a quarter of all high explosive bombs have short delay fuses, we want to catch his fire-fighters out in the open, to sow panic and confusion."

The AOC would continue to draw up the attack for some time to come, but by midday, the orders had been send out to every squadron on Bomber Command's books, ordering a maximum effort strike against the north German city.

Douglas Stanford gazed out of the cabin window of a Lysander, as it made the journey from Tempsford to RAF Bywater, in the heart of the Lincolnshire countryside. Though a fighter pilot by trade, Stanford had recently qualified on several bomber types, including the venerable Wellington and the RAF's newest bomber, the Lancaster. Today, he had been pressed into Bomber Commands ranks, in order to make up Bywater numbers by replacing, at very short notice, a pilot who had been taken ill that morning with suspected appendicitis. This would be Stanford's second operation over Germany, the first having come several weeks before and by all accounts it had been an uneventful affair.

As Bywater hove into view and the Lysander descended to join it's circuit, the size of the field was plainly clear. It dwarfed Tempsford, in sheer size, and it's sixteen Lancasters were clearly visible in their dispersal stands. As the Lysander descended through 800 feet, Stanford could clearly see that the bombing up and fuelling processes had not yet begun, but you could be sure that ground crew would still be hard at work. They would be fixing minor problems and fine tuning the machines that, within five hours, would likely be taxiing carefully down towards the runway and on their way to Germany.

OOC: A date will be provided later, so this doesn't clash with an operation.

[The balkens]

According to a bunch of protestors outside the white house, we are going to an actual war in Syria.
We did this before to Libya in the 80s and Iraq over the course of the 90s, right?
Same shit, Different day.

[Goram]

According to a bunch of protestors outside the white house, we are going to an actual war in Syria.
We did this before to Libya in the 80s and Iraq over the course of the 90s, right?
Same shit, Different day.

Not to sound like a dick, but isn't that pretty much what you were saying yesterday?

[The balkens]

According to a bunch of protestors outside the white house, we are going to an actual war in Syria.
We did this before to Libya in the 80s and Iraq over the course of the 90s, right?
Same shit, Different day.

Not to sound like a dick, but isn't that pretty much what you were saying yesterday?

Basically. I will admit that I am absolutely fucking terrible at debating.
But I was simply responding to what some protestors say is a "war on Syria".

Sorry goram.

[Monfrox]

War hasn't been declared since World War 2

[The balkens]

War hasn't been declared since World War 2

What about the first gulf war or the second?

[Monfrox]

War hasn't been declared since World War 2

What about the first gulf war or the second?

I'm talking by Congress. It's the same concept as the Vietnam and Korean war. Just because you call it a war, doesn't necessarily mean that it was declared.