A Day in June - Recap and review of the very first Combat! episode

Combat!

Season 1 Episode 1: A Day in June

In this episode the player characters in the adventure party are Saunders, Hanley, Doc, Braddock, Caddy, and Beacham. The rest are all NPCs. This episode establishes Saunders as the sergeant who knows what he's doing.

At the opening, Vic Morrow (Sgt. Saunders) gets the first line. We see guys who will be the show regulars, including Tom Skerritt. They’re resting in a leaky building during a rainstorm, talking about getting to Paris. Saunders lights up and remembers back to England, telling the current adventure party about a previous adventure in this same campaign setting. The rest of the episode is a flashback.

 Hanley is in church with other soldiers in dress uniform. He’s sitting with a blonde. The service is interrupted and all military personnel are ordered to return immediately to their bases. Hanley rides the bus with the blonde.

We hear her English accent, and see her gaudy earrings before they get off the bus; Hanley and the blonde get off with them…with the earrings, that is. Before they part, meaning Hanley and the blonde, not the earrings, she tells him that she’ll be at home waiting for him tonight. Hanley promises to be there if the DM doesn't ruin it with a pointless side quest.

The big question is whether this is the day the troops will cross the channel. 

Doc is one micro story of the episode. 

He’s a nice looking, smallish guy; he’s the medic. The scene of Doc walking around in the church has some nice angles and framing (See, e.g., the above picture.). He follows Hanley from the church back to the base. The barracks are crowded, but he’s alone. 

He gives a troubled soldier, Beacham some pills. (Beacham is played by Dean Stanton—who passed away earlier this year). 

We learn that Saunders was in the North Africa Campaign. Doc, on the other hand, has not seen combat.

Hanley, who is a sergeant in this episode (It looks like he’s wearing master sergeant stripes.), puts Sgt. Saunders on guard duty when he finds him trying to sneak into town to see Hazel (the blonde). 

That punishment becomes moot, because everyone ends up being restricted to barracks, and ordered to turn out for rations, ammunition, and seasick pills. Apparently Hazel was the side quest, and that has been scotched. The invasion is on.

We next see the men in the bowels of a troop transport. Hanley informs the men that their mission is to make their way through an orchard to a farmhouse, and report back to battalion whether to advance or to pour in heavy artillery. Saunders wants to go around the orchard, instead of through it; he’s worried that any DM worth his salt would have an unwelcome encounter prepared in the orchard. Discussion on this point ends without resolution when orders come to board the landing craft.

Beacham  attempts (half-heartedly) a saving throw versus falling from the cargo on the side of the ship; the result is a massive failure. He falls between the LC and the ship. He is rescued and dragged into the LC. (At this point, I was reminded of my father-in-law’s recollection of D-Day. He recounted the boarding the LCs. He reported that the seas were very rough. Those guys who fell, weighed down with ammunition and equipment, often did not surface. Some were actually crushed between the ship and the LC in the tossing sea. It seems like Cornelius Ryan and/or Stephen Ambrose mention this as well in their D-Day related writings.) 

Beacham took enough damage in the fall that he has to be moved back to the ship. He won’t have to hit the beach, and seems rather relieved relieved about it. I don't think he was committed to the adventure from the beginning, or his mom called him to come home; the fall was just a DM tactic to allow him to leave early. The first party member is removed from play. I don't expect that we will see him again.

The LC’s are off to the beaches beneath a thundering cloud of naval artillery fire. (My father-in-law’s account of riding the LC to the beach included the rough seas, and the memory that the bottom of the LC was slippery with vomit).

Saunders and his men hit the beach under heavy fire. Hanley is reminded of his mission and ordered to get moving on it. The radio man has already been killed--among a number of other NPCs to go down on the beach; the radio is riddled with bullet holes. Hanley will have to send a couple men back to report.

Saunders has to hold Doc’s hand and tell him where to crawl on the beach. Saunders even tells Hanley, “This is a bad place to park…You better move it before they give you a ticket.” They move just before a shell strikes that position. They make it to the rocks where Caje’s (or Caddy as he is referred to in the episode) Cajun buddy is killed--another NPC bites the dust. (I didn’t remember him from the show; I had guessed that he wouldn’t survive the episode.)

We next see the men approaching the orchard. Hanley decides to go around it. Braddock (played by Shecky Greene), who has lost his rations and ammo, pesters Saunders until he gives him some of both. There is a micro story in the episode about Braddock and his winnings, but it's fairly predictable.

They find the farmhouse; what’s left of the platoon of paratroopers they are to meet has been captured by the Germans. It was at this point that I remembered how much I like the black and white episodes. It’s all texture with black shadow, and shades of grey. These scenes possess a certain grittiness that was lost in the color episodes. The bark on the trees, the stone walls, the fences, the uniforms, they all possess a quality of authenticity in black and white. It’s probably because nearly all of the WWII photos and footage that I’ve seen are in black and white.

 Hanley wants to fight to rescue the paratroopers, rather than risk having them killed in an artillery barrage. Before they can act, they come under mortar fire. Caje fails his saving throw versus fear, and panics, nearly running into a blast. Doc follows him at first, but then stops. Caje resumes his panicked retreat.

The Germans have a tank.

More NPC’s, French peasants, a young woman and two old men, find Caje, greeting him as a hero. He informs them that he is no hero. They give him a few gulps from a canteen of red wine, telling him that it will do him well.

Saunders is about to take a million to one shot at knocking out the tank with a grenade launched from his rifle, when Doc interrupts. Caje runs up carrying a bazooka a rotary-feed machine gun. Apparently the red wine was a courage potion which renewed Caje’s will to fight. He says there’s a lot more equipment that was dropped for the paratroopers. The peasants, or resistance fighters, join them with two Molotov cocktails. Apparently there wasn't a clever trap waiting in the orchard, but a treat prepared by the DM to help the adventures--which they cunningly avoided. Thank goodness for NPCs.

Saunders, always looking for a date, appoints himself to take out the tank. The men lay down some fire. Braddock nearly takes out Saunders with rifle-launched grenades…twice three times. The captured paratroopers take advantage of the situation to turn against their captors, and help take out most of the German infantry. The tank stops after Saunders lobs a cocktail from behind it, scoring a critical hit. The remnants of the German infantry fail their courage tests and surrender.

Saunders once more demonstrates his preeminence over the taller Hanley by stealing the French woman from under Hanley’s nose--using his high charisma stat bolstered with a few chocolate bars…but it’s Caje who gets the final kisses. 

It just goes to show that speaking French has its perks.