Session 1 Postmortem

Posted from Steven's email, 22 Jan 2010:

Life in Rosario was very peaceful, almost sedate, with enjoyable aspects provided by the local Filipinas and Private Billy's homemade whiskey. On the afternoon of December 6, 1941 (December 7 in the United States, on the other side of the International Date Line), their parade formation, on the baseball field, was unexpectedly strafed by a trio of Zero fighters. Instantly, chaos reigned, as several soldiers were machine-gunned and the rest scattered for cover.

Mel managed to make some order of the chaos and corraled some fifteen frightened soldiers into some approximation of a military unit, shepherding them toward cover, and retrieving one of the fallen. Sadly, this man had been shot through the throat and did not survive.

Billy and Johnny sprinted to the treeline and took cover. Johnny sent a vengeful rifle shot at one of the Zeroes as it climbed out of its third strafing run, and made an unexpectedly good shot, but still missed (the plane was, after all, traveling more than 300 miles per hour).

Dick, displaying unexpected courage, rather than running for cover, paused to help one of the casualties, who had been shot in the leg. He got the wounded man to temporary safety.

After the shooting stopped and the planes disappeared, the soldiers emerged to tend to the wounded. Johnny was notably successful in this, saving the life of a man who had been shot in the chest (and rolling a 01 on his skill test in a skill at which he only had a skill of 5%).

The officers and sergeants reasserted authority over the situation, ordering the digging of anti-aircraft emplacements for machine-guns, slit trenches and bomb shelters, and graves (initial casualties were 7 men killed, 5 wounded, all of them Filipinos of the 13th Regiment).

Then... all was quiet. For two weeks of escalating rumors and confusion. Finally, on the evening of December 21st, the Lieutenant gave the platoon new orders. They were ordered to march to Lingayen Gulf, together with the 13th Regiment and a squadron of the 26th Cavalry, to cover potential landing sites on the gulf. They move out at 0500 on the 22nd.