Post by guest on Apr 13, 2011 16:40:46 GMT
Account E-Mail:
[edited out]
Name:
Jack Johns
Nationality:
Scottish
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath?
UK
Character History:
Jack was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on the 4th of January 1915. Conceived on his father’s last home visit before he shipped for France in WW1 he was born into a single parent family, his father killed in the first few weeks of the war, in one of the first German artillery barrages. He grew up in the harsh environment of pre-war Britain, the depression was even worse in Scotland than in England and he led a harsh, bitter life. From the age of 8 he had some sort of job, while his mother always had 2 jobs minimum. He had never had a good relationship with his mother and this grew worse when he started secondary school and took a disliking to all of his teachers. It was not uncommon for him to be sent home 3 or 4 times a week. Time that he should have spent working would instead be devoted to mischief and trying to make people laugh. It’s not that he wasn't bright and could easily spin a conversation on its head and talk his way out of a corner.
In the last few years of school he stopped talking his way out and started fighting instead, this was sometimes with fellow students, but more often with teachers. He knew he could achieve if he wanted to but the bad relationship he had always had with his teachers meant he never wanted to. The one teacher he had always liked was his PE teacher, who worked part time at the school and also as an Army recruiter. Jack left school with no qualifications, in a rough economical time, with no qualifications and no prospects. He knew he could have achieved in school and wanted to make something of his life, he had a choice between going down the mines and the Army; choosing the latter because of promises from his old PE teacher that it was a way to make something of himself. He took to it like a duck to water, loving every second of the outdoor lifestyle and especially loved proving peoples assumptions of this uneducated lad wrong.
He was quickly promoted to Lance-Corporal after impressing people further up the ranks, he was re assigned from his Scottish regiment to an English regiment and shipped out to Africa where he spent most of his time in the 1930s, again being promoted to Corporal. Moving around various British colonies and seeing the starvation and other sufferings of the African people, occasionally putting down riots and the like. He would always work with maximum effort and as often as he was allowed, but always knew he chance of further promotion was scarce unless he saw real action. He got his wish in Palestine in 1936, a huge uprising by Muslims outraged by British rule and the immigration of Jews into their country. It was during this 3 year conflict he was promoted to Sergeant. He thought this would be the only action he would see during his lifetime but was happy with what he had done with his life, from having no education and no prospects to being an NCO in a modern, professional army.
When news of war with Germany broke out in 1939 he was excited, he was one of the few NCO's in the British army that had seen action. He was again re assigned to another regiment that was being shipped out to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.(BEF) The British army was small but very well trained despite numbering only 9 regiments they fought well against the huge numbers that the German army brought to bear on French soil. Jack was proud to be part of this professional force and fought hard all the way back to Dunkirk when a shell landed on a boat he was loading onto. His last conscious thought was lying bleeding on a beach surrounded by burning metal. He woke up 3 weeks later in a hospital in England and was re assigned to one of the many new regiments that had sprung up due to the thousands of new applicants. Jack was ready to continue the Army career he was so proud of.
Military Rank:
Sergeant
Writing Sample:
The road looked as though it had once been of good quality, perhaps gravel, but now it was barely more than a mud path and it was understandable why it was so. Jack could only start to envisage the amount of vehicles and men that had been using it in the last week, mixed with creators from artillery strikes it had been churned and it was now like walking on a recently ploughed field. The side of the road was littered with burnt out trucks and armoured vehicles with gaping holes in the side, the road Jack was on was one that lead to the beaches of Dunkirk, in fact if his map reading was correct they were less than 4 miles from the beach and with any luck a boat back to blighty. The fighting to get here had been hard and although he had only been assigned to this platoon only recently he could sense that the general feeling among the men was one of displeasure, although this was to be expected from any army in retreat.
2nd platoon, the platoon Jack was a Sergeant in, was stationary at the moment as then men took on water and Jack and the other platoon sergeant, and man called Mike, looked at the map and tried to figure out exactly where they were. Mike was a Brummy and despite having not lived there since his teenage years he still retained his strong Birmingham accent. He had been in this platoon since joining the army as a private and he had been lucky enough not to be reassigned after being promoted all the way up to Sergeant. This meant that he knew the men of the platoon very well; something that Jack, who had only been in the Platoon for a few weeks, did not. Jack respected Mike and the two of them got on well despite only knowing each other for a short amount of time, each respected the others skills as a leader.
