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The Secret History of GI JOE: The Joe Colton Story
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09-04-2017, 08:51 PM
DerStahlhelm
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Val Verde
Posts: 2,345
Since I've hit a creative impasse in my other two ongoing stories, I thought I might start a third.
This one will explore the origins of the original GI Joe team in the 1960s, and will be a mix of straight up military stuff and some 007 type espionage adventure, starting Joe Colton and some other period appropriate characters. My brain is running overtime on this one, but I'm starting by posting this prologue to gauge people interest in reading about this sort of stuff. It is, as you will see, set in the same universe as my other stories. Here we go:
PROLOGUE
“The German submarine fleet is proud of having built for the Führer in another part of the world a Shangri-La on land, an impregnable fortress."
- Admiral Karl Dönitz, 1943
February 12, 1947, Neuschwabenland, Antarctica
Corporal Joseph Colton stared at the featureless white shore that lay ahead. His thoughts, however, were at another beach, thousands of miles away. He screwed his eyes shut momentarily, trying to drive away the overwhelming sense memory: the cacophany of sound, the stink of blood and a man's insides, the bone-deep fear...
A sudden scream from overhead jolted him back to the present. He took stock of his surroundings. The rocking of the landing craft, the bitter wind that cut through his heavy parka like a saber, the chatter of the other men he was packed in with. Another scream from overhead: these would be the new F9 jet fighters launching from the aircraft carrier USS Philippine Sea, jets rushed into production just for this operation.
He was barely seventeen when he went ashore at Omaha Beach, having lied about his age when enlisting, and now, not three years later, he was making another landing, this time at the bottom of the world: Antarctica.
The objective of Operation Highjump was to clear out the last of the Nazi hold-outs. All of this was hush-hush, of course: the folks at home needed to believe that it had all ended in that bunker in Berlin, especially now that we had the Reds to worry about. There had been wild rumors going around since the briefing had revealed the existence of a secret Nazi base at the South Pole, stuff about Hitler being alive and building super weapons. Joe had seen enough weird shit in Europe at the end of the war that he wouldn't dismiss anything out of hand.
The landing took part along a four mile stretch of beach. The infantry landing craft would be concentrated in three areas. The craft would have to be run aground before disembarkation, unlike Normandy, as even though February was the height of summer in Antarctica, the icy water would be a death sentence for those unlucky enough to fall in. As it was, the troops tasked with the initial landing had been issued with special kneel high rubberized gaiters to keep their feet and legs dry. This concentration would leave wide areas in between where other craft could drop off vehicles that could drive through the shallow water, and then head back out to sea.
The briefing had said that the beach would be defended, but not as heavily as at Normandy. Joe had a chuckle at that. The Fritzes had at least two years to camouflage whatever they had set up down here, and if these were the last hold-outs, you'd better bet they weren't going to give up just like that.
The distant crump of naval guns to his rear signalled an end to his wool-gathering. This was the beginning of the beach bombardment. The show was about to start.
The beach in front of him disappeared in a wall of flame as a thousand shells seemed to land instantaneously. Over and over again this happened as Joe's craft slowly approached the beach. In between the explosions he could see faint twinkling lights on the shore. Joe knew that would be machine guns and light cannon starting to fire at the incoming craft. As if to confirm this, the air around him started to buzz, as if filled with angry hornets, and he could hear the sharp pings of bullets bouncing off the hull of his landing craft.
"Get ready!" He heard the lieutenant shout over the din.
Joe clenched his M1 rifle. The landing craft's driver gunned the engine one final time. The craft and its occupants lurched forward as it beached itself.
The ramp dropped to the beach with a thud, and all hell broke loose.
"Move it!" The lieutenant screamed, just before a machine gun bullet tore his face from his skull.
Corporal Colton stood there and stared, the lieutenant's blood covering his own face, unaware of what was happening around him.
Private Willard screaming in his face finally brought him back to reality.
"Joe! We need to go!"
Colton ran from the landing craft onto the shore. He tore the waterproof bag from his Garand and fired toward the closest pillbox as he went forward, stumbling on the rocky beach.
