April 21st, 1945. The day after Adolf Hitler's 56th birthday.

Yesterday, the Allies had a few special gifts for the Führer. A British-American bombing raid dropped a 1000 bombs on the city, taking out most of what remained of the city's infrastructure.
The Red Army had been told in advance, of course, so they had halted their advance. But they offered a salute of heavy artillery, a barrage without any tactical merit, merely meant to further demoralize the German defenders.

But on the morning of the 21st, the 2nd Guard Tank division crossed the ring of Autobahn running around the city and renewed their assault.

Yelena, and the BPO company, were part of the assault.

---

It's been 5 nights now for Lena since she had last been in her small appartment. There has been little sleep for the last three days, with a constant stream of wounded coming into the Olympic stadium. As Graumann had predicted, anybody they could patch up quickly was sent back just as quickly, the bandages often soaking through with blood before they had left the premises. The rest came here to die.

A few men who were too badly wounded to walk, but still able to hold a rifle, had been assigned guard duty, together with the Volkssturm troops. Most old men had been sent to the front line by now, but there were still a few here. All under the command of 14-year-old Hans Burger, who proudly wore the Iron Cross he had received a few days ago, his Lieutenant's stripes hastily sowed on by a nurse onto his Hitler-Youth jacket.

That made her think of Arthur, her... lover. He had risen through the ranks, but not as far or as quickly as he had hoped. Never great for a man with a violent temper. His assignment on Sonderkommando N had taken him away for weeks at a time, but he never spoke a word of it, no matter what Lena tried to coax it out of him.
She had used the time well to get close to others in the SS. If Arthur had known how close... he certainly would've killed her. He had told her quite frankly what he thought should happen to women who were unfaithful to "their men".

In the last few weeks, his behaviour had become more erratic. Like a cornered rat, he had paced through her appartment, had spoken of leaving, of taking the fight elsewhere, that the Reich was far from finished...
Something was up.

---

As many military operations in this war, Operation Baskerville had been delayed due to bad weather. Finally, the platoon of OSI Rangers under Major Max Lewis had been flown to an airfield outside of Berlin and had since then made their way on foot towards the capital of the Nazi Reich.
A few encounters with the Red Army had been tense, but friendly enough and they had managed to slip through the German "lines" quite easily and undetected.
But as they got closer to their first objective of finding the American spy who would identify Kemmel for them, the German defensive lines were getting shorter and they had to take more and more detours to circumvent enemy positions.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:55, Fri 24 July 2020.

Yelena wouldn't be on the front lines of the push into Berlin. One of the benefits of being a part of the BPO was that its members had specialized knowledge and thus were no longer part of the rank and file Red Wave that intended to sweep through Berlin the same way it had moved through much of Eastern Europe.

The sniper pulled out her field glasses while advancing with her company, entirely for the purpose of getting a look at the city. When Yelena finally saw Berlin, it bore striking resemblance to Stalingrad. A bit larger, certainly, but many of the buildings had a similar lack of four walls. Fighting in the streets would be bloody, but hopefully far more for the defenders than those that were on the attack.

The sniper was ready and looking forward to doing her part in the coming assault.

Lena had taken to wearing a dress with a loose skirt lately.  Mostly because it gave her a good spot to hide her Kampfmesser under the hem.  Granted, drawing it would expose something she didn't want exposed, but at least she'd have it.  She was careful to place it where grabby hands wouldn't feel it too.

She had hoped Arthur wouldn't be here tonight.  She'd been skittish all day, expecting something to happen but not knowing what.  She'd meant to do something to clear out her radio set she kept here, but she hadn't been able to, and it wasn't happening tonight.  Someone would find it.  If the wrong someone found it, or reported it, she could be found out.  Lena hoped it'd be found in five years and not five days.

"Arthur you must not say such things."  She consoled him.

Marching along the Western bank of the Havel river, the small troop of Western Allies reached the small suburb of Wannsee. There was a small bridge ahead they needed to cross to get to the Eastern side of the Havel. Once they crossed it, the Olympic stadium and the first objective was maybe two or three hours away.

Corporal Morris had krept up ahead and now ventured back into the small forrest to the rest of the OSI platoon.
"Didn't see any explosives on the bridge, but there's troops back there. They got themselves an MG42. Not sure how many soldiers there are, but at least a dozen."

Major Lewis frowned at the information brought back by the scout, then motioned for the small group of men to draw close so they could hear. He had the scout repeat what he'd seen. "If the obvious path is well defended, we either need to eliminate the defenses or find another way."

He paused and looked around at the other men in the OSI platoon. "Suggestions?" Major Lewis seemed to care about the men under his command more than many other commanding officers. Probably because OSI soldiers were hard to replace.

"I suppose blowing up the bridge would defeat the purpose?" Halloway chuckled.