The maps they had were very up-to-date and accurate, which made for a nice change; the problem they had was that in this part of France everything looked the same from the sky. Just fields and hedges with roads between them. At the moment they were on one such road, with a field either side of them and hedges on the far edges of both of these fields. The road had trenches on both sides with a small amount of water in the bottom, irrigation trenches is what Jack thought they were called, he had seen similar thing back in Scotland; and Africa for that matter.
“Another two miles down this road then we turn right, another 2 miles and were at the beach, what do think Mike?” muttered Jack, his strong Scottish accent made him stand out in the otherwise English platoon.
“Why don’t we just cut across the field on our right, be there in half the time?” said Mike.
“We tried that yesterday, the fields are in worse states than the roads, it will take us longer to cross 2 miles of field than 4 miles of road, trust me.” Jack said, folding the map and looking back down the road. 3rd platoon was directly about 50 meters off; they had also stopped to take on food and water. The other way up the road ahead of them 1st platoon were doing the same, everyone was glad for the chance of rest even for a few minutes, the last few days had been nothing but marching and tediousness was taking its toll on the already demoralised men. The Staff Sergeant’s voice suddenly boomed down from further up the road, he was a bear of a man and would have made a good private, but he was not a leader and both Sergeants despised him. Mike should have been in charge of the platoon, he was better leader and Jack knew it, but it was not his place to speak out.
“5 minutes, get ready to move out.” Jack looked up at Mike, who was lighting a cig,
“Looking forward to getting back to England Mike, and the wife?”
“Absolutely not, I’d rather stay here and fight the Germans on my own than go back and spend a day with the moody mere.” he responded cracking a smile which Jack shared.
Another call came from down the road, more disturbing this time “eyes left, weapons ready, visual contact” the words made the platoon spring to life, everyone dropped the bags and canteens they were holding and reached for their weapons. Jack lent to the floor and picked up the German Kar he had acquired after losing his own weapon the day before, he turned to the left and looked across the field seeing nothing of immediate threat.
“I’m going to find out what’s going on” he muttered to Mike and turned again moving off at a jog down the road past the men who were jumping into the small ditch on the side of the road and cocking their weapons. At the other end of the platoon he found Staff Sgt. Thompson speaking to a machine gun crew who were setting up in the ditch, moving their Bren gun onto a tripod. Jack jumped into the ditch next to the Staff Sgt., and regaining his breath he said
“what’s the situation boss?”
“ Dunno boyo, call came down from 1st platoon, Germans are about to make their way across this here field by all accounts, so set up and aim for that hedge across the way.”
“Yes Staff” said Jack and started moving back down the ditch past the men of the platoon, who were still cocking weapons and taking out magazines, placing them within easy reaching distance.
Jack made his way back to Mike, is was only 30 or 40 meters but in the beating French sun with your heart pounding at the thought of a contact you could easily work up a sweat. When he got back to Mike he found the Sergeant checking magazines and smoking the last of the same cigarette.
“What did tommy say then?”
“Germans have apparently caught us up; they’re going to be coming across this field any time now, apparently.”
“Fair enough, this is a last chance to get a bullet through the head before we catch a boat then eh? I went down the 3rd platoon by the way, they have even less ammo than we do but they do have a couple of shells and a launcher left.” Jack looked over Mike and saw the men of 3rd platoon also getting into the ditch and readying their weapons.
“F*ck me Mike, don’t say that you don’t want to jinx us”
“Sorry mate but like you said it takes longer to walk across the fields than it does to follow us down the road, the only way they coulda cut across all those fields quickly is with vehicles.” He had a point and Jack knew it, jeeps and trucks they could handle, but if anything armoured come across this field the line would not hold for long. Cocking his rifle with a loud click he rested it on the side of the ditch placed his check on the butt, lining it up with the hedge, about 100 meters away across the short grass. This was the part Jack hated the most, during a fight the training kicks in and you barely have to think about what your body is doing, in the hours of boredom that your marching your mind can wander, but in the minutes your waiting for a fight your mind can only lend you one thought. Is it your turn this time? Is this your time up? Everyone was thinking the same thing; Jack could tell from the silence that had fallen across the men.