He saw the Sergeant crouched behind one of the massive boulders that made up the beach's natural obsticles and ran toward him, skidding out next to him in the sand like Babe Ruth sliding into home.
"Sarge! El Tee is gone!" He reported.
"Jesus, Colton, are you hit?" Sarge yelled, seeing the blood on the corporal's face.
"I'm okay, I'm okay! What's our next move?!" He replied.
"You've still got your charges. We're gonna-"
They both ducked even lower as a fighter, this one one of the Nazi's boomerang shaped jets, screamed low over head.
"We're gonna cover you and you're gonna blow that goddamn bunker!" He continued.
Colton glanced over the top of the boulder at the bunker. Machine gun fire poured from its firing slits.
"There's a hell of a lot of ground between here and there, Sarge.
Another jet swooped overhead now, an F-9 Panther from their own forces. It fired a spread of rockets at an unseen target. German flak answered back, shredding one of the jets wings and sending it into a fatal spiral. Colton watched in amazement as the dying jet collided directly with the bunker that had them pinned down, filling the fortress' interior with burning jet fuel and shrapnel.
Colton and the Sergeant looked at one another in disbelief. The Sergeant shrugged.
"Alright, on to the next one! Lafleur, concentrate on those sandbags! The rest of you, on me!"
Private Lafleur, as ordered, opened up on the enemy position with his Browning A6, staunching the flow of rifle and machine gun fire that had been raining down on them.
Colton and the other Rangers moved forward, leapfrogging from cover to cover, picking their way up the beach toward their next target.
He had just about gotten to a position where he could bring his fire to bear on the enemy when the sea wall above the position suddenly gave way. A huge set of treads, followed by another, crashed down onto the beach crushing the enemy pillbox.
Joe found himself staring at the most immense tank he had ever seen. The mammoth armored vehicle had four sets of treads and a turret that might have been more at home on a battleship than a land vehicle. Where the commander's machine gun would have been on a normal tank a 20mm flakvierling AA gun was mounted, all four barrels blazing away at the the American aircraft overhead. The main cannon, of at least 20cm, fired at the ships of the American fleet, clearing the beach of small debris with a visible shockwave.
On the side of the tank's hull, nestled between the two sets of treads, was a ball turret mounting twin machine guns. These presently opened up on Colton's squad. He saw Sarge go down almost immediately.
A bazooka rocket flashed over Colton's head, exploding harmlessly against the vehicle's super thick armor.
Colton ducked behind the nearest boulder as the withering stream of 8mm bullets whizzed past his head like deadly hail.
Another bazooka rocket shot overhead, impacting the tank with similar futility.
It did have the effect, however, of causing the vehicle's ventral gunner to shift his attention to the source of the rocket fire.
This was Joe's chance. He tossed his rifle aside and unslung his satchel charge. The canvas bag contained four blocks of TNT fused with a pull string igniter.
He stood and sprinted across the short stretch of beach separating him from the massive tank. The gunner noticed him too late and was unable to traverse the twin MG-34s fast enough to bring them to bear.
Colton rolled through the gap between the tank's two sets of treads and jammed his charge up between the vehicle's return rollers, close to the hull, and yanked on the small t-handle that armed the detonator.
The corporal scrambled on his hands and knees to the opposite side of the tank. The gargantuan machine surged forward, and Colton narrowly avoided being squashed as he crawled between the tracks.
Heedless of the machine guns, he leapt to his feet and settled into a dead run away from the giant panzer. He made perhaps twenty yard when the world blew up.
February 16th, 1947, Aircraft Carrier USS Philippine Sea, off the coast of Neuschawbenland, Antarctica
"Hey, Joe!", a voice roused Joe Colton from his sleep.
"Egh?" He responded incoherently.
"Your gonna want to come above deck, we're about to give the Krauts what for."
This was private Cal Jeffers from Kansas City, Missouri, his neighbor here in the carrier's infirmary.