"Anybody know how to swim? Flanling them might be possible if we cause a mighty ruckus here?"

Max chuckled at the suggestion they might blow up the bridge. "Yeah, I don't think that will help."

He looked around for any volunteers to go swimming. "Swimming or finding a ford could work, but we'll need to keep them pinned down from the front if we're going to flank them. I don't think just making a ruckus will be enough." Although the troops they were facing were likely to be rather green. So maybe it would be sufficient.

Arthur moved forward slightly. " we could look for a small boat I'm sure people fish the river so it might be possible to locate one then under darkness we could row across and bypass the bridge completely. Night take us a little further down river but we wouldn't be seen or have to fight"
This message was last edited by the player at 18:23, Wed 12 Aug 2020.

Major Lewis nodded. "That's a good idea. Randel and Jenden - scout downriver. Murphy and Jones, you head upriver. No more than a click, then straight back."

Arthur nodded and tapped Jenden on the shoulder before moving off at a crouch trot.

As he moved he turned his medical kit around so the red cross was against his leg so it wouldn't catch in the moon light.

Moving from shadow to shadow he slowly picked his way along the river side looking for a row boat

Ooc
08:42, Today: Arthur Randel rolled 2,10 using D6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,(6+4)10.  Stealth.

(We never established a time of day... but late evening/early night works fine.)


Arthur and Ralph trotted downriver, taking them around around the bay of the Wannsee peninsula. There were piers all along the island, but no boats could be seen anywhere.

At the center of the bay, a large building was looming, looking like something out of a fairy tale:


In front of them, another row of empty piers - except one small boat, half-covered by a dark grey tarpaulin, sitting low in the water.

Arthur nudged Ralph and pointed out the boat then signaled he would go forward and get it if Ralph covered him.

With that Arthur slipped down to the pier but instead of heading directly to the boat ne slipped his gun over his chest pulling the strap tight then slipped down into the water.

Using the cover of the pier he pulled himself along using the timber struts working his way towards the boat.

The water was cold, making Arthur rue his decision. This would have been much nicer in July or August.... then again, another four or five months of hard fighting was not.

The boat had a small motor that looked derelict, and the grip of at least one paddle stuck out under the tarpaulin. Arthur took another step and then almost went under water as the shoreline went off a cliff. Desparate, he grabbed onto the pier, realizing he had no idea how deep the water was or what may lurk in the depths...

There were no obvious holes or leaks in the boat to be seen. It wasn't large, maybe enough for 4 or 5 people. But that may just be enough.

Arthur gritted his teeth as he hung onto the boat.

Working his way round it he found the rope that tide it to the pier. He took out his knife and cut the rope before pushing off from the pier and pulling the boat with him retraced his route back to the shore.

Once there he looked towards where Ralph had been hold up and signaled him to join him at the waters edge.

Cold but with the boat he and Ralph got the boat moving with the oars in the direction of the rest of the squad

As the two men pulled the boat back towards their squad, an old man hustled out of the bushes, raising a rifle that looked about as old as he was.
He snarled something in German and pulled back the hammer. On closer inspection... this wasn't even a hunting rifle, but looked like an old musket out of the Napoleonic age.

He gestured with the rifle. "Hoch die Pfoten!"

Arthur swore under his breath but raised his hands keeping the rope for the boat held in his left. Last thing they needed after all this was to loose the boat on top of everything else.

The old man walked a few steps closer, and kept talking in German to the two OSI rangers. He gestured with his ancient rifle in jerky motions, pointing the tip of the rifle at the guns Ralph and Arthur carried and then pointing to the ground, before bringing the rifle back up again.

Arthur slowly lifted his hand and removed his rifle taking a slow step forward as he laid the gun on the floor.

Stepping forward allowed him to position himself in front of Ralph perhaps that would give him time to jump the old man while he was focused on Arthur

The old man growled something in German and took a step forward,pushing the muzzle of his rifle into Arthur's chest - when all of a sudden Ralph came out behind the medic, swinging his gun butt first into the German's temple.

The man fell to the side like a tree, dropping to the floor. His rifle fell to the floor next to him.

There was no sound to be heard, but in the dark it was hard to tell how badly the man was injured.

"Come on, we got no time to waste!"
Ralph pushed Arthur's gone into his hands and motioned for him to follow.

Arthur was in two minds whether to stop and treat the old man but knowing the rest of the squad depended on them he quickly made sure the old man was away from the water and still breathing before taking the old gun and dropping it into the water.

With little else to do he followed Ralph and the boat back to the others

When Arthur and Ralph arrived at the rest of your unit, the others had been looking nervously into their direction, with Major Lewis keeping an eye on his watch.

Captain Jackson of the British squad and the overall 2nd-in-command was the first to notice them.
"By golly, men, you took your bloody time!"