This agonising wait continued for minutes and they saw nothing, the wind picked up and cooled them all down a bit, maybe it was just a false sighting and they would be on their way again soon? Maybe. Then Jack saw it, movement on the far edge of the field, right in Jack’s sights. His heart leapt from his chest and he felt his finger over the trigger. The man he was looking at was looking through binoculars and speaking to someone below the ridge line, “spotting our position? To artillery?” thought Jack. He rested the iron sights of his rifle on the man’s upper chest and without thinking his finger reacted, all at the same time Jack’s shoulder kicked back, the man’s chest pulsated violently and he fell out of sight. Oddly in situations like this your own actions seem pre-recorded and do not register with you, Jack did not hear his own gunshot, but he did hear the others. All around him rifles were now cracking, and further down the line the louder thud, thud, thud of the high calibre Bren gun opening up. Then all in an instance fire came back at them from across from the field, crack after crack and tracer rounds were flying over their heads, chunks of dirty flying up from in front of them as German rounds fell short. Jack knew he had to get the platoon moving, if the man he had shot had spotted their position and radioed to artillery or planes then they were sitting ducks here, he had to tell Thompson. Standing up he set off at sprint, bobbing and weaving past men cocking rifles and firing, the occasional man would bend down and pick up another magazine. He got to the Bren gunner he had seen earlier and moved around him, his fast beating heart fell through his chest and he came to a halt instantly. Staff Sgt. Thompson was on the floor of the trench with a huge pool of blood surrounding his lifeless body. The size of the wound in his neck left no doubt that bullet had killed almost instantly, that put Jack and Mike in charge. There was no time to think about Thompson. There was still time to save the platoon. A call came from beside Jack that brought him back to the fight, “last mag” the Bren gunner was calling “last mag.” “Save it Ted” Jack yelled turning toward him “It’s time to move, leave the gun, and crack any smokes you have.” Blood suddenly rushed to Jacks legs and he knew what to do, he moved back down the trench once again calling as he went “EVERYONE MOVE! LEAVE ANYTHING WE DON’T NEED! WE NEED SMOKES FOR COVER! LET’S GO COME ON!”
That was when he saw it in the distance, two planes moving toward the trench from the distance, running parallel to it and heading straight for them, they were going to strafe all 3 platoons and everyone was oblivious, focusing on the advancing Germans across the field. Jack was still running back the way he had come, still yelling the orders of retreat; they had less than 30 seconds. “Mike move NOW!” Mike looked up from his clattering Sten gun and straight at him and knew not to ask questions, the rest of the platoon was already moving, clambering out of the trench and moving across the road into the field on the other side, sprinting for cover on the far side. Jack dropped his rifle and did the same hauling himself out of the trench onto the mud road, the plane’s engines grew louder and louder and Jack had barely made it to the other side of the road when he heard the shells from the German pilot’s weapons open up crashing into the ground like hundreds of grenades. He flung himself into the trench on the opposite side of the road and huddled into a ball as the explosions passed by, obliterating everything and anything in the trench they had just been occupying. As the plane’s engines started getting quieter he stood, smoke covered the field they had just been firing across, to the left and right he could see the remnants of 1st and 3rd platoon fleeing across the road, many dragging friends or their own dismembered body parts. Screams of pains filled the air from each side. But he had saved his platoon, he couldn’t of got the message to the other platoons quickly enough, he had done all he could. He suddenly felt a hand grasp his back and Mike’s voice as the mud flung up by the planes strafing run settled around them. “Let’s go man; those Germans are going to be here any second let’s go.” Jack let himself be pulled and started to pump his legs, running across the field, the platoon was stretched out in front of him sprinting for the cover of the far hedge; desperate to make it to the beach and away from the advancing Germans. Jack was following, they had to make it to the Dunkirk beachhead, they had to escape this country.
How did you find us? If you found us via a link somewhere, where was it? If someone pointed you here, who was it?:
Well i used to be on Issuing Orders years ago, so that why i came back this time. However orginally i think i signed up for Winters RPG forum during the whole fiasco (spamming etc) and came on over to IO.