Joe painfully sat up in his bed. He'd been miraculously spared any serious injury, and made it out with nothing but a broken right arm, a concussion, and a nasty laceration to his right cheek that would probably leave a prominent scar.
And a hell of a lot of bruises.
"What are you talking about, Cal?" The corporate asked.
When he'd finally come to, he'd learned that they hadn't been able to hold the beachhead, and Task Force 68's amphibious component had been forced to evacuate, taking heavy casualties in the process.
"Just c'mon" Cal said.
Joe and Cal made their way, painfully, topside.
A seaman at the hatch stopped them and handed them each a pair of dark goggles from a box at his feet.
Joe awkwardly slipped the goggles on with his left hand and turned his gaze toward the icy Antarctic beach.
A klaxon sounded.
Even through the nearly opaque goggles, the light stung Colton's eyes.
Seconds later the roar of the atomic blast was deafening, even all these miles from the target. A strong, hot wind buffeted the assembled observers, and he could hear cursing as a deadly mushroom of fire sprouted over the Antarctic plain.
Cal whooped.
"That'll settle their hash, and see if it doesn't!"
Joe shook is head. Troops have to be landed again, after the dust settled. Someone needed to make sure the job was done.
March 10th, 1947, somewhere over the Indian Ocean
The Haunebu V Flugkreisel "Germania" skimmed over the surface of ocean. The last and largest of the Reich's flying discs, its massive, flattened bell shape moved with seemingly unnatural speed.
In the craft's command center, Reichsführer-SS Johann Schmidt strode the deck, stopping occasionally to check the readings of various dials and other instruments over the shoulders of their attendant crewmen.
Schmidt turned his attention to the maneuver controls, placing a hand on the pilot's shoulder.
"Kapitan Reitsch, please bring us to maximum altitude."
The pilot turned to him and beamed. "Zu Befel!"
"Danke schön, Hanna" He said to the woman.
He heard the hatch on the bulkhead behind him open, and the sound of boots on the deck, their pace wavering as they approached him. Schmidt face twisted into its best approximation of a smile.
After all these years, he still fears me.
"Report, Herr Doktor." Schmidt called out, without turning to face the approaching sound.
"The...the Brainbox appears to be functioning optimally, Herr Reichsführer. The Führer's engrams should be fully intact." The man replied.
"Excellent, doctor." Schmidt said.
"But the bodies, the equipment! It was all lost! It will be another eighteen months at least, and that's if we can obtain the proper materials wherever you are bringing us!" The man said, his voice rising to a near screech.
Schmidt turned to face the man now, taking another small bit of pleasure in watching him try not to recoil from his visage.
"It is of no consequence, Dr. Zola. It is clear now the the Fourth Reich could never blossom from the cold, barren ground of Antarctica. I intend to plant the seed of final victory in more fertile soil. When our Führer returns to us we shall be able to present him with much more than a frozen mountain."
"What do you mean?" Dr. Zola asked.
"Already the western Allies pick over the corpse of the Reich, looking to turn our superior arts to their advantage. Unwittingly our enemies do our work for us, and soon our comrades will be installed in every level of their scientific and intelligence communities. Others will flee to the South American countries, where they will continue their work unhindered."
A horrified look came over Zola's face.
"You don't intend to send me to America to work for cowboys and Jews, do you?"
"You will go wherever I tell you, Dr. Zola." came the Reichsführer's icy reply. "But no, you and I have more important work ahead of us."
Schmidt took a step forward, and his Marshall's baton flicked out to touch the badge on the lower sleeve of Zola's feldgrau tunic. The black, diamond shaped badge was piped with a twist of green and yellow, and in its center lay a Hagal rune. The tip of the baton slipped down to the cuff title which adorned the sleeve below. The embroidered letters of which read "SS - HYDRA Abteilung" in fraktur script. Schmidt flipped the baton over the scientist's head and brought it to rest on the right collar of his uniform. The black parallelogram which lay there was similarly embroidered, this time with the symbol of a totenkopf, but where normally, under the jaw of the skull, a cluster of bones would be, a spread of octopian tentacles sprouted.