[edited out]
Name:
Jack Johns
Nationality:
Scottish
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath?
UK
Character History:
Jack was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on the 4th of January 1915. Conceived on his father’s last home visit before he shipped for France in WW1 he was born into a single parent family, his father killed in the first few weeks of the war, in one of the first German artillery barrages. He grew up in the harsh environment of pre-war Britain, the depression was even worse in Scotland than in England and he led a harsh, bitter life. From the age of 8 he had some sort of job, while his mother always had 2 jobs minimum. He had never had a good relationship with his mother and this grew worse when he started secondary school and took a disliking to all of his teachers. It was not uncommon for him to be sent home 3 or 4 times a week. Time that he should have spent working would instead be devoted to mischief and trying to make people laugh. It’s not that he wasn't bright and could easily spin a conversation on its head and talk his way out of a corner.
In the last few years of school he stopped talking his way out and started fighting instead, this was sometimes with fellow students, but more often with teachers. He knew he could achieve if he wanted to but the bad relationship he had always had with his teachers meant he never wanted to. The one teacher he had always liked was his PE teacher, who worked part time at the school and also as an Army recruiter. Jack left school with no qualifications, in a rough economical time, with no qualifications and no prospects. He knew he could have achieved in school and wanted to make something of his life, he had a choice between going down the mines and the Army; choosing the latter because of promises from his old PE teacher that it was a way to make something of himself. He took to it like a duck to water, loving every second of the outdoor lifestyle and especially loved proving peoples assumptions of this uneducated lad wrong.
He was quickly promoted to Lance-Corporal after impressing people further up the ranks, he was re assigned from his Scottish regiment to an English regiment and shipped out to Africa where he spent most of his time in the 1930s, again being promoted to Corporal. Moving around various British colonies and seeing the starvation and other sufferings of the African people, occasionally putting down riots and the like. He would always work with maximum effort and as often as he was allowed, but always knew he chance of further promotion was scarce unless he saw real action. He got his wish in Palestine in 1936, a huge uprising by Muslims outraged by British rule and the immigration of Jews into their country. It was during this 3 year conflict he was promoted to Sergeant. He thought this would be the only action he would see during his lifetime but was happy with what he had done with his life, from having no education and no prospects to being an NCO in a modern, professional army.
When news of war with Germany broke out in 1939 he was excited, he was one of the few NCO's in the British army that had seen action. He was again re assigned to another regiment that was being shipped out to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.(BEF) The British army was small but very well trained despite numbering only 9 regiments they fought well against the huge numbers that the German army brought to bear on French soil. Jack was proud to be part of this professional force and fought hard all the way back to Dunkirk when a shell landed on a boat he was loading onto. His last conscious thought was lying bleeding on a beach surrounded by burning metal. He woke up 3 weeks later in a hospital in England and was re assigned to one of the many new regiments that had sprung up due to the thousands of new applicants. Jack was ready to continue the Army career he was so proud of.
Military Rank:
Sergeant
Writing Sample:
The road looked as though it had once been of good quality, perhaps gravel, but now it was barely more than a mud path and it was understandable why it was so. Jack could only start to envisage the amount of vehicles and men that had been using it in the last week, mixed with creators from artillery strikes it had been churned and it was now like walking on a recently ploughed field. The side of the road was littered with burnt out trucks and armoured vehicles with gaping holes in the side, the road Jack was on was one that lead to the beaches of Dunkirk, in fact if his map reading was correct they were less than 4 miles from the beach and with any luck a boat back to blighty. The fighting to get here had been hard and although he had only been assigned to this platoon only recently he could sense that the general feeling among the men was one of displeasure, although this was to be expected from any army in retreat.
2nd platoon, the platoon Jack was a Sergeant in, was stationary at the moment as then men took on water and Jack and the other platoon sergeant, and man called Mike, looked at the map and tried to figure out exactly where they were. Mike was a Brummy and despite having not lived there since his teenage years he still retained his strong Birmingham accent. He had been in this platoon since joining the army as a private and he had been lucky enough not to be reassigned after being promoted all the way up to Sergeant. This meant that he knew the men of the platoon very well; something that Jack, who had only been in the Platoon for a few weeks, did not. Jack respected Mike and the two of them got on well despite only knowing each other for a short amount of time, each respected the others skills as a leader.