"Do you know why the late Herr Himmler named our department after the mythical hydra, Herr Doktor?" Schmidt asked.
"I'm a man of science, Herr Reichsführer, I have little use for fairy stories." Dr. Zola replied.
"Which, for all your knowledge, shows how little you understand the nature of the universe." Schmidt said.
He held up a hand to forestall what would surely have been an indignant reply from the scientist.
"When Hercules cut off one of the Hydra's heads, two more would take its place. I have men all over Europe right now, gathering those still loyal to the Führer's vision to us."
July 27, 1948 Darmstadt Internment Camp, Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany
The sound of banging on the cell door woke the man.
"Rise and shine, Otto! The commandant wants to see you!" An American voice shouted through the door's tiny observation slot.
The man swung his legs painfully into the floor. The steel bed frame and mattress were small by normal standards, absurdly so for his 6'4" frame. He'd slept in worse conditions, but those were of his choosing.
"Hurry up, we don't got all day, mac." The voice called through the door again.
"Yes, Jimmy, I'm coming." He replied in perfect, if accented English. He had made a point of learning all the guards names, and had tried to be on as friendly of terms as possible with all of them. You never knew what could come in handy.
He splashed some water on his face, ran a comb through his hair, and put on his uniform tunic. It had been stripped of all insignia, but he still kept it in immaculate condition. He didn't intend his current situation to be permanent, and wasn't about to start looking like a vagabond the way some of the other prisoners had.
"Whenever you're ready, Jimmy."
The American military policeman opened the door cautiously.
"You are to accompany me to the Commandant's office." His guard said officiously. His hand rested on the .45 caliber pistol on his hip.
The man suppressed a snort. Maybe this one actually believed all of that "Most Dangerous Man" rubbish.
"Yes, I recall you mentioned that." He replied.
The walk to the camp's administration building was short, and by the time they arrived his legs had returned to a fully limber state.
Two more guards stood to either side of the door to the Commandant's office. They exchanged nervous glances when they recongnized the prisoner.
For his part, the man smiled.
"Good day, gentlemen." He said as one of the guards opened the door for him and his escort.
The Commandant's office was spacious, but spartan in decoration.
The Commandant stood behind his desk. Three more MPs, a sergeant and two enlisted men, by their insignia, stood off to the side. The man didn't recognize these ones.
The Commandant spoke.
"Prisoner Otto Skorzeny, you are here by ordered remanded to the custody of Sergeant Frank Price," he said, nodding toward the tall, blond MP, "for transport to Nuremberg, where you are to stand trial."
"Hopefully this time they'll hang you." He added.
This time the man did laugh.
"They couldn't do it last time, I doubt they'll have me dancing at the end of a rope now, Commandant. I intend to live to a ripe old age."
He turned to his new custodians and presented his hands.
Sgt. Price nodded to his subordinate, who produced a pair of handcuffs and placed them on Skorzeny.
"Be careful, Sergeant. He's one tricky bastard. He'll try something as soon as your back is turned." The Commandant said, scowling at Skorzeny.
"Sir, I hope he does." The sergeant replied, patting the dust cover of his M-3 submachine gun.
The Commandant grunted in agreement.
"Get this big ugly bastard out of my office."
The trio of MPs took Skorzeny to their waiting jeep and put him in the back, none too gently.
The soldier who had cuffed him sat across from him, covering him with his grease gun.
Once the jeep had travelled about a mile from camp, the soldier leaned forward and undid Otto's cuffs.
This time Skorzeny was surprised. Sgt. Price turned from the jeep's passenger seat and smiled.
"Reichsführer Schmidt sends his regards, and regrets he can't be here to greet you personally. Heil Hydra!" He said in German.
A wicked grin spread across Skorzeny's scarred face.
__________________
Needs : AOCI Lamprey Vests, (or similar), ROC Flash helmets, ROC Shipwreck flippers, 25th Dusty Torsos (or similar), BBTS Bull (Taurus) head, Snake Eyes V.52 forearms.
Last edited by DerStahlhelm; 09-04-2017 at
09:19 PM
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