The maps they had were very up-to-date and accurate, which made for a nice change; the problem they had was that in this part of France everything looked the same from the sky. Just fields and hedges with roads between them. At the moment they were on one such road, with a field either side of them and hedges on the far edges of both of these fields. The road had trenches on both sides with a small amount of water in the bottom, irrigation trenches is what Jack thought they were called, he had seen similar thing back in Scotland; and Africa for that matter.
“Another two miles down this road then we turn right, another 2 miles and were at the beach, what do think Mike?” muttered Jack, his strong Scottish accent made him stand out in the otherwise English platoon.
“Why don’t we just cut across the field on our right, be there in half the time?” said Mike.
“We tried that yesterday, the fields are in worse states than the roads, it will take us longer to cross 2 miles of field than 4 miles of road, trust me.” Jack said, folding the map and looking back down the road. 3rd platoon was directly about 50 meters off; they had also stopped to take on food and water. The other way up the road ahead of them 1st platoon were doing the same, everyone was glad for the chance of rest even for a few minutes, the last few days had been nothing but marching and tediousness was taking its toll on the already demoralised men. The Staff Sergeant’s voice suddenly boomed down from further up the road, he was a bear of a man and would have made a good private, but he was not a leader and both Sergeants despised him. Mike should have been in charge of the platoon, he was better leader and Jack knew it, but it was not his place to speak out.
“5 minutes, get ready to move out.” Jack looked up at Mike, who was lighting a cig,
“Looking forward to getting back to England Mike, and the wife?”
“Absolutely not, I’d rather stay here and fight the Germans on my own than go back and spend a day with the moody mere.” he responded cracking a smile which Jack shared.
Another call came from down the road, more disturbing this time “eyes left, weapons ready, visual contact” the words made the platoon spring to life, everyone dropped the bags and canteens they were holding and reached for their weapons. Jack lent to the floor and picked up the German Kar he had acquired after losing his own weapon the day before, he turned to the left and looked across the field seeing nothing of immediate threat.
“I’m going to find out what’s going on” he muttered to Mike and turned again moving off at a jog down the road past the men who were jumping into the small ditch on the side of the road and cocking their weapons. At the other end of the platoon he found Staff Sgt. Thompson speaking to a machine gun crew who were setting up in the ditch, moving their Bren gun onto a tripod. Jack jumped into the ditch next to the Staff Sgt., and regaining his breath he said
“what’s the situation boss?”
“ Dunno boyo, call came down from 1st platoon, Germans are about to make their way across this here field by all accounts, so set up and aim for that hedge across the way.”
“Yes Staff” said Jack and started moving back down the ditch past the men of the platoon, who were still cocking weapons and taking out magazines, placing them within easy reaching distance.
Jack made his way back to Mike, is was only 30 or 40 meters but in the beating French sun with your heart pounding at the thought of a contact you could easily work up a sweat. When he got back to Mike he found the Sergeant checking magazines and smoking the last of the same cigarette.
“What did tommy say then?”
“Germans have apparently caught us up; they’re going to be coming across this field any time now, apparently.”
“Fair enough, this is a last chance to get a bullet through the head before we catch a boat then eh? I went down the 3rd platoon by the way, they have even less ammo than we do but they do have a couple of shells and a launcher left.” Jack looked over Mike and saw the men of 3rd platoon also getting into the ditch and readying their weapons.
“F*ck me Mike, don’t say that you don’t want to jinx us”
“Sorry mate but like you said it takes longer to walk across the fields than it does to follow us down the road, the only way they coulda cut across all those fields quickly is with vehicles.” He had a point and Jack knew it, jeeps and trucks they could handle, but if anything armoured come across this field the line would not hold for long. Cocking his rifle with a loud click he rested it on the side of the ditch placed his check on the butt, lining it up with the hedge, about 100 meters away across the short grass. This was the part Jack hated the most, during a fight the training kicks in and you barely have to think about what your body is doing, in the hours of boredom that your marching your mind can wander, but in the minutes your waiting for a fight your mind can only lend you one thought. Is it your turn this time? Is this your time up? Everyone was thinking the same thing; Jack could tell from the silence that had fallen across the men.
This agonising wait continued for minutes and they saw nothing, the wind picked up and cooled them all down a bit, maybe it was just a false sighting and they would be on their way again soon? Maybe. Then Jack saw it, movement on the far edge of the field, right in Jack’s sights. His heart leapt from his chest and he felt his finger over the trigger. The man he was looking at was looking through binoculars and speaking to someone below the ridge line, “spotting our position? To artillery?” thought Jack. He rested the iron sights of his rifle on the man’s upper chest and without thinking his finger reacted, all at the same time Jack’s shoulder kicked back, the man’s chest pulsated violently and he fell out of sight. Oddly in situations like this your own actions seem pre-recorded and do not register with you, Jack did not hear his own gunshot, but he did hear the others. All around him rifles were now cracking, and further down the line the louder thud, thud, thud of the high calibre Bren gun opening up. Then all in an instance fire came back at them from across from the field, crack after crack and tracer rounds were flying over their heads, chunks of dirty flying up from in front of them as German rounds fell short. Jack knew he had to get the platoon moving, if the man he had shot had spotted their position and radioed to artillery or planes then they were sitting ducks here, he had to tell Thompson. Standing up he set off at sprint, bobbing and weaving past men cocking rifles and firing, the occasional man would bend down and pick up another magazine. He got to the Bren gunner he had seen earlier and moved around him, his fast beating heart fell through his chest and he came to a halt instantly. Staff Sgt. Thompson was on the floor of the trench with a huge pool of blood surrounding his lifeless body. The size of the wound in his neck left no doubt that bullet had killed almost instantly, that put Jack and Mike in charge. There was no time to think about Thompson. There was still time to save the platoon. A call came from beside Jack that brought him back to the fight, “last mag” the Bren gunner was calling “last mag.” “Save it Ted” Jack yelled turning toward him “It’s time to move, leave the gun, and crack any smokes you have.” Blood suddenly rushed to Jacks legs and he knew what to do, he moved back down the trench once again calling as he went “EVERYONE MOVE! LEAVE ANYTHING WE DON’T NEED! WE NEED SMOKES FOR COVER! LET’S GO COME ON!”
That was when he saw it in the distance, two planes moving toward the trench from the distance, running parallel to it and heading straight for them, they were going to strafe all 3 platoons and everyone was oblivious, focusing on the advancing Germans across the field. Jack was still running back the way he had come, still yelling the orders of retreat; they had less than 30 seconds. “Mike move NOW!” Mike looked up from his clattering Sten gun and straight at him and knew not to ask questions, the rest of the platoon was already moving, clambering out of the trench and moving across the road into the field on the other side, sprinting for cover on the far side. Jack dropped his rifle and did the same hauling himself out of the trench onto the mud road, the plane’s engines grew louder and louder and Jack had barely made it to the other side of the road when he heard the shells from the German pilot’s weapons open up crashing into the ground like hundreds of grenades. He flung himself into the trench on the opposite side of the road and huddled into a ball as the explosions passed by, obliterating everything and anything in the trench they had just been occupying. As the plane’s engines started getting quieter he stood, smoke covered the field they had just been firing across, to the left and right he could see the remnants of 1st and 3rd platoon fleeing across the road, many dragging friends or their own dismembered body parts. Screams of pains filled the air from each side. But he had saved his platoon, he couldn’t of got the message to the other platoons quickly enough, he had done all he could. He suddenly felt a hand grasp his back and Mike’s voice as the mud flung up by the planes strafing run settled around them. “Let’s go man; those Germans are going to be here any second let’s go.” Jack let himself be pulled and started to pump his legs, running across the field, the platoon was stretched out in front of him sprinting for the cover of the far hedge; desperate to make it to the beach and away from the advancing Germans. Jack was following, they had to make it to the Dunkirk beachhead, they had to escape this country.
How did you find us? If you found us via a link somewhere, where was it? If someone pointed you here, who was it?:
Well i used to be on Issuing Orders years ago, so that why i came back this time. However orginally i think i signed up for Winters RPG forum during the whole fiasco (spamming etc) and came on over to IO